El Dorado, Manoa, Lake Parima, Patiti, and the “Lost City of Z”

1688 Coronelli Map of AmericaBack in Europe cartographer Hondius, reading
Having just finished David Grann’s wonderful bookRaleigh’s narrative and enchanted by the idea,
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in theadded the Lake Parime to his 1599 map “Nieuwe
Amazon, which examines the obsessive hunt ofCaerte van het Goudrycke Landt Guiana.” Most
Colonel P.H. Fawcett for a lost city in the Amazon, I feltsubsequent cartographers followed suit for the next
compelled to write on the legend of El Dorado. This300 years or so.
book is a wonderful read, offers some surprisingThis lake may indeed have some basis in fact. Sir
insights, and is exceptionally well researched, we highlyRobert Schomburgk, studied this region from 1835 to
recommend it. Grann’s “Lost City of Z”1844 and made this interesting note:
focuses on Fawcett’s expeditions in the lowerFrom the southern foot of the Pacaraima Range
Xingu, a southern tributary of the Amazon. Hereextended the great savannahs of the Rupununi,
Fawcett believed he would discover a great lost cityTakutu, and Rio Branco or Parima, which occupy
and indeed, modern archeologists are unearthing justabout 14,400 square miles, their average height above
such a site in this precise area. The modern daythe sea being from 350 to 400 feet. These savannahs
discoverer of these ruins is the archeologist Michaelare inundated during the rainy season, and afford at
Heckenberger who had unearthed several great citiesthat period, with the exception of a short portage, a
surrounded by massive moats and connected bycommunication between the Rupununi and the Pirara, a
gigantic arrow straight causeway-roads. Though nowtributary of the Mahu or Ireng, which falls into the
largely overgrown by the jungle and their once greatTakutu, and the latter into the Rio Branco or Parima.
populations vanished, such cities were indeed reported
by the first Europeans to venture into the Amazon. It1730 Covens and Mortier Map of South America
was long thought that the conditions in the AmazonThe annual inundation of this region thus opened what
were inimical to large populations and that the firstmust have been an ancient and popular trade route
conquistadors to travel the Amazon were simply lying.from the Orinoco, to the Rio Branco and hence to the
However, the truth is far more terrifying, for these firstAmazon tributaries, the Solimoes, the Japura, and the
lonely explorers carried with them diseases andRio Negro. Thus when European explorers in the lower
illnesses previously unknown to region and in the darkOrinoco during the rainy season saw Indian traders
years that followed when few white men entered theappear with gold jewelry and trade pieces, the
Amazon, the great indigenous populations were all butconnection to El Dorado seemed obvious. When
wiped out.asked where the gold came from, the local tribes
By the time Fawcett began exploring the Amazon incould only answer “Manoa.”
early 20th century the legend and mythic quality of ElAs late as the 17th century the Manoas were a large
Dorado was already firmly established. Thus whenand populous trading nation, lead by the dynamic King
Fawcett started discovering these causeway-roadsAjuricaba, occupying the banks of the Rio Negro. It
and pottery deposits in the middle of an area inhabitedseems that the Manoas were very secretive of their
only by a few primitive seeming jungle tribes, thetrade routes – as all good traders must be – and
association with the mythical lost city of gold wasjealously guarded their territory. There are records of
natural. However, for centuries El Dorado had alreadytrade arrangements between the Dutch in Guyana
been appearing on maps, though quite far from theand “Manoa” dating to the late 16th century. The
lower Xingu. Instead most antique maps place Elrange of the Manoa trade network extended over a
Dorado far to the north, on an island in the midst of avast region from the “mouth of the Jupura up and
vase saline lake between the lower Orinoco River anddown the Amazon to Quito and Para, from the Cayari
the northern Amazon tributaries. How did it get there?to Santa Fe and the Upper Orinoco, from the Parima
to the Essequibo and its sister rivers of the northern
Map of the Amazon River Systemwatershed of Guiana”. This may partially account
The legend of El Dorado, or “Golden Man”,for the extraordinary diverse regions where legends of
seems to be an amalgamation of fact and fantasy.Manoa can be heard.
The legend, which describes a great king who is daily
covered in gold dust so that he shines like a god1780 Bonne Map of Guyana
before cleansing himself in a sacred lake, is in factBut where did all the gold come from? This may be
based on Chibcha rituals. The Chibcha, a tribe living inimpossible to answer, but we can speculate. The first
what is today part of Columbia, did exactly this, thoughEuropean to “see” Manoa was Juan Martinez c.
not daily. By the time the Europeans had arrived, this1542. Martinez was a munitions master under the
practice seems to have been largely abandoned but itconquistador Diego Ordas. Ordas was searching for El
easy to imagine why Europeans, fresh from theDorado in lower Orinoco where he perished. Before
conquest of Peru and Mexico, would be drawn to thehis own death, which is itself mysterious, Ordas
idea.condemned Martinez to death as the culprit in an
However, we digress, the real culprit responsible forunfortunate munitions explosion. Martinez was to be
several hundred years of mapping “El Dorado”tied up and set adrift in a boat upon the Amazon.
and “Lake Parime” in Guyana must be SirMany consider what follows to be a complete
Walter Raleigh, who explored this region in search offabrication on the part of Martinez, but I generally
the legendary kingdom of gold in 1595. Raleigh was theconsider the habit of attributing of anomalous elements
first to connect “El Dorado” to the the land orin early travel accounts to intentional falsification an
city of “Manoa”. Raleigh does not visit the city ofeasy solution to a complex issue. Martinez claims to
Manoa (which he believes is El Dorado) himself due tohave been picked up by Manoan traders in the region
the onset of the rainy season, however he describeswho, finding him unusual due to his skin tone, conveyed
the city, based on indigenous accounts, as resting on ahim, blindfolded, to their city. Here, Martinez describes a
salt lake over 200 leagues long somewhere in whatgreat city. Curiously, he also describes meeting the heir
today must be Guyana, northern Brazil, orto the recently conquered Inca Empire. Given the
Southeastern Venezuela. Nor does Raleigh preciselydiscoveries of Heckenberger and the new
locate Manoa, but his second, Captain Keymis, doesunderstanding that, at least in the earliest days of
provide directions in his own narrative:it lieth southerly inSouth American exploration, that the Amazon was
the land, and from the mouth of it unto the head theyindeed a populous and well organized region, this story
pass in twenty days; then taking their pro-visions, theyis completely reasonable. That the Manoans may have
carry it on their shoulders one day’s journey;had traffic with the Incas, given their range in the
afterwards they return to their canoes, and bear themwestern Amazon is almost a given. It would also allow
likewise to the side of a lake, which the Jaos callthem access to gold mining regions on the eastern
Roponowini, the Charibes Parime, which is of suchslopes of the Andes. Martinez’s association of
bigness that they know no difference between it andManoa with the lost heir to Inca Empire also brings up
the main sea. There be infinite numbers of canoes inthe possibility that this was none other than the long
this lake, and I suppose it is no other than that whereonlost refuge city of Pattiti – though this opens an
Manoa standeth.entirely new can of worms.