introduction
The magnificent Age of Discovery is the topic that many history lovers talk about, and when it comes to the Age of Discovery, it is necessary to mention the many nautical charts and illustrations in the geographical atlases that have survived in that era, in those ancient documents, the cartographers of the Age of Discovery always go out of their way to draw all kinds of mythical monsters and mysterious creatures, such as headless people, half-human and half-dog monsters, lizard-like monsters, apes, sea monsters, etc., so that these strange images, Fill the map with many corners. The monsters that float on the surface of the sea and on land have become an extremely eye-catching landscape on sea charts and geographical atlases.
Modern people look at the various monsters on these surviving atlases, think that they make boring maps look interesting, and think that these monsters are some embellishments carried out by painters and cartographers in addition to boring terrain depiction and shoreline smudging, in order to increase the fun of the map, but also to achieve the purpose of relaxation, which is almost a prank spiritual vent. But in fact, the reason why the cartographers draw monsters is not just to relax and add to the fun, many times, they draw monsters only because they hear the "real" feedback of the explorers who explore the place.
We modern people think that the cartographers draw monsters that do not exist in the world, only exist in their imaginations, but the monsters drawn by the cartographers are the first-hand information they hear from the mouths of explorers. In the Age of Discovery, and earlier in Europe, when explorers came to an unknown sea and a land that had never been landed by anyone else, and saw some unknown animals in the area, because of their limited knowledge, they were often surprised, and when they returned to their hometown, they would spread their knowledge, and the cartographers would draw according to the descriptions of the explorers, as far as possible to "realistic" the appearance of the monsters they had encountered, and some of the cartographers were even explorers themselves. In other words, the monsters they painted were not imaginary, but actually "real records", and there were many real records about such real records in the age of great navigation.
For example, when exploring the Indian temple of "Dobayba", the myths and stories of local magical animals and Indians passed down by word of mouth have contributed classic monster images such as vampire bats, eagle banshees, and swamp dragons to Spanish cartographers.
The wonder beasts of Dobaíba
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Spanish explorers began to explore Central America, and near present-day Central American Panama, they first learned of the existence of "Doba iba" from the local Indian population, which is located near Central American Panama, but the specific location is now unknown.
According to the Indians, "Dobayba" is the name of a goddess in ancient times, she was once a princess of a powerful country, in charge of the Dobayba area, with strange magic, wisdom, the local people are very admired, after her death, people worship her as a god, and built a magnificent temple for her, people around and even far away will come to the temple to worship her.
In order to show the respect for the goddess, every Indian who came to the pilgrimage would bring his own precious treasures to the goddess, and even the distant tribal leaders would come to worship regularly every year to pay tribute to the temple with a large number of gold treasures to decorate the temple, and in the long run, Dobayba accumulated a lot of treasures, and there were many gold resources in this place, and the rivers were full of golden sand, and there was a pile of them.
And this news was naturally very attractive to the Spanish explorers who were in pursuit of unlimited wealth and had great greed, or to say that they were haunted.
Since Spanish explorers heard the story of Dobaíba from the Indian population, they went to Central America to search for this place, such as the famous Spanish explorer Basco Núñez de Balboa (Spanish Vasco Núñez de Balboa, 1475-1519), who was famous for "discovering" the Pacific Ocean, and others who had explored too many baíba, but the local environment was harsh and full of wet swamps.
The local Indians were brave, agile, extremely good at amphibious warfare, and deeply hostile to outsiders, so that the Spanish explorers have not been able to successfully explore success, only Balboa once invaded an empty Indian village (the residents all hid), but in this village, he scavenged seven thousand castellano jewelry, proving that the gold treasure here is rumored to be true.
But with the exception of Balboa, the only expedition to great harvest, all the other Spanish explorers failed, and the legend of the gold treasure of Dobaíba is also known for the endless mysterious events and monster rumors in the area. Several expeditions were completely lost in the Dobaíba area, and hundreds of Spanish explorers were unaccounted for, their fate unknown, and they have not been seen since.
According to Spanish explorers who explored the area, Dobaíba is full of wet swampy lowlands, a variety of reptiles are infested, and the air is full of midges and mosquitoes, as well as huge bats, but these bats do not prey on flying insects like European bats, but specialize in sucking human blood like vampires. Interestingly, many people think that the rumors of vampire bats are forgeries of the ancients, but modern zoologists tell us that vampire bats do exist in the world! Vampire bats are endemic to mammals, and they are found in central and southern Americas, feeding on the blood of animals.
Tip: A vampire bat sucks about 100 liters of blood in its lifetime, and in January 2010, there was even a continuous bite of vampire bats in the Amazon region of Peru, causing great panic among local residents, and even some people died of rabies attacks because they were bitten by vampire bats.
In addition, in the water of Doba iba, there are often short-tailed crocodiles that will suddenly emerge from the waterhole full of duckweed aquatic grass, attack people and animals, and pull their prey into the mud and devour it. And what's even more frightening is that dragons are said to live in the depths of those dark swamps! Although the Spaniards did not see it with their own eyes, the local Indians all swore that there were indeed monsters in the depths of the swamp, and according to the literature and analysis of the Spanish explorers, it should be a huge crocodile with a body length of several meters or a terrible forest python with a body length of more than ten meters, which could not be stopped by human beings.
Dobayba is such a legendary and terrifying place, and the above is only some of the dangers, real or mythical, rumored by the explorers. But in fact, even the local Indians were afraid of the dark and cold swamps, so they always carefully avoided the swamps when they rushed, preferring to take the winding and rugged mountain roads.
In addition to these terrible creatures that existed or were only rumored, chroniclers at the time also recorded a special local monster, the Eagle Banshee, according to the memories of the explorers.
According to Indian legend, shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards, a huge storm occurred near Dobaíba, and the wind was so strong that even the trees were uprooted. Under such a storm, the houses of the locals were destroyed, and the patches of forest became wasteland. After the storm subsided, the terrified Indians carefully stepped out of their hiding places and began to prepare to build houses, only to find that the hurricane had blown two monsters.
In the Indian description, the two-headed monster looks very similar to the eagle banshee in ancient European Greek mythology, the two monsters are a little smaller than the other, but both have a woman's face, claws and wings like eagles, and are so large that they can stop on the tree to break the branches. They would swoop down, pick up the man like an eagle picking up a chicken, and take him all the way to the top of the mountain, where he was torn to pieces and eaten.
For some time, the two monsters made several nearby Indian towns and villages uneasy, and everyone was terrified, but then the Indians killed one of the larger ones and drove away the other small one, which eliminated the scourge. The Indians hung the head of the eagle banshee on their spears and held it up to show it door to door to the inhabitants of various places to dispel their panic. According to other Indian legends, the monster heads they saw resembled the heads of women.
When the Spaniards came here, they thought it impossible to hear such rumors, but many of the Indians they met were very surprised by the words of the Spanish explorers, and later they found out the truth and realized that the Indians did not lie completely.
In short, these untouched wilderness areas are full of endless dangers, which make some timid explorers scattered and frightened.
Xiaobian was particularly curious about these rumors, so he specially consulted the information in Central America, and finally found that the monster mentioned by the Indians above- "Eagle Banshee", which is a unique bird of prey living in a small number of regions of South and Central America - the American Horned Eagle (the Spaniards later also knew), and they have another more familiar name - "Human Face Eagle".
The American horned eagle is as large as a human, and the adult American horned eagle generally exceeds one meter in length, and its wingspan can reach about 2.5 meters when it opens its wings. It was covered with a mixture of black, gray and white feathers, and looked like it was draped in a solemn coat.
Today the Mesoamerican horn carving has become the national bird of Panama, the English name is Harpy Eagle, also known as the Harpy Eagle or Hobbit Eagle, of which Hubby is the name of a monster with a human face in ancient Greek mythology, Wikipedia says that they are the largest and most ferocious bird of prey in the Americas, and one of the largest eagles in the world, and their claw grip is the strongest of all bird creatures, up to 179 kg or more, and their appearance looks very different from other birds of prey, especially the front face. They feed on snakes, primates, and sloths, and generally stand high enough to overlook the ground and branches, and then swoop down and grab them, with their ability, it is laborious to catch an adult, but it is easy to catch a child.