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Autolocus
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SAINTLY ISLANDS
Much farther south, on the lines followed by Columbus and his
Latin successors and in the tracks of vessels plying between the
eastern Atlantic archipelagoes and the West Indies, what may
be considered as a contrary impulse that of exultant religious
enthusiasm came into play in island naming. The Island of the
Seven Cities (Ch. V) will be recalled but needs no further
consideration here. St. Anne, La Catholique, St. X, and Incor-
porado (in the sense of Christ's Incarnation) are among the more
conspicuous instances. The second-named was always in low
latitudes. It occurs in the latitude of the tip of Florida, in mid-
Atlantic in the Desceliers map of I546 13 (Fig. 9); also as "La
Catolico" on Portuguese maps, with similar situation. Desceliers
shows Encorporade (Incorporado) about east of Cape Hatteras
and south of western Newfoundland ; but he also has Encorporada
Adonda not far from Nova Scotia. Thomas Hood (1592) makes
a wild and unenlightened transformation of Incorporado to
"Emperadada" and puts it about opposite the site of Savannah,
but not so far east as the considerable out jutting of the coast
which must be meant for Cape Hatteras and its neighborhood.
However, this location is not very different from that usually
given it. Desceliers has two islands marked St. X, one being in
the longitude of St. Michaels and latitude of Bermuda; the other
in the longitude of eastern Newfoundland and latitude of the
Hudson. In about the same latitude as the latter, and more
13 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 17.
14 Friedrich Kunstmann: Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den altesten Quellen
geschichtlich dargestellt, with an atlas: Atlas zur Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas,
aus Handschriften der K. Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, der K. Universitaet und
des Hauptconservatoriums der K. B. Armee herausgegeben von Friedrich Kunst-
mann, Karl von Spruner, Georg M. Thomas, Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences,
Munich, 1859; reference in atlas, PI. 13.
DACULI AND BRA 181
than half way between it and the Azores, an island called St. Anne
is shown. There seems nothing real to prompt the derivation of
these religiously named islands. Perhaps they are merely the off-
spring of optical delusion, fancy, and fervor.
DACULI AND BRA
On the other side of the Atlantic the much earlier map island
Daculi must be reckoned as of kin to them, since its map legends
deal with beneficent wonder working or magical medical aid, and
its name may be identical with or have originated the saintly one
which still denotes an outlying Hebridean island. Though less
renowned than the island of Brazil and less significant, Daculi
shares with it the record for first appearance of mythical islands
on portolan maps.
Dalorto's map of I325 15 (Fig. 4) already indicated as the earliest
one of much interest in this special regard, presents many islands
of familiar or unfamiliar names near Ireland and Scotland. No-
body can mistake the rightly located Man, Bofim, and Brascher
(the Blaskets). Insula Sau must be Skye, though with the out-
line of the Kintyre peninsula. Sialand seems to be Shetland.
Tille may be Orkney displaced. Galuaga or Saluaga probably
stands for the main body of the Long Island (Harris, Lewis, etc.)
of the outer Hebrides. Bra is no doubt Barra and has generally
been thus accepted, though out of line with Galuaga and too far
eastward. Brazil, as already reported, is naturally farther at sea
opposite Brascher. Finally our subject for present consideration,
Daculi, lies off the northwestern corner of Ireland, north of
Brazil Island and west of Bra, with which last it has in later maps
a curious legendary association. With Insula de Montonis, as
Brazil is also called on Dalorto's map, it may be linked in
18 Alberto Magnaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino Dalorto,
with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion of the Third Italian Geo-
graphical Congress). Cf. also: idem: II mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de
Dalorto (1325): Contribute all storia della cartografia mediovale, Atti del Terzo
Congr. Geogr. Italiano, tenuto in Firenzi dal 12 al 17 Aprile, 1898, Florence, 1899, Vol.
2, pp. 506-543; and idem: Angellinus de Dalorco (sic), cartografo italiano della
prima meta del secolo XIV,Riv,Geosr. Italiana,Vo\.4, 1897, PP- 282-294 and 361-369
182 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS
another way by their Italian names, for Daculi seems capable
of that derivation, "culla" being "cradle" in that language, plural
"culli," easily modified to "culi" by careless speech or writing. The
introductory preposition "da" in one use has an especial relation
to nativity; thus Zuan da Napoli means John born at Naples,
that is John of Naples in this sense. The blending of preposition
and noun in one word, "Daculi," is no more than sometimes hap-
pened on the maps to the article and noun "Li Conigi," the Rabbit
Island, making it "Liconigi," now long known as Flores. This
explanation would interpret Daculi as the "Island of the Cradles,"
or "Cradle Island." Some other derivation may indeed possibly
be as defensible; but it should be borne in mind that Italian
traders ranged very early up and down the Irish coast, and that
name would curiously coincide with the tradition at least after-
ward current concerning the island.
To review a few later but still very early maps : Dulcert, I339, 16
shows some irrelevant changes farther north and east; but his
Hebridean islands repeat very nearly the form given them by
Dalorto (believed by many to be the same man), and there is no
significant change in Bra or Daculi, though the first syllable of
the latter becomes Di.
The Atlante Mediceo, of I35I, 17 makes more changes than Dul-
cert among these islands and leaves unnamed the one which by
position seems meant for Bra, or Barra. Daculi is largely ex-
panded and named Insul Dach indistinctly.
The Pizigani map of I367 18 (Fig. 2) modifies many names. Daculi
becomes Insuldacr in one word; but its place remains nearly as in
Dalorto's map, though most of the other islands are drawn closer
to Ireland, so that Bra is nearly stranded thereon. A line of
inscription seems to relate to Bra "Ich sont ysula qu [possibly
pronominal abbreviation] abitabi hono quo morit may." Perhaps
Nordenskiold, Periplus, PI. 8.
17 Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten italieni-
schen Ursprungs, i vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing photographs of maps,
Venice, 1877-86; reference in Portfolio 5 (Facsimile del Portolano Laurenziano-
Gaddiano dell' anno 1351), PI. 4.
18 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'ancicnntb cartes
europeennes et orientales. . . . Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, i.
DACULI AND BRA 183
some of these words should be read differently, and "abitabi"
needs some recasting. I will not attempt to interpret but should
infer that Bra had its troubles. They do not seem to have ex-
tended to Daculi.
Pareto's fine map of I455 19 (Fig. 21) applies the following more
extended and significant legend to Daculi: "Item est altera insulla
nomine Bra in qua femine que in insulla ipsa habitant non pari-
untur sed quando est eorum tempus pariendi feruntur foras in-
sulla et ibi pariuntur secundum tempus." From this we may
gather that the outer island Daculi was believed to afford especial
aid in childbearing to women carried thither after being baffled on
the inner island Bra, and we see readily the appositeness of the
name "cradle" applied to the former. Beccario's map of H35 20
(Fig. 20), though without the legend, had already adopted in
"Insulla da Culli" almost exactly the form of the name which we
have divined, with apparently that meaning.
St. Kilda seems to me the most plausible original for Daculi
that has been suggested. It is true that Barra is actually south
of the parallel of latitude of that most lonely western sentinel of
the Hebrides, and there is no obvious link of relation between
them. Also the rock islet of North Barra is about as far above it,
equally unconnected and not likely ever to have maintained much
population. But so simple a misunderstanding on the part of the
old cartographers would be no more than what happened to
them all the time, and exact identity of latitude is unimportant.
There is, in fact, no land on the site given Daculi in any of these
old maps; and Bra, as noted, is absurdly out of place for Barra.
How the tradition grew up we do not know. Perhaps it was some
tale picked up by coasting Italian traders, partly misunderstood
and passed on by them to the map-makers at home. St. Kilda,
lost in the mists and mystery of the Atlantic, of holy name and
18 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 5.
20 Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del medioevo e dei
secoli delle grand! scoperte marittime construiti da italiaiii o trovati nelle biblioteche
d'ltalia, Part II (pp. 280-390) of "Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della
Geografia in Italia," published on the occasion of the Second International Geo-
graphical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Societa. Geografica Italiana, Rome, 1875;
reference on PI. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does not contain the plates).
184 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS
miracle-working associations, and out of touch with most tests
of reality, seems a likely place to be linked to some less abnormal
island by a fanciful contribution of saintly white magic, a rumor
originating nobody knows how.
GROCLAND, HELLULAND, ETC.
On the western side of the Atlantic there are divers instances of
island names given of old sometimes with considerable changes
of location, area, or outline, or of all three to regions which we
know quite otherwise. Some of these have been dealt with ex-
tensively already. Greenland has a lesser neighbor, Grocland, on
its western side in divers sixteenth-century maps; which I take to
be a magnified presentation of Disko or possibly a reflection of
Baffin Land brought near. It appears conspicuously in Mercator's
map of the Polar basin (I569), 21 the Hakluyt map of 1587 illus-
trating Peter Martyr, 22 and the map of Mathias Quadus (1608). *
This is not the place to enlarge on the Helluland, Mark-
land, and Vinland of the Norsemen beginning with the eleventh
century, as this theme has been dealt with elsewhere. 24 But they
were often thought of as islands, as shown by the notice of Adam
of Bremen. Perhaps there was never any great clearness of con-
ception as to extent or form. But in a general way they may be
identified respectively with northern Labrador, Newfoundland,
and the warmer parts of the Atlantic coast. Great Iceland, or
White Men's Land, seems also to have been understood as what
we should now call America. Eugene Beauvois located it con-
jecturally about the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. 25 Dr. Gus-
tav Storm, on the other hand, thought it was merely Iceland
misunderstood , 26
21 Drei Karten von Gerhard Mercator, Berlin, 1891 Reference on,Weltkarte,Pl. 13.
22 Nordenskiold, Facsimile-Atlas, map 82 on p. 131.
Ibid., PI. 49.
24 Early Norse Visits to North America, Smithsonian Misc. Colls., Vol. 59, No.
19, Washington, D. C., 1913; Recent History and Present Status of the Vinland
Problem, Geogr. Rev., Vol. u, 1921, pp. 265-282; and Chapters VII and VIII, above.
25 Eugene Beauvois: La decouverte du nouveau monde par les irlandais, Nancy,
1875.
^Gustav Storm: Studies on the Vineland Voyages, Mimoires Soc. Royale dts
Antiquaires du Nord (Copenhagen), N. S., 1884-89, pp. 307-370.
STOKAFIXA 185
STOKAFIXA
Perhaps the latter explanation is the best yet given of the
mysterious island Scorafixa, or Stokafixa, in Andrea Bianco's
map of 1436." It has sometimes been understood as Newfound-
land, which bore long afterward the name Bacalaos, the equiva-
lent in a different tongue of the northern "stockfish," our codfish.
But it would naturally be freely applied to any island in rather
high latitudes which was conspicuous for that fishery, and Stoka-
fixa seems near of kin to Fixlanda, which figures on divers maps
as a combined suggestion of Iceland and the imaginary Frisland
but with geographical features mainly borrowed from the former.
The first-named identification may be tempting as establishing
another pre-Columbian discovery of America, but it quite lacks
corroboration; and Iceland was a great center of codfishery, dis-
tributing its name and attributes rather liberally in legend and
on the maps. Humboldt incidentally mentions Ttle des Morues
(ile de Stockfisch, Stokafixa)" on the seventh map of the atlas of
Bianco, 1436. I do not clearly make out the name on T. Fischer's
facsimile reproduction; 38 but from position and appearance the
island seems meant for Iceland.
OTHER MAP ISLANDS IN THE NORTHWESTERN ATLANTIC
The Grand Banks and other banks of Newfoundland, with the
Virgin Rocks and perhaps other piles or pinnacles rising from that
bed nearly to the surface so as to be uncovered in some tides;
Sable Island, a rather long way offshore; Cape Breton Island and
fragments of the main shore may be held responsible for some
map islands such as Arredonda and Dobreton, Jacquet I.,
Monte Christo, I. de Juan, and Juan de Sampo.
27 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du
nouveau continent et des progres de 1'astronomie nautique aux quinzie'me et sei-
zieme siecles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, p. 107.
^Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten italieni-
schen Utsprungs, i vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing photographs of maps,
Venice, 1877-86; reference in Portfolio 9 (Facsimile dell' Atlanta di Andrea Bianco
dell' anno 1436), PI. 7.
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