Prehistoric Seafaring Exploration by the Taino and Carib Indians in ...

Prehistoric Seafaring Exploration by theTaino and Carib Indians in the Antillesand the Maya from Northern YucatanDouglas T. PeckThe Caribbean Sea and adjacent shores, known as the “Spanish Main” in the fifteenth andsixteenth centuries, were inhabited by many diverse and ethnically distinct peoples. Early in theencounter between Spanish explorers and the indigenous natives it was learned that this largemaritime area was regularly crossed by seafaring explorers and traders. This historical study ofseafaring exploration in the New World is centered on that performed in prehistoric times wellbefore the Columbian period. The primary culturally distinct peoples involved in thisprehistoric exploration of the Spanish Main were the Taino in the northern area, the Caribs inthe central and southern area, and the Maya from the shores of Yucatan and Honduras.The Philosophy and Methodology Followed in Researching and DocumentingPrehistoric Boatbuilding and Seafaring Accomplishments in the New WorldThis study related to prehistoric cultures is unique within academic doctrine in that it iswritten by a historian rather than an anthropologist/archaeologist. The current doctrine whichgives archaeologists the dominant, if not the exclusive role of researching and reporting on anysubject which falls within prehistoric times, is relatively new to the discipline of history. In thelatter part of the twentieth century Philip Kohl defined the widely different philosophy of historyin use by historians and archaeologists in stating: “In Great Britain the distinctive internaldisciplinary development of prehistory came as an extension of history while in the United Statesarchaeology came to be considered part of anthropology, which itself developed withininstitutions of natural history” Kohl 1993:14). British archaeologists, unlike their colleagues inthe USA, have turned to historians and philosophers of history and suggested that archaeology isone of several ancillary contributors to the discipline of history. American archaeologists rejectthis philosophy with more emotion than reason and insist that they alone, and independent ofhistorians, are the only ones capable of properly researching, interpreting, and writing the historyof prehistoric times. Binford expressed this narrow and almost elitist view that “history as themodel for archaeological investigation is totally inappropriate” (Binford 1986:401). To counterthis incongruous and prejudicial view, Ian Hodder explained that; “archaeology is a form oflong-term history, a discipline with its own distinctive methods and techniques of analysis, butone whose task is essentially the same as history’s; the reconstruction of the human past”(Hodder 1987). With historians and archaeologists having the same goal it is unfortunate thatscholars within the two closely related disciplines have become adversaries rather than sharingknowledge and working together to achieve the common goal.Over a decade of fulltime library research including 42 weeks of field research in Mexicanuniversity libraries, museum archives, and visits to key archaeological sites in Yucatan has beenspent in developing this study. My methodology in pursuing this research was based on the1

“direct historical approach” (Lyman-O’Brian 2001:303-342; Marcus 1993:115) whichadvocates the use of analogical reasoning in historical research, an accepted type of reasoningthat is used, not only by historians, but by mathematicians, philosophers, humanists, andspecialists in the discipline of natural science (Honderich 1995:360-366). In this eclectichistorical research I have examined the widely divergent views expressed in published worksand reexamined primary source evidence, including, but not limited to archaeologicalinvestigation, to determine an accurate and viable history of early exploration in the New Worldby the Taino and Caribs in the islands and the seafaring Maya on Yucatan.Historical evidence of Pre-Columbian trading canoe and explorationvoyages contained in Columbus’ 1492-1493 Diario or Log.Columbus was the first European to reveal that the Indians of the New World were seafaringtrading peoples who roamed throughout the islands in large trading canoes. Columbus’s reportsconcerned primarily the trading voyages of the Taino in the Caribbean islands he had discoveredin his four voyages. Although the Taino told Columbus about knowledge of the mainland of bothFlorida and the Yucatan, he did not recognize it as such. And past and current historians in theirstudy of Columbus’s log have also failed to recognize and report the Taino’s overseas knowledgeof Florida and the Maya on Yucatan. The reports of Columbus that follow are from his Diario orlog as summarized by Bartolome de Las Casas.The summary of Columbus’ log was apparently made in the early sixteenth-century by LasCasas from Columbus’ copy of the log while gathering notes for his Historia de las Indias.Martin Fernandez de Navarette discovered the Las Casas Summary of Columbus’ log in a privatelibrary in Spain and published it in 1892 followed to date by several translations of varyingreliability. The three translations used to develop this part of the text are: Beck with-Farina(1990; Dunn-Kelley (1989); and Jane-Vigneras (1960). The earlier translation by Cecil Jane andL. A. Vigneras was used when their more literal translation is the more accurate and the othersare used when appropriate.Columbus’s first report of what can be construed as a large Taino trading canoe was on 27November, 1492, when he was on the northeast coast of Cuba. At this point the summary of hislog reads: “.... there he found a handsome dugout or canoe, made of one timber as big as a fustaof twelve rowing benches, drawn up under a shelter or shed made of wood and covered with bigpalm leaves, so that neither sun nor water could damage it.” Beckwith-Farina (1990:133); Dunn-Kelley (1989:187); Jane-Vigneras (1960:78). A European fusta of a size to accommodatetwenty-four rowers plus passengers or cargo would have been about forty feet long.Later (30 November) and while still exploring Cuba, Columbus reported that near a largeriver that emptied into the sea “they found a handsome dugout or canoe ninety-five palmas inlength, made of a single timber, and in it a hundred and fifty persons would fit and navigate.”Beckwith-Farina (1990:137); Dunn-Kelley (1989:189). The length of the Mediterranean palm(palmas) was about ten inches (Kelley 1987:122-123) which would make the reported length ofthe canoe about seventy-nine feet. This length as well as the number of people the canoe couldcarry can be assumed to be one of Columbus’s numerous exaggerations to impress thesovereigns. Most Spanish observers of the time place the maximum number the larger canoescould carry at around twenty persons, and this seems a more reasonable figure.The Carib and Taino Indians in the islands constructed and shaped their canoes using acontrolled-fire followed by scraping away the charred wood with a stone or shell cutting tool2

3/4 view of the bow and sternshowing the squared flat sectioncommon to all early India n canoes.Figure 1 : The top drawing is a Taino log canoe pictured in Girolamo Benzoni, La Historia del Mondo Nuevo, Venice,1563. The lower drawings indicate the method of constructing a typical Indian canoe from a single log andpictures the unstable configuration of the hull design. The squared shape at the bow and stern were probablyintended to provide a hand-hold for carrying the canoe across portages on land. The Indian shown kneelingon this flat portion of the canoe in the Benzoni drawing is unrealistic as placing this much weight high in theround bottom canoe could promote a capsize of the canoe.(Hartman 1994:4-7; Leshiker 1998, Stowe 1974; Wilbert 1977). The fire and scraping methodwas used to fell the tree, shape the ends and hollow out the interior since the Indians had nometal tools. This slow and inefficient use of fire to eat away at the wood required close attentionand monitoring of the fire for long periods of time to produce even the smaller canoes. Johannes3

Wilbert in his comprehensive study of early aboriginal water craft determined that nearly anentire year was needed to complete a canoe using the fire and scraping method. The log canoesconstructed by this method would have been relatively heavy round bottom canoes unstable andunsafe for extensive overseas voyages, yet there is evidence that such voyages did occur. DiegoAlvarez Chanca with Columbus on the second voyage reported the Caribs made long canoevoyages of 150 leagues (about 480 nautical miles) seeking foreign captives demanded by theircannibal culture (Farina-Triolo 1992:93; Peck 1999:1-11). At one time Columbus spoke of asmany as 120 canoes full of people crowded around his vessel, but these were the smallerindividually owned canoes used for fishing and limited coastal travel. Less frequently does henote the large trading canoes and these must have been community property under control of thecacique to warrant the extensive effort and manpower for their construction and utilization.On several occasions in Columbus’s Diario or log of his 1492 voyage there are indicationsthat the Taino Indians had knowledge of both the Calusa in Florida and the Maya on the Yucatanand tried to tell Columbus about these distant lands. On 30 October, 1492, when traveling weston the northern shores of Cuba, Columbus sent Martin Alonso Pinzon in the Pinta on ahead tosee if he could locate the great oriental king that Columbus believed was somewhere in the area.When he returned, Pinzon reported: “The Indians said that behind that cape there was a river,and that from that river to Cuba it was a four-day journey. He [Pinzon] said he understood thatthis Cuba was a city and that land was a very extensive mainland [Tierra Firme], which stretchedfar to the north, and that the king of that land was at war with the Gran Khan, whom they called‘Saba’ and by many other names” (Jane-Vigneras 1960:93, emphasis added). This sentence isambiguous, but the reference to “a very extensive mainland which stretched far to the north,”could only be referring to Florida since the Indians knew that Cuba was an island. The “GranKahn” or great king probably referred to Calus (called Carlos by the Spaniards), the king of thepowerful Calusa, who held all of southern Florida in his tributary realm (Hahn 1991; Widmer1988). Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda confirmed this prehistoric canoe travel between Cubaand Florida in his Memoirs Respecting Florida, when he stated: “Anciently, many Indians fromCuba entered the ports of the province of Carlos [Calus]” (True 1944:29). At this early stage theSpaniards were confused over whether the Indian’s Cuba was a city or an island whichcontributes to the seeming ambiguity of this passage. The Indians expressed finite distances inthe time it took a canoe to travel the distance, and the four-day passage to Florida is a reasonableamount of time for the passage.Later, on 11 December, when on the northwest coast of Espanola (Haiti), Columbusreceived his first indication that he was close to the mainland (Yucatan) and an advanced people(the Maya), but he failed to recognize it (Jane-Vigneras 1960:92). At this time Columbus wassearching for the island of Baneque (identified as Great Inagua) which he had been told earlier(quite erroneously) was the source of the Indian’s gold. However, the Indians must have realizedthat Columbus was looking for gold far in excess of the small amounts available in the islands,and tried to tell him of a far distant mainland they called Bohio in which they described awealthy and advanced civilization. Columbus misinterpreted what the Indians were telling him inthis instance because of his misunderstanding of the Indian’s use of the word Bohio.The Indian word Bohio is a generic term meaning house, home, or dwelling place, rather thana geographical place name. Las Casas understood this error by Columbus and placed a marginalnote at the first mention of Bohio that reads: “The Indians of those islands called their housesBohio. The Admiral [Columbus] did not understand it well” (Jane-Vigneras 1960:206). When4

Figure 2: This detail of Maya warriors from a low relief sculpture in Chichen Itza in northern Yucatanshows why the primitive Taino Indians would refer to the Maya as “clothed people” and anadvanced “intelligent race.” Adapted from Schele-Freiden, A Forest of Kings (1990)on Cuba, the Indians applied Bohio to Espanola, and in this case when on Espanola, they appliedit to the far distant mainland. In interpreting what the Indians were telling him, Columbusimplied the Indians were telling him about Espanola or Baneque and the Caribs when it isapparent that they were trying to tell him about the Yucatan mainland and the Maya.Summarized by Las Casas, here is what the Indians had to say:“They [the Indians] told him that the island was very great and had very largemountains and rivers and valleys, and they said that the island of Bohio was largerthan that of Juana which they call Cuba, and that it is not surrounded with water.It appears that they meant it was the mainland and that it is here, behind thisEspanola, which they call Caritaba, and it is of infinite extent, and it appears likethey are harassed by an intelligent race, ....” (Jane-Vigneras 1960:92, emphasisadded).It does not speak well for modern historical research when Las Casas in the sixteenth-centuryrecognized from Columbus’s log that the Taino were aware of the Maya on the mainland, butcurrent consensus is that there was no prehistoric contact between the Maya and the Taino.Scholars who deny this documented historical evidence of contact between the Maya and theTaino do so because there has been no direct supporting archaeological evidence of the voyages,a fact that is both understandable and irrelevant.The popular but inaccurate consensus against Taino contact or knowledge of the Maya on the5

mainland was given tacit support in the most recent and widely accepted translation ofColumbus’ log (Dunn-Kelley 1989:217). Although “Tierra firme” was correctly translated byDunn-Kelley as the “mainland” in several other places in the log, in this instance, and thisinstance only, it was translated as “land-mass” to infer the Taino were referring to just another oftheir islands rather than the mainland that they had further described as “not surrounded bywater.” And “gente astuta” was translated as “cunning” instead of “intelligent” to force thepassage to seemingly apply to the cunning Caribs (per Columbus) rather than the intelligentMaya. The Dunn-Kelley translation of this particular passage is a classic example of where theunbiased literal meaning of what was spoken (as in the Jane-Vigneras translation) has provided amore historically accurate view of the passage.At this point Columbus picks up on a long discussion of the Caribs and their unsavory habits,and thus implies that he thought these were the peoples and land that the Indians were talkingabout in the preceding remarks. Currently most Columbian scholars cling to Columbus’s early(and incorrect) interpretation and believe that the Bohio the Indians were describing wasEspanola or another island, rather than the mainland and the Maya. However, it should be clearthe Indians were referring to Yucatan when they said it was “not surrounded by water,” was “ofinfinite extent,” and that it was “behind this Espanola.” And further, when the Indians stated thatthe inhabitants of this distant mainland “are harassed by an intelligent race,” the logicalconclusion is that they were referring to the advanced (intelligent) Maya on Yucatan. .Another unrelated report supports the fact that the Taino Indians had contact and definitiveknowledge of the Maya on the Yucatan. In the log entry of 6 January, 1493, Columbus quotedthe Indians as stating that “the island of Espanola or the other island of Yamaye [identified asJamaica] was distant from the mainland ten day’s journey in a canoe, which must be 60 or 70leagues [about 224 nautical miles], and there the people were clothed.” (Beckwith-Farina1990:233; Jane-Vigneras 1960:140, emphasis added) These “clothed people” (Figure 2) on themainland were ostensibly the Maya on the Yucatan, and the ten day canoe trip is a reasonablefigure for the distance.Evidence of Prehistoric Contact by Canoe Between theCaribs in the Caribbean and the Maya on the YucatanThere is evidence in both Spanish and Maya documents that the Caribs were capable ofmaking long distance canoe passages which reached the shores of the Yucatan. The cannibalistictribes known collectively as the Caribs began their migration northward through the islands fromthe shores of South America about 1000 AD, replacing the Arawak speaking peoples generallyreferred to as the Taino (Keegan 1994:255-283, 1995:400-420; Lalueza-Fox 2003:97-108). Inthe immediate pre-Columbian period (ca. 1300-1492) the Caribs in their gradual movement norththrough the islands, had reached and settled as far north as the eastern shores of Puerto Rico andadjacent islands. The Caribs were a bellicose and warlike people who were not interested in tradebut only in captives to satisfy the requirements of their cannibalistic culture. And it was thisrequirement that encouraged the Caribs to undertake long overseas voyages. Columbus reportedthat the Taino Indians in both Cuba and Espanola had experienced raids by the Caribs and weredeathly afraid of them (Jane-Vigneras 1960:68-69,74,85,146).The current popular and “politically correct” view expressed by anthropologists is that theCaribs were not a populous ethnically distinct people, but just a minor offshoot of the Tainowith very little indication that they were true cannibals. This unfounded and inaccurate6

historiography summarily dismissed the first-hand reports of cannibalism by independent andreliable Spanish explorers (as well as Portuguese, British, Dutch and French explorers) and withpatently invalid speculation asserted the Spaniards made up the story to justify enslaving theCaribs. The anthropologist Louis Allaire casts a shadow on this popular view in his treatise instating: “I find no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Caribs were in reality a group ofTaino living under different socioeconomic conditions and mistakenly identified as a differentrace by Europeans to justify raiding them for slaves.” (Allaire 1997:18; Peck 1999:1-11).Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus’s second voyage, in speaking of the Caribs(which he identified as “cannibals”) wrote: “One and all make war against all the neighboringislands, traveling by sea a hundred and fifty leagues to attack with their many canoes, which arelike a small fustas of a single piece of wood.” (Farina-Triolo 1992:93). The Spanish leaguesreported by Chanca equals about 480 nautical miles which would indicate that the Caribs wereprobably more competent in long distance travel by canoe than the Taino further north.These long distance canoe passages by Caribs reached as far north as Espanola and theYucatan and are confirmed from an independent source in the Book of Chilam Balam ofChumayel; one of the best preserved of early Maya historical documents. This book of Mayahistory although written in Spanish after the Spanish occupation contains some of the earlyhistory of the Maya recorded in the original codices destroyed by Bishop Landa and other clericsin the early days of the Spanish occupation. The pertinent portion of the text, written in the Mayapoetical couplet tradition reads:“Five Ahau there cameThe foreigners who ate peopleAnd foreigners without skirts [clothes]Was their nameThe country was not conqueredBy them.” (Edmonson 1986:62; Roys 1967:55).The chronological position in the text of Five Ahau would place the Carib incursion between1200-1380; probably in the latter part of this period around 1300. This incursion or invasionwould have been more than just a small raid or it would not have been included in this sacredbook of history, which dealt only with major events having an impact on Maya history. Anotheritem that indicates this may have been a large formidable force rather than a small hit and runraid is the wording: “The country was not conquered by them” (emphasis added).Roys has suggested that this incursion was by the Miskito (Mosquito) Indians who lived onthe southern border of Maya territory, but the historical facts do not support such a conclusion.The Miskito Indians were not cannibals, but were a relatively peaceful people with whom theMaya had maintained a close trading relationship. They would not have been called “foreignerswho ate people.” Roys may have felt compelled to offer this unfounded comment because of theconsensus among his fellow anthropologists that the Caribs were incapable of making such along voyage or mounting such a strong attack.Evidence of Contact Between the Maya on the Yucatan and the Calusa inFlorida Contained in the Log of Juan Ponce de Leon’s 1513 VoyageThere is evidence recorded in the log of Ponce de Leon’s 1513 voyage that his Indian guides7

had knowledge of the Yucatan and the exact direction in which it lay. When he left Puerto Rico,Ponce de Leon was seeking the wealthy island or land of Beniny (Beimeni) which he thought laynorthwest of the Lucayans (Bahamas). Current historiography and school textbooks report thatPonce de Leon was looking for a fountain of youth when he discovered Florida. The Indians ofthe New World did not have a fountain of youth in their legends nor was Ponce de Leon lookingfor it (Peck 1993:12-18, 1998:63-85, and entry for “Ponce de Leon, Juan” in Buissert 2006). Thetrue geographical location of the Indian mythical and exotic land of Beimeni was in the realm ofthe Maya on the Yucatan, rather than north of Cuba as sought by Ponce de Leon (Peck 1992:151,1998:63-85). Following a northwest course he discovered Florida, landing on the east coast nearMelbourne Beach (Peck 1992:140-146, 2003a:37-38, 2003b:100-101) and recognizing thatFlorida was not the wealthy land of Beimeni, he continued his search which carried him to thesouthwest coast of Florida in the territory of the Calusa Indians.On departing the west coast of Florida, Juan Ponce; “resolved to return to Espanola and SanJuan [Puerto Rico], with the intention of discovering on the way some islands of which theIndians that they carried gave them information” (Davis 1935:20-21; Kelley 1991:46, emphasisadded). When departing Florida at the Tortugas, Juan Ponce’s Indian guides must haveconvinced him that the wealthy land he was seeking lay not to the north, and they pointed to asouthwest by west course that led straight to the Yucatan. That southwesterly course is not thedirection to return to Espanola or San Juan nor are there any islands in that direction, so it isquite reasonable that the “islands [lands] of which the Indians they carried gave theminformation [including a southwesterly course],” were the lands of the Maya on the Yucatan.Ponce de Leon started the voyage with two Taino Indian guides and picked up three moreIndian guides in Florida, one from the east coast and two Calusa Indians from San Carlos Bay onthe west coast. Since Juan Ponce changed his course toward the Yucatan only after leaving theFlorida west coast, it was probably the Calusa guides who told him of the Yucatan and pointedout the correct course. Other published research has indicated that the domain of the Calusacarries strong evidence of cultural infusion from the Maya (Peck 1998:3-14, 1998, 2005:128-134). Though Juan Ponce sailed for two and one-half days on a southwest by west course towardthe Yucatan, the strong Florida and Gulf Stream currents bent his course around to the northwestcoast of Cuba, which he could not identify, so he gave up and returned to Puerto Rico.The tantalizing question from this scenario is; - how did the Calusa guides obtain thisknowledge of the Yucatan and the Maya? The Calusa probably had the capability for limitedoffshore passages, but all indications are their primitive log canoes were unsuited for long openocean voyages (see Figure 1). Although the Calusa could and did reach Cuba, the strongnortherly flowing currents between the Yucatan and Florida (two and one-half to three knots inthe axis) would make a southerly canoe passage difficult and far more feasible from south tonorth. This together with the fact that in prehistoric times the advanced Chontal Maya centered inthe Yucatan had large well-built seaworthy vessels and an established interest in foreign tradeand exploration would indicate that prehistoric contact between the Calusa and the Maya mostlikely originated with the seafaring Chontal Maya from northern Yucatan.Reports of Maya offshore trading vessels contained in early historical documentsThe early explorers described and pictured the Indian canoes in some detail (Figure 1) andincluded descriptions of their primitive method of construction without metal tools. But thatattention to detail cannot be found in Spanish reports of the large Maya trading or war vessels.8

The first report of a large Maya trading vessel was by Columbus, but since that event occurredbefore the discovery of the Yucatan and the advanced Maya by Cordoba, he understandable didnot associate it with the Maya. Columbus described this offshore trading vessel in the account ofhis fourth voyage (1502) when anchored at the island of Guanaja in the Bay of Honduras. Asrelated by Ferdinand, Columbus described the Maya vessel thus:“There arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and 8 feet wide, made of asingle tree trunk like the other Indian canoes; it was freighted with merchandisefrom the western regions around New Spain [Mexico]. Amidships it had a palmleafawning like that which the Venetian gondolas carry; this gave completeprotection against the rain and waves. Under this awning were the children andwomen and all the baggage and merchandise, cotton mantles and sleeveless shirtsembroidered and painted in different designs and colors, hatchets resembling thestone hatches used by the other Indians but made of good copper, crucibles forsmelting ore, wine made from maize that tastes like English beer, and cacao beansas currency. There were twenty-five paddlers aboard but they offered noresistance (Keen 1959:231-232, emphasis added).Judging by the comparison to a Spanish “galley,” the number of paddlers, the dimension ofthe beam, and the amount of passengers and merchandise, the length of the vessel would havebeen about fifty feet. It has been suggested that it cannot be established that this was a Mayavessel and may have come from a nearby island. Both the size and the exotic merchandiseaboard would categorically establish it as a Maya vessel from the mainland rather than a vesselfrom one of the nearby islands peopled by simple and relatively primitive fishermen. Also,Bartolome Colon was on this fourth voyage with Columbus and in a separate account, reportedthe canoe came “from a certain province called Maiam [Maya] or Yucatam [Yucatan]”(Maudslay 1908:337-338; Tozzer 1941:7, note 33). The model of a typical Maya trading vesselshown in Figure 5 is probably very similar to the one seen by Columbus in the Bay of Honduras.Following Columbus’s report by over two decades, the Friar Juan Diaz with the 1518Grijalva voyage to the Yucatan reported that the Maya of the Yucatan had traveled to the islandsof the Caribbean in prehistoric and early historic times and knew the direction and distance to theland. Juan Diaz wrote: “The Indians [Maya] assert that people were near who used ships, clothes,and arms like the Spaniards, and that a [Maya] canoe could go where they are in ten days, avoyage of perhaps 300 miles” Wagner 1942:72). The fact that the Maya knew of people indistant islands “who used ships, clothes, and arms like the Spaniards,” is not surprising since theSpaniards at this time had been firmly entrenched in Espanola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico for morethan 26 years. And the fact that the Taino Indians in the islands and the Maya on the Yucatangave the identical distance (ten day canoe trip) between the two points, suggests that overseastravel and contact between the two peoples had been a reality.The archaeological and documentary evidence of cultural diffusionbetween the Maya and the Indians of the Caribbean and Florida.The current consensus of most anthropologists and archaeologists is the Maya canoe routesand travels were limited to the coasts and inland rivers of Mexico and Central America and long9

Figure 3: Chart showing the extensive prehistoric trade and exploration routes of the Chontal Maya.overseas voyages to the islands and to Florida were neither feasible nor conducted. Thepreceding evidence from Spanish historical documents and the archaeological evidence thatfollows challenge this narrow poorly supported negative view. The chart in Figure 3 shows theChontal Maya coastal trade routes and the routes for their overseas voyages to the islands of theCaribbean and to Florida.Archaeological investigation together with the reports of early Spanish observers alsoprovides evidence that the culture of the islands of the Caribbean was influenced by contact withthe Maya. This evidence of Maya cultural influence is confined to the northernmost large islandsof the Antilles most easily reached from the mainland. Both Oviedo and Las Casas described a“Batey” or ball-court and the way the game was played by the Indians of Espanola and PuertoRico (Alegria 1983). These descriptions follow very closely the ball court and game which wascommon to Maya culture. Archaeological excavations at the Salt River site on St. Croix haverevealed a ball-court lined with carved stone slabs and located adjacent to pyramidal shapedmounds containing burials with accompanying ceremonial artifacts (Hatt 1924:29-42). Thesefinds resemble Maya practice rather than general Taino practice. But the most telling evidence ofMaya contact and influence has been the recent archaeological finds by Charles Beeker in the10

Dominican Republic. Beeker found a prehistoric Taino village which had a deep cenote filledwith sacrificial objects, several large plazas, and a large ball-court lined with tall limestonecolumns. Beeker reported that these artifacts, and the sacrificial cenote and ball-court suggestedcultural diffusion from the Maya on the mainland (Beeker 1997).This cultural influence could have stemmed from Chontal Maya/Itza trading coloniesestablished at the height of their power and expansionist movement (ca. AD 100-400) into theYucatan and beyond (Peck 2002:15-21, 2005:48-53). With the decline and retrenchment of theChontal/Itza (ca. AD 600-900) the colonies in the islands would have been abandoned and theremaining Maya melded into the Taino population. Then over a period of time the memory of theMaya from the mainland would have been retained only in their oral mythology, hence theIndian myth of the exotic land of Beimeni on the Yucatan, mistakenly sought by Ponce de Leonnorth of Cuba.The possibility of prehistoric Maya travel to Florida and influencing the culture of theindigenous Calusa was first voiced in the late 1800s when Frank Hamilton Cushing embarked onthe first serious archaeological investigation of the prehistoric Indian culture in southwest Florida(Cushing 1973). The primary prehistoric sites which Cushing investigated were in the realm ofthe Calusa Indians on the west coast of Florida from Charlotte Harbor south to Key Marco.Cushing was an eccentric self-taught archaeologist who used methods of investigation that arefrowned on today, but he opened the door to an expanded archaeological investigation ofFlorida’s prehistoric sites that continues to this day. From the analysis of his finds on KeyMarco, together with his comprehensive study of Indian culture of the entire Mesoamerican area,Cushing saw signs that the Calusa Indian culture had been strongly influenced by the northwardmovement of peoples through the islands and through Central America and the Yucatan.However, Cushing’s theory soon lost favor among anthropologists who pointed out some ratherglaring errors in the dating and validity of some (but not all) of his findings.The next and more recent support for the Maya/Florida acculturation theory is found in thearchaeological investigations of William H. Sears in the Fort Center site just north of LakeOkeechobee in the Calusa area (Sears 1977, 1982). In this investigation of an ancient Calusavillage, Sears has uncovered several cultural traits that can be traced to the Yucatan Maya ratherthan the Mississippian Indian culture further north. In the prehistoric period maize was grown atthe site in raised, watered and fertilized man-made hummocks and the maize kernels weresoaked in a lime-masa process to remove the outer skin. These techniques were common to theMaya but not used by Indians further north. Sears has also identified the design of early historicCalusa sheet copper symbol badges at the Fort Center site as typical of the Olmec style jaguarwearing a headdress with a geographical four direction symbol common throughout the Olmecarea (Sears 1977:9, 1982:60).There is also considerable evidence in the art work of the prehistoric Chontal Maya/Itza_ inYucatan and the art work of the Indians of Florida and the southeastern states that suggestsassimilation of cultural traits from the more advanced Maya (Peck 1998:3-14, 2005:123-149).The most prominent of these is the winged and plumed rattlesnake emblem shown so profuselyin Chontal Maya/Itza art. The artistic styles depicting the rattlesnake emblems understandablydiffers between these two widely separated peoples. But the unique features of wings, feathers,and plumed topknot; as applied to the rattlesnake emblem, was common to both art forms. TheHarvard anthropologist, Herbert J. Spinden in his monumental study of Maya art (Spinden 1975)documented this similarity of the feathered and winged rattlesnake in the art of the Maya and thatof Florida.. Spinden noted that not only are feathers and wings added to the snakes body, but that11

the head contained a plumed topknot or feather crest typical of the Maya quetzal bird which iscommon to the Yucatan, but not Florida or the southeastern States (Spinden 1975:33-34,243).But these significant cultural similarities between the Maya and the Florida Indians have beenburied in a 1913 book on Maya art so they have been given little attention by anthropologists andhistorians.The foregoing comparison of cultural traits when used in historical research is known amonghistorians as “cultural pattern recognition” and among anthropologists as “diffusionistacculturation.” William H. McNeill summed up the historian’s approach to research ofprehistoric civilizations as: “Pattern-recognition of the sort that historians engage in is the chefd’oeuvre of human intelligence. Pattern recognition is what natural scientists are up to; it is whathistorians have always done , whether they knew it or not” (McNeill 1986:5) Scholars in morespecialized disciplines related to history frequently refer to pattern recognition or diffusionistacculturation as only “circumstantial evidence” and of little or no value unless confirmed bypositive archaeological investigation. This narrow and introspective rationale related to historicalresearch is based on “archaeological non-evidence” and does not constitute thorough, realistic,and sound historical research. The fact that biodegradable Maya vessels and artifacts have notbeen found in archaeological investigations is both understandable and irrelevant.The reliable Spanish journals of Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Grijalva, Bernal Diaz, JuanDiaz, Cortes, Martyr, and the modern archaeological investigations of Cushing, Alegria, Hatt,Beeker, Reed, Sears, and Spinden report that in prehistoric times there was cultural pattern ordiffusionist acculturation evidence of a Maya presence in Florida, Espanola, Puerto Rico, and St.Croix. The Taino and Carib Indians in the islands and the Calusa in Florida had a limitedcapability for this long distance travel to account for this acculturation, but their relatively cruderound bottom log canoes were far inferior to the large well-built composite vessels of the Mayaon the Yucatan. Accordingly, the precocious Chontal Maya from the Yucatan with their morestable and seaworthy vessels, backed by centuries of documented interest and experience incoastal and long distance offshore trading voyages, are the most likely candidates to haveprovided this early cultural contact by exploration voyages between the Yucatan, the Caribbean,and Florida.The development and construction of large Maya trading vesselsused in their overseas voyages to the Caribbean and to FloridaThere is a mistaken belief that the Maya did not possess functional metal cutting tools andlike the Taino and Caribs were limited to primitive stone tools for construction of their largetrading vessels. This study will show that the Chontal Maya were a sophisticated andenterprising people who were not limited to primitive stone tools, but with their expertise inmetallurgy had developed and used efficient alloyed metal cutting tools. Thus their largecomposite seaworthy vessels were far superior to the log canoes of the islands limited to theprimitive burn and scrape method of construction.The extant Maya written history in hieroglyphics recorded only the accomplishments of theirkings in war and provided a picture of their religion, and there is little mention of such amundane subject as their trading vessels and the merchants who pioneered and pursued this tradeenterprise. Also, while the stone hieroglyphics on their buildings and monuments have survived,understandably there is not one single intact example of their perishable large seaworthy tradingvessels. Accordingly, the Maya pictorial art in their paper codices, their painted and fresco12

Figure 4: The top two drawings show Maya war vessels used in the Chontal Maya conquest of the Yucatan.The drawing on the left is a detail from a large fresco mural located in the Temple of the Warriorsin Chichen Itza pictured in Sharer, The Ancient Maya (1974). The drawing on the right is fromFrederick Catherwood’s sketch of an incised sculpture from Chichen Itza contained in John L.Stephens’s, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). The lower drawing is from a scribed bone foundin Tikal and shows a paddler god steering a deceased ruler into the Maya watery otherworld orMaya Heaven. Redrawn as a detail from a larger drawing in Freidel-Schele-Parker Maya Cosmos(1993).murals, and their incised or low relief sculptures must be examined to piece together a pictureof what the Maya vessels looked like and how they were constructed.A close examination and analysis of extant Maya art reveals that their larger vessels hadseveral vital hydrodynamic features of a well designed and finely constructed seaworthy vessel.First, the extended freeboard and high prow and stern would preclude the entire vessel beingcarved (or burned and scraped) out of a single tree trunk as reported by some early historians.The high extended bow and stern and raised freeboards would have been fashioned from severalfinely cut planks and fastened with wood pegs and adhesive caulking on the lower mainstructural part of the hull which was the only part of the vessel carved from a single tree trunk.Maya art also indicated the topsides and freeboards of the vessels were extended with a separateattached finely carved and shaped wood cap rail (Figures 4, 5, and 6).Drawings showing Maya warriors standing in large war vessels loaded with booty indicatethe vessels had considerable athwart-ship stability. This stability was derived from seaworthyunderbody design and construction, not present or possible in primitive log canoes of the islandsconstructed using the burn and scrape method without metal cutting tools. For a round bottom13

Figure 5: A scaled model (1”=1’) of a large Maya trading vessel based on current research illustrating theseaworthy features of a modern vessel. This particular vessel would have been about forty-five feetlong with a beam of six feet and probably propelled by ten to fourteen paddlers plus a helmsman atthe steering oar. The drawing at the bottom illustrate how the hull of the vessel would have beenbuilt-up from a carved log showing the flat bottom and the added freeboard and cap rail fromseparate carved and shaped planks.vessel, commonly associated with Indian canoes (Figure 1), to obtain this same built-in stabilitywould require a considerable amount of ballast. The design alternative to provide this inherentstability would be to flatten the bottom. This would provide a hard chine configuration of theunderbody (Figure 5), giving the same or better athwart-ship stability without the use of ballast.And this inherent stability of the flat hard chine underbody, common also to early Greek andRoman vessels (Bass 1972:37-86), would have been learned by experience in the somethousands of years the vessels were in use.14

Directional control of a flat bottomed vessel is extremely difficult, which is why boat buildersdown through the ages have provided flat (or nearly flat) bottomed boats with either a rudder orsteering oar. The steering oar shown on the model in Figure 5 is patterned after the steering oarsheld by Maya paddler gods in several Maya works of art (Freidel-Schele-Parker 1993:90; Peck1998:6-7; 2005:114-117; Sharer 1974:528, Figure 11.6). And the curved one-sided orasymmetrical shape of the Maya steering oar closely corresponds to the shape of proven efficientsteering oars developed for the ancient Phoenician, Greek, and Egyptian sail and rowing vessels(Bass 1972:16,27,43,46,141). But in spite of their asymmetrical shape, current archaeologistshave not recognized them as steering oars and have labeled them as only “paddles.”The Louisiana State University archaeologist Heather McKillop, uncovered a well preservedexample of an asymmetrical steering oar (dated to 680-880 AD) in investigation of a Maya saltproduction complex near Belize. But like her predecessors McKillop labeled the significant andimportant find of a steering oar as only a “paddle.” (Reed 2005:5) The foregoing design featuresof a typical Maya vessel established it as a well designed and finely constructed compositeseaworthy vessel far superior to the relatively crude Indian log canoes constructed with onlyprimitive stone tools.Documented evidence of Maya expertise in metallurgy andthe production and use of alloyed metal cutting toolsThe foregoing analysis indicates that the Maya produced well-designed and finely builtseaworthy vessels that were fully capable of long ocean passages to the islands of the Caribbeanand to Florida. Applying analogical reasoning, the demonstrated fine woodworking capabilitiesof the Maya would categorically indicate that they had sharp and efficient cutting tools to buildtheir large intricate vessels. But there is a consensus among current anthropologists andarchaeologists that the precocious Maya, though highly proficient in the arts and science of anadvanced civilization, were unskilled in metallurgy and possessed only crude stone cutting toolsand thus would be limited to the primitive burn and scrape construction methods in use byIndians of the islands. This largely unsupported view is expressed by Robert Sharer in the fifthedition of The Ancient Maya, which contains the seemingly unequivocal statement that, “theMaya had no metal tools” (Sharer 1994:39,641-642). Acceptance of this view that the Maya didnot possess sharp alloyed metal tools is based on an “argument from silence” becausearchaeologists in their numerous investigations in Maya territory have yet to uncover a singlemetal cutting tool (“archaeological non-evidence”), but stone tools are understandably abundantand readily found.This narrow and poorly supported view that the advanced and precocious Maya lackedexpertise in metallurgy and thus lacked metal tools is primarily voiced by specialists in thedisciplines of anthropology and archaeology, but this conclusion based entirely on questionable“non-evidence,” does not constitute realistic, well-grounded, or sound research. A key factor thatchallenges the view that Maya history can only be written by anthropologists fromarchaeological investigation of buried and abandoned cities and tombs is the widely recognizedfact among historians from other disciplines that Maya civilization extended unbroken fromancient prehistoric times to the early documented period of Spanish conquest. The Maya that theSpaniards encountered in the early historic period were the same people with the same language,the same religion, wrote in the same hieroglyphics, wore the same clothing, reported their oralmythology related to their ancient history, were highly proficient in woodworking and masonry15

construction, smelted metals and used the same alloyed metal tools as their prehistoricancestors. Pragmatic historians and ethnologists could easily conclude from these establishedfacts that the Maya who met the first Spaniards were the same homogeneous people who builtand inhabited the ancient and abandoned ruins in the jungles of the Peten. The fact thatarchaeologists have not found smelted and alloyed copper (bronze) tools in their investigationsof long abandoned and stripped ruins in the Peten and the jungles of Guatemala is bothunderstandable and patently irrelevant. The documented and detailed reports of reliable Spanishchroniclers related to the Maya prehistoric period (Garcia de Palachio, Bernardino de Sahagun,Lienzo de Tlaxcala, Fray Juan Diaz, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Fray Diego Duran, ChristopherColumbus, Juan Ponce de Leon, Peter Martyr, and Bartolome de Las Casas), have been givenlittle consideration because the verifiable historical facts in their reports are in direct conflictwith the limited and unclear published archaeological investigations of these abandonedprehistoric ruins.In a pragmatic direct historical research approach to the subject; there are five primaryindependent and reliable early Spanish chroniclers that provided positive evidence the Mayawere capable of smelting alloyed metals and produced and used sharp cutting tools in theprehistoric period before Spanish conquest. These five chroniclers and a summary of theirreported evidence are listed below:(1) The first is Columbus who reported the large Maya canoe in the Bay of Hondurascontained “hatchets made of good copper” [i.e. alloyed copper] and crucibles to smelt it” (Keen1959:232, emphasis added)(2) Peter Martyr in his De Orbe Nova documented positive evidence that the natives ofNueva Espana produced sharp and efficient alloyed metal cutting tools when he indicated theyused “well sharpened axes,” then stated “they had alloyed [i.e. bronze] hatchets [axes] used bythe natives to cut down trees” (McNuttt 1970:194, emphasis added).(3) Las Casas in his account of Cordoba’s 1517 voyage to the Yucatan noted that “ theIndians [Maya] of Campeche had certain metal axes [rozar] which they must use in clearing theground and in their farms” (Wagner 1942:79, emphasis added). The Spanish word rozar does notspecifically refer to “axes,” but is a generic term for a cutting tool used in clearing scrub land.The modern steel machete, called Machetes de Rozar and in use throughout Mexico, is probablysimilar in design and descended from the “metal axes” seen by Cordoba.(4) Bernal Diaz with Cortes in 1519 noted “alloyed” metal tools when he reported that in thenative market “there are for sale axes of brass and copper and tin” (Diaz del Castillo 1933:217,emphasis added).(5) Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish friar who lived among the Mixtec in the early sixteenthcentury and wrote of their early pre-conquest history, pictured their typical cutting tools in hisFlorentine Codex (Sahagun 1963), and metal tools and evidence of the use of metal impact drillsare pictured in Lienzo de Tlaxcala’s Antiquedades Mexicanos (Tlaxcala 1892).These pictured tools from the works of Sahagun and Tlaxcala (Figure 6) were ostensibly inuse, not just by the Mixtec, but throughout much of Mesoamerica in the Prehistoric period. Thedrawing on the left shows a woodworker felling and trimming a large tree with an axe that is inreality a large broad faced straight chisel with a well designed and functional lashed on handle.Another illustration in the Florentine Codex (not shown) pictures this same type of straight chiselbeing used with a separate wooden mallet to carve an elaborate figurine sculpture. The drawing16

on the right shows what appears to be an adze used in construction of the canoe in which it rests.The adze appears to have been fashioned from a molded curved and shaped cutter with a similarlashed on integral wood handle. Two woodworkers in the background carry two preciselysquared beams with a row of drilled holes (ostensibly drilled with impact drills) to receive woodFigure 6: Mixtec woodworkers showing Pre-Columbian tools of their trade and their handiwork. The drawingon the left is an extracted detail from Sahagun’s Florentine Codex, Anderson-Dibble (1963), and onthe right from Tlaxcala’s Antiquedades Mexicanos, (1892).pegs for joining to another member.The type of impact drill that the Maya would have used resembles a long slender chiselexcept there are two right-angle cutting edges instead of the one edge as in a standard chisel.The drill is driven into the wood (or soft green limestone) by a wood, stone, or metal mallet,rotating it a few degrees with each strike of the mallet. In Europe the impact drill was used sinceancient times until introduction of the rotary drill, which awaited invention of the treadmill lathesometime in the eighteenth century. The impact drill can still be found in specialty hardwarestores in Europe and in some undeveloped countries.Manufacture of this simple drill and the axe, chisel, and adze shown in Figure 6 would bewell within the metal-working capabilities of the advanced and precocious Maya. In Figure 6, itis manifestly apparent that the clean cuts on the tree, the precisely squared beams with drilledholes, and the intricate carved eagle head on the canoe, could only have been accomplished withsharp alloyed (bronze) cutting tools and would be impractical with the use of primitive stonetools and fire. Archaeologists will be quick to assert that my evidence that the Maya possessedsome type of metal drill is invalid because none of these drills have been found in archaeologicalinvestigation; a fact that is both understandable and patently irrelevant. As noted earlier, myrationale that the Maya possessed these metal drills as well as their other metal tools is based onthe “direct historical approach” which advocates the use of analogical reasoning in historicalresearch (Lyman-O’Brian 2001:303-342). But archaeologists resist the “direct historicalapproach” and insist that no evidence is valid unless reported in one of their pseudo-scientificarchaeological investigations which Dray refers to as the “covering law” (Dray 1970).Faced with this positive evidence of metal tools from reliable Spanish source documents; itis difficult to understand why archaeologists still insist “the Maya had no metal tools” (Sharer17

1994:39, 641642). Although the preceding documented evidence indicates the Maya had thecapability to alloy metals and produce bronze, it is also evident that the production of bronze wason a small scale and limited to woodworking or limestone cutting tools and not available in thelarge quantity required for weapons of war as in European Bronze Age societies.Development of Celestial Navigationby the Maya of Northern YucatanThe Maya seafarers in their voyages to the islands of the Caribbean and Florida would havebeen out of sight of land for as long as ten days. Without the benefit of a magnetic compass,these long voyages would have required some form of celestial navigation. The Maya seafarerswould have used the rising and setting Sun for orientation in the morning and late afternoon andmaintained their course at midday by adherence to wave patterns in the same manner as ancientPolynesian navigators (Lewis 1972). Maintaining their desired course at night would haverequired reference to the circumpolar stars and planets with which their learned priests andnobles were thoroughly familiar. And such an important voyage would not be performed bysimple fishermen or traders, but would have been ordered by the king or ruler and learned priestsor nobles would have been assigned as captains and navigators.An elementary form of celestial navigation was performed by ancient navigators in Europe,the Middle East, and the Orient long before the introduction of the magnetic compass. Theseearly navigators in the northern hemisphere would have used some of the circumpolar celestialbodies, but their primary reliance was on the North Star (Polaris) to determine the north azimuthfrom which they could extrapolate the other cardinal points of east, west, and south (Lamb 1972;Taylor 1958). A similar use of the North Star for navigation would have been unworkable for theMaya because of their more southern location. The already weak Polaris would have been muchlower on the horizon and more difficult to see with the naked eye because the light from the starmust pass through more of the earth’s hazy atmosphere. Instead of a star to mark true north therewas a dark void in the northern sky with only a few scattered weak stars in the area of thecelestial pole. This dark void as seen in Maya territory is shown in Figure 7 and necessarilydepicted as a blank white area.There is no mention of the existence of the North Star or the existence of a god of the NorthStar in the complete prehistoric Maya lexicon of known gods and symbols (Miller-Taube 1993).There is a Maya hieroglyph for all the cardinal directions including north, but Maya scholars aretoo quick to make an unsupported assumption that any reference to north is a reference to Polarisor the North Star. In that regard there are prominent anthropologists who report that god C in theDresden Codex (Figure 7) represents the god of the North Star (Coe 1993:177; Coggins1988:140; Galindo 1994:100; Sharer 1994:529,535,579). The Maya had a god to represent all thecardinal points of North, East, West, and South and to be historically accurate; god C in theDresden Codex should be labeled as simply “god of the North” rather than “god of the NorthStar.” And further to the misunderstanding of archaeologists concerning the “god of the NorthStar”; Karl Taube pointed out in his study of Maya gods that god C not only does not deserve thename of “god of the North Star,” but there is little evidence to even associate god C with theMaya glyph for the cardinal direction of North (Taube 1992). The direction of north, or the northcelestial pole, was pictured on the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque not as a star, but as a dark voidfrom which the gods Itzamna, the First Father, and Ix Chel, the First Mother, emerged from theotherworld to create the earth and the cosmos (Freidel-Schele-Parker 1993:69-71;18

The Maya advanced knowledge of astronomy and the sophisticated mathematical system ofpredicting the orbital path of the stars, planets, and constellations in their relative position in thesky on any one date would have made celestial navigation an easily attained art or science.Without the pivotal factor of a North Star as a basis for their celestial navigation, the MayaFigure 7: The night sky on the left as seen from the latitude of Yucatan was redrawn fromFreidel, Maya Cosmos (1995). The outline of the Little and Big Dipper and theMilky Way were enhanced for clarity. The figure on the right is god C fromthe Dresden Codex that has been mislabeled as God of the North Starnevertheless had developed a different but effective approach. The Maya concept of the celestialcosmos related to navigation centered on the city at which their celestial observations had beenmade, and all points in the sky or on the surface of the earth or sea were related to that pointrather than a numerical latitude and longitude. The Maya navigator was not interested in a finitepoint he could place on a chart, but only where he was in relationship to the port or city fromwhich he had departed.Without the North Star as a cardinal azimuth index, the Maya approach to celestial navigationused the Horizon Reference System, a system common in tropical areas, with observations takenwhen key circumpolar celestial bodies crossed the horizon in relation to the observer (Aveni2001:50-51). The Maya partition of the sky shown in the Madrid Codex can be construed as anavigator’s working chart of the cosmos giving the required azimuth and declination data forselected celestial bodies. Detailed discussion of this complex technical subject is beyond the19

scope of this study, but can be reviewed in related publications. See Peck, “Development ofCelestial Navigation by the Ancient Maya,” The Journal of Navigation, Vol. 54, #1, RoyalInstitute of Navigation, Cambridge University Press. 2001:145-149), Cambridge, UK; and TheYucatan from Prehistoric Times to the Great Maya Revolt of 1546, Xlibris Corporation,Philadelphia (2005: 140-148).The celestial navigation of the Maya explorer crossing the open sea seeking new lands wouldnot be tied to any one particular star such as Polaris or the North Star. Instead the Mayanavigator would view the entire sky as a charted and indexed map with which he was thoroughlyfamiliar. The only concern of this ancient Maya navigator was his spatial relationship to his pointof departure and whether he was receiving good omens for the voyage from the gods of the sky.BibliographyAlegria, Richard N.1983 Ball Courts and Ceremonial Plazas in the West Indies. Yale University Publications inAnthropology, #79, New Haven.Allaire, Louis.1997 “The Caribs of the Lesser Antilles,” contained in The Indigenous People of theCaribbean, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Aveni, Anthony F.2001 Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin.Bass, Geoge F.1972 A History of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology. Thames and Hudson,Ltd., London.1988 Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas. Thames and Hudson, Ltd., London.Beckwith, Marc A., and Luciana F. Farina.1990 Christopher Columbus: The Journal. Vol. 1 of Nuovo Raccolta Colombiana (EnglishEdition), Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Assets, Rome.Beeker, Charles.1997 Report of the La Aleta Archaeological Site Investigation. Joint Indiana University-California State University Program-The California Society for Archaeology, Rohnert Park, CA.Benson, Elizabeth P., ed.1977 The Sea in the Pre-Columbian World. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Binford, L. R.1986 “Relativism and Archaeological Science.” Man, Vol. 32, pp. 391-404.Buisseret, David, ed.2006 The Oxford Companion to Exploration. Oxford University Press, Oxford.20

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