Someone on Facebook made a big fuss about Califia, the Amazonian warrior queen that California is named after, as being black. And I was off and running. I said, yes, she was called a black Amazonian warrior queen. But it’s complicated. Also, the term black wasn’t used quite the same in the 15th c. as it is now. Anyone dark-skinned or of another faith was referred to as black, even Levant Arabs, Moors, Egyptians, Touaregs, the Kush/Habesha. (In Spain, it could also be interpreted as a metaphor for a non-Catholic, therefore a pagan with a stained black soul.)
The reference is not always a straightforward reference to Black Africa, or Black America (a different kettle of fish) because the Maghrebine Amazigh (indigenous North African Berbers who’ve lived in North Africa and the Canary Islands since the Holocene), are often referred to as Moors, which also complicates things. The word Moor comes from Latin “Maurus,” later referred to the pre-Arab Berbers (sometimes also called Algerians, Lybians, Tunisians, or Tuareg) from the 3rd c. BC Roman province of Mauretania, which included Morocco and beyond), but later, the term also referred to those with dark skin! Yikes!
But North African identity is/was not related to skin tone. Alexandria, once the Hellenistic capitol of the Ptolemaic empire on the Nile Delta in Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, was the epicenter of cosmopolitanism. It fell to the Arabs in 641 A.D. And the Phoenician city-state of Carthage in Tunisia, founded in the ninth century BC, also had a large indigenous Berber community. The Carthaginian empire in 323 BC included the entire Mediterranean on both continents.
But the Arab controlled Maghreb region of North and West Africa was huge. Look at the map. TheAfroAsiatic Berber language was suppressed, and the Berbers adopted Arabic as their lingua franca—kind of like how Ireland adopted English, the language of the victors. Neocolonialism at work. Like Irish, the oldest living Indo-European language, Berber, like Egyptian, and Mayan, also uses the rare VSO word order.
The Muslimized indigenous Berbers or the Maghrebis, were later known to Europeans as Moors, aka black via a slovenly synonym swap, though they consider themselves as white, Shakespeare, through Iago, referred to the Barbary, or barbarian Moors as tawny, and sooty.
Across the centuries, there has been a classic shift in the definition of the word black…. (But Moor also referred to Muslims who invaded Spain and France in 711 AD—a later accretion?) When I lived in Amsterdam, I loved seeing the tall Berber men in their caftans in the markt. They were pale, or olive skinned, often with grey eyes. Jopa! they’d say, slapping the sole of their left foot with right palm, as if to ward the jealous gods off.
Black was a literary trope popular in Medieval literature which also was a direct reference to man’s more base instincts, not just skin color (or slavery.) Everybody makes a fuss about Shakespere’s Othello being black, but he was a Moor. The term "black" also meant "swarthy" in Elizabethan England. In other words, different baggage: the old us versus them. A trope of modern cosmopolitan civilization (what was lost) versus the concept of noble savage (closer to nature = pure instinct), later made popular by Henri Rousseau.
Of course, Elizabethans also referred to Africans (or anyone with dark skin, even swarthy Greeks or Italians!) as barbarous, treacherous, libidinous, and jealous—Othello, much? Full circle. I suspect the Spanish mindset was similar, but perhaps not quite as extreme as that of Elizabethan England, because of the Moorish influence? An area for further research.
Interestingly, in the early medieval Irish manuscripts (written in Irish), there is a reference to black men that doesn’t even mean black in modern terms, but dark, as in Danes! As in different (or worse) than the invading Norse. In this case, it could also refer to the relative darkness of their heathen souls.
Then there’s another odd medieval Irish reference to what I suspect was a real African, who was referred to as being blue! My grandmother had an old Winchester rifle with bluing on it. I think of that blue-black color. There’s the term black Irish, which everybody thinks refers to the wreck of the Spanish Armada off the coast of Ireland, introducing dark pigmentation into the gene pool, which isn’t even true, but it was a popular notion.
Oh, sigh… sorry, a diatribe, obsessed with language, I am. Too much reading of Levi Strauss on color terms. Check out how the meaning has shifted from the Proto Indo European (PIE) days….
Black (Etymonline) “From PIE *bhleg- "to burn, gleam, shine, flash" (source also of Greek phlegein "to burn, scorch," Latin flagrare "to blaze, glow, burn"), from root *bhel- (1) "to shine, flash, burn." The Old English word for "black" was sweart (see swart).” You can trace the duality in Middle English, blake "pale," from Old English blac. So, Blake can mean either "one of pale complexion" or "one of dark complexion." Just to keep things lively.
The question begs (I’ve already covered the term, “black”) are we whitewashing or blackwashing Calafia? And who were the Amazons in regards to the literary world of 15th and 16th century Spain? What was going on at the time politically? Queen Isabella’s marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon was about reclaiming the Iberian peninsula (Catholicism) from the Moorish occupation and to reverse the Islamification of Iberia. Out with the infidel.
“Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia, Pygela, etc.
“The texts of the original myths envisioned the homeland of the Amazons at the periphery of the then known world. Various claims to the exact place ranged from provinces in Asia Minor (Lycia, Caria etc.) to the steppes around the Black Sea, or even Libya. However, authors most frequently referred to Pontus in northern Anatolia, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon river.” —Wiki
Like the Keltoi/Celts, referred to as barbarians—or those who go blah blah, blah blah, by the ancient Greeks, the Amazons “were thought to have come from “the obscure lands beyond the civilized world.” That is, somewhere from the exotic Hyperborean north along with those pesky warlike Celts from the edges of the known world. The Greeks of the Classical World were utterly mesmerized by the noble savages, perhaps thinking the Celts were closer to the gods.
Where did we get the toponym of California? From a 14th c. novela, Las sergas de Esplandián, based on the chivalric post-Arthurian adventures of Amadis of Gaul! Published in 1508. From much earlier sources. Possibly cribbed from the Portuguese. The action takes place in Celtic Brittany, not exactly a “black” country. But all this points to a nation-state identity. (I wonder what they thought of the Galicians?)
(Amadís de Gaula was a fictional character in Don Quixote's favorite tome—documented in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes. “Historically, Amadís was very influential amongst the Spanish conquistadores. Bernal Díaz del Castillo mentioned the wonders of Amadís when he marveled at his first sight of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) – and such place names as California come directly from the work.”) —Wiki
“Las sergas de Esplandián (aka "Las proezas de Esplandián") es el quinto de la serie española de libros de caballerías iniciada con el Amadís de Gaula. Su autor fue Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, quien también escribió el libro cuarto del Amadís. De conformidad con el tópico de la falsa traducción…” —Wiki
The Castilian redactor/author, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, who coined the word California, claimed he collected and edited three books of a text "in circulation since the 14th century." Montalvo also claimed to have edited a fourth "unpublished book, as well as adding Las sergas de Esplandián, which he claims was found in a buried chest in Constantinople and transported to Spain by a Hungarian merchant (the famous motif of the found manuscript)."—Wiki
Shades of leaping lost and found manuscripts! The lost manuscript was found in a chest in Constantinople, by a Hungarian merchant. On the fringes of the civilized lands that bordered the fabled Hyperborea, the land beyond the God of the north wind. Finding" long-lost epic manuscripts to justify and also to claim foreign lands, was a popular pastime that continued right up to 17th c. Scottish author James McPherson who "found" (and cribbed from folklore) the Ossian cycle. Or the Finnish epic Kalevala who compiled (or cribbed) from folklore in the 18th c. by Elias Lönnrot—in the name of justification of national identity.
“Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo initially translated and recast Amadís de Gaula from Portuguese to Spanish. The original Amadis was in three volumes, but Montalvo added a fourth that is considered to be mostly his own work.[1] Upon completion, Montalvo wrote the sequel, Las Sergas de Esplandián, regarding the exploits of Esplandián, the son of Amadis.[2] The oldest known surviving edition of this work was published in Seville in July 1510. Earlier editions are thought to have been published in Seville as early as 1496.” —Wiki
“The Esplandián novel describes a fictional island named California, inhabited only by black women, ruled by Queen Calafia, and east of the Indies. When Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernán Cortés, learned of an island off the coast of Western Mexico, and rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California. Believing the Pacific Ocean, then called the South Sea, was much smaller than it turned out to be, the island seemed to precisely be east of the Indies just as the island of California was described in Montalvo's novel. Once the island was determined to be a peninsula, the name California had already been adopted, and the "island" eventually became known as the Baja California Peninsula.” —Wiki
Who is Califia?
“In the novel, Calafia is a pagan warrior queen who ruled over a kingdom of black women living on the Island of California (an island off the coast of Asia). Calafia is convinced to raise an army of women warriors and sail away from California with a large flock of trained griffins so that she can join a Muslim battle against Christians who are defending Constantinople. In the siege, the griffins harm enemy and friendly forces, so they are withdrawn. Calafia and her ally Radiaro fight in single combat against the Christian leaders, a king and his son the knight Esplandián. Calafia is bested and taken prisoner, and she converts to Christianity. She marries a cousin of Esplandián and returns with the remainder of her army to California for further adventures.” —Wiki
Did you catch that part where she converts to Christianity? And then she marries a cousin of Esplendián. She gives up more than her sapphic ways. Of course, what I find disturbing is that abiding masculine urge to subjugate women that runs deep within the psyche of the classical world—they must be suppressed by all means possible. One curious factor about the Celts, or Galati, whether in Europe, or in the British Isles, is the egalitarian status Celtic women had within their society, and especially those reports of armed Celtic women from Ireland to Anatolia, joining their husbands in pitched battle. The Romans found out the hard way that Boudicca, the female leader of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe in Britain, was a force to be reckoned with.
Don’t forget the backstory of the “reconquista, a centuries-long fight between Christian Iberians and Muslim Arabs that had recently concluded in Spain. Both are marching to the tune, With God on our side. The character of Calafia is used by Rodríguez de Montalvo to portray the superiority of chivalry in which the attractive virgin queen is conquered, converted to Christian beliefs, and married off.” —Wiki And then they claimed all their lands and wealth. Sound familiar?
Sort of like the real time backstory of Isabella of Spain, and Anne of Brittany. Marry them off. Take their power and grab their land. Luckily, that concept didn’t fly with Queen Elizabeth. If she had succumbed, how different modern history would be. Spanish explorer Bernal Díaz del Castillo recounted the stories of Amadís and Calafia when he first saw Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). And so, despite the fact that there were no Amazon women warriors to be found in the New World, the conquest of the New World Moors began as there was plenty of paganism to be eradicated with God on their side.
Yes, as for writing this piece, I leaned heavily upon Wikipedia, but when you are dealing with ancient history, mythology and linguistics, Wikipedia is a safe source.
- Moors are not Black, an article stub I wrote in 2022 informed this piece.
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