69 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
69 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
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header-includes:
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- \usepackage{setspace}
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title: Norumbega
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author: Jacob Signorovitch
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---
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\maketitle
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In Weston, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Brandeis University, an
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unusual structure rises between the trees; a forty foot stone tower, complete
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with spiral staircase and ramparts, weathered and stained with time, looking
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distinctly out of place within earshot of I-95. The story of how it came to be
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involves Vikings, a baking soda magnate, the discovery of America, and at the
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center of it all is the myth of Norumbega. As one explores the area, the name
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comes up again and again; a map will tell you the structure's name is Norumbega
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Tower, and running alongside is Norumbega Road. Further south, one finds a
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Norumbega Park, and another road called Norumbega Court. This paper will
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explore how one man in the late 19th century, Eben Norton Horsford, brought
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together two seemingly disconnected ideas into a theory for the original
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discovery of America, what motivated him to do so, and what he left behind.
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The myth of Norumbega originated during the Age of Exploration. It was
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variously a town, city, or country, somewhere along the coast of New England,
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inhabited by amiable and civilized natives. First given the name *Nurumberg* by
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Giacomo Gastaldi in a 1548 edition of Ptolemy's Geography,[@KirsNor98, 34] the
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myth can be traced back to a conflation of two separate accounts. The first is
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that of Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer under King Francis I of
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France.[@GreeneLife37, 4-7] He was one of the first Europeans to explore the
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area around Narragansett Bay in 1524[@KirsNor98, 36, 39], far distant from
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where Norumbega would eventual be described. However, due to geographical
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ambiguity at the time, his account would later become "at the heard of the
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Norumbega legend."[@KirsNor98, 39] He recounted his experiences in a letter to
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the king, where he described a pleasant harbor inhabited by friendly and civil
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natives.[@KirsNor98, 39] They practiced "more systematic cultivation [of crops]
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than the other tribes," and were "very like the manner of the
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ancients."[@KirsNor98, 39] In the letter, Giovanni names the place *refugio*,
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"on account of its beauty."[@KirsNor98, 39] Civilized inhabitants became one of
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the core aspects of the myth, present throughout its evolution even as its
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exact location and size varied. The second account is that of Jean Alfonce de
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Saintonge, pilot on Jacques Cartier's exploration of the Penobscot Bay area
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[KirsNor98, 41]. Sailing up the Penobscot River, which he called the
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*Norenbègue*, he described "a city called *Norombegue* with clever inhabitants
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[...] The people use many words which sound like Latin and worship the sun, and
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they are fair people and tall."[KirsNor98, 41] These two accounts, Giovanni s
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*refugio* and Saintonge's *Norombegue*, eventually merged into a single myth,
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canonized by Gastaldi, of an advanced Native American city whose manners were
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closer to those of Europe than their neighbors.[@KirsNor98, 41]
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Eben Norton Horsford was a chemist working in Cambridge, best known for his
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invention of modern baking powder.[@JackHors92, 343] In addition to his work,
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he showed some interest in history and archaeology throughout his life. He
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would collect fossils around his father's farm in Moscow (now Leister), New
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York where he grew up,[@JackHors92, 340] and expressed interest in learning the
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language of the Seneca Indians[@JackHors92, 340], to which his father worked as
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a missionary.[@JackHors92, 103] Later, he would often visit his wife's family
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estate on Shelter Island, New York.[@AdamsMemBiog08, 104] There, he became
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interested in the island's history and "erected a monument to the Quakers, who
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found shelter there from Puritan persecution."[@AdamsMemBiog08, 104] He would
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later repeat this pattern of investigation and monument building in
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Massachusetts.
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\pagebreak
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# References
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\singlespacing
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