The World Archives - Page 4 of 8 - The Elephant and Macaw Banner

Archive for the ‘The World’ Category

Weight of money

When it comes to historical fiction, I’m a stickler for details. One important detail from “The Fortuitous Meeting” is the price Pero de Belem sets on Oludara: 40,000 réis. Since this detail is so relevant to the story, I performed careful research to make sure I got the number correct, looking up values on old tables. I used exactly twice the normal value of a slave at the time. I also researched all the coins in use and decided that Gerard would pay with a hundred gold coins known as the cruzado.

However, I never did look up the weight of the coins. It wasn’t relevant to the story and I just asumed that a hundred gold coins would have at least a bit of heft. But I recently discovered how far off my conception of their weight had been.

It all began when I purchased a couple of coins from the time of Gerard and Oludara, to get a feel for money from that time period. In the picture below, the coin on the left is a five réis copper coin, and the one on the right is a silver vintém, worth 20 réis. The coins are worn down, but still retain a good part of their original mass.

I was quite surprised by the difference in size and weight of the two coins. The silver piece, worth four times the value, has only one-fifth the weight. It weighs around one and a half grams: so light you can hardly tell when you have it in your hand.

So I went and looked up the original weights of coins at the time, and I confirmed that the weight difference was indeed huge. At the time, the values of the three metals in use (in coinage) were approximately:

Gold = 130.9 réis/gram

Silver = 11.4 réis / gram

Copper = 0.6 réis / gram

So, 40.000 réis of gold would have been a little over 300 grams, or about the weight of a full can of soft drink. The same in silver would have been 3.5 kilograms or around 8 pounds. And the same value in copper would have been 71.6 kilos – just a few kilos below my weight!

We’re all familiar with the cliché of the heavy sack of gold, and gold does have around twice the weight of silver and three times the weight of copper. However, at the same weight it was worth over ten times the value of silver and over 200 times the value of copper! So the lightest, most efficient way to travel was in fact by carrying gold. Thus, the concept of the “heavy purse” becomes quite the opposite. A heavy sack of gold would be an insane fortune, highly unlikely for anyone to carry around in a purse. A heavy purse would almost certainly be filled with copper. To put it into perspective, the four gram (0.15 oz.) engenhoso, a piece of gold at the time, was by itself worth around one pound of copper.

In the story, Gerard says “I came running with a sack of gold weighing me down.” But I suppose that Coke can’s worth of weight probably didn’t slow him down so much after all. 🙂

African Dragon

To wrap up our journey through Africa, some information about the African Dragon from “The Fortuitous Meeting”:

Like most cultures around the world, Africa has its own tales of dragons. In fact, Africa, the birthplace of man, might just be the birthplace of dragons as well.

Theodore de Bry’s sixteenth-century engraving of Africa: Antelopes, snakes, elephants, and of course–a dragon!

The Serene Dragon website lists twenty dragon legends which come from the top to the bottom of Africa. Even one of the Yoruba Orisas, Oshumare, is known as a rainbow serpent. This Orisa is not just specific to the Yorubas, but is common among many peoples of Western Africa. The Ewe-speaking peoples know him as Anyiewo, and the Fon-speaking peoples call him Aido-Hwedo.

In Andre Thevet’s Singularities of Antarctic France, published in 1558, Thevet says that Africa contains “an enormous quantity of savage animals–lions, tigers, dragons, leopards, buffalos, hyenas, panthers, and others.” Modern historians interpret his use of the word “dragon” as referring to crocodiles. But of course we know better! 😉

In “The Fortuitous Meeting”, Oludara meets a dragon in Africa. It is described as: “A massive green snake, except for some tiny, apparently useless wings and several stubby pairs of legs which it used to propel itself in a half-walking, half-slithering fashion. The scales appeared impenetrable, like painted iron plates stacked upon each other.”

And with that, we can close this post with Paulo Ítalo’s amazing interpretation of the beast:

Orisha

The Orishas are the deities of Yoruban religion (associated with Itan culture). They are worshipped in religions around the world such as Candomblé (Brazil), Santería (Cuba), and many others. By some counts, there are hundreds of Orishas.

Two of the most famous Orishas include Yemaja (the “Mother of Fish”), Orisha of the Sea and a mother figure for mankind, and Shango, Orisha of thunder and lightning.

Ifa Divination

In “The Fortuitous Meeting,” the Oba Ekoshoni says to Oludara: “You have been summoned because my diviners consulted the Ifa oracle. They told me to seek the progeny of a man who aided me long ago.” Ifa divination begins with Orunmila, the Yoruba Orisha of divination. He is sometimes called the “God of Palm Nuts” because of the sixteen palm nuts used in the divination process. He is also known as Ifa, the same name given to his collected knowledge, which I discuss below. His diviners are called babalawo, or “Father of Secrets”, because they posess both knowledge and the means of passing it to the rest of humanity. For this, Orunmila is considered both the god of wisdom and principal benefactor of mankind.

The process of divination by the babalawos is a complex one, which I’ll do my best to summarize here. Before learning the art of divination itself, the babalawo must commit himself to the memorizaiton of the collected knowledge of Orunmila, a set of verses known in its entirety as Ifa. The Ifa is collected into 256 sets called Odu. The Ifa is said to represent every possible situation, circumstance, action, and consequence in life.

For the actual divination process, the babalawo wears white–the color of calmness and purity–enabling him to speak with the spiritual world. He uses sixteen palm nuts (Ikin), a container for them (Ajere Ifa), a divination tray (opon Ifa), a tapper (iroke Ifa), a whisk (Irukere Ifa), and white dust. The babalawo will toss some nuts from one hand to another, and depending on how many remain in each hand, will mark spots on the tray with figures called “mothers”.

Example of an Ifa divination tray (opon Ifa) and palm nuts (Ikin)

(Image: Wikipedia, public domain)

The figures, once all have been marked, correspond to specific sets of the Ifa. The babalawo will recite verses associated with these sets, which he can then use to interpret an answer to the supplicant’s query.

The Orisha Eshu also gains great status from his relationship with Ifa, because it is Eshu who takes offerings and sacrifices to the Orishas, and brings their rewards and punishments back to Earth. His face often appears on the divination boards because of this.

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 8 Next »