I am working on an e-book that sums up all the place names studied at http://goo.gl/iqc3P.

Most of the contents are already available on the map, the book is only a revision, some entries having more content due to character limitation in Google Maps and a more overall readable disposition.

Below you can find the first draft for an

INTRODUCTION


Have you ever watched a film, read a book, played a game, looked at a picture that caused an impression on you, though, by the time you were supposed to enjoy it, you were urged, compelled, simply ought to move on? Several years had to pass by until you find the time and the place. Now, with less urgency, you actually begin to get into the most it has to offer, at different moments your attention becomes more intense, until you finally feel yourself like bound by an attachment which goes from initial great admiration to the discovery of a new experience far beyond the mere act of watching a film / reading a book / playing a game / looking at a picture?

This is what happened to me with Fernão Mendes Pinto?s travels.

I first scanned the Peregrinaçam (The travels of Mendes Pinto) at a time when different books were piled one upon the other, as compulsory readings with fixed deadlines. Not the best way to enter into subtle, secondary (or even less than secondary) issues such as place names. Enough, however, to get touched by a book that resembled a film of adventures with great sailors, pirates, travelers, warriors, diplomats, merchants, sages, and, above all, exotic places. Enough also to come back, this time just for the pleasure of reading, some years later, during the resting time for lunch or between shifts and several winter weekends (Peregrinaçam is a long book to read). And to return once more, and again, as if I needed to get the story to be continued with new chapters emerging from the vast collection of traveled locations.

This is how my personal quest for the Ilha de Ouro (The Island of Gold, a very seriously and repeatedly sought island during the sixteenth and even seventeenth centuries, probably inexistent as such) began, and that of Tajampura (a port for diamonds trade), and the land of the Oqueus (hunters blamed to be wild and fierce and riders of the most strange mounts), and the collection of references that lead to places such as Quangepaarù (the very rich city where the Emperor of Cauchenchina lived most of the year) and Ocumchaleu (ancient city that, Pinto refers as told by an eremit reader of the ancient chronicles, went under the waters of a lake near Sauady). To do so, obviously I had to start with the most evident and secure locations. And not being a geographer, I had to rely on the work of previous and present researchers who were, and are, sure, more qualified to achieve the final goal of locating most of the place names mentioned by Mendes Pinto.

When I began to draw my first more methodic maps, two years ago, there were already published works that had undertaken a careful research on the place names cited at Peregrinaçam. The studies of Visconde da Lagoa and Le Gentil set up the starting point. Both works are rare even in specialized libraries nowadays, in fact, I couldn?t consult any of them, except the maps originally published by Visconde da Lagoa, edited as a supplement in a later edition of Pinto?s works (Pinto 1989). Subsequent research attends the subject either more superficially, either covering partial geographies only or, as in the case of the most complete study ever I found on Peregrinaçam (Alves 2010), do not try to locate all the placenames in a map.

Hence the need to create my own cartography. And that is the main contribution of this work as, for the contents being, most of the data presented here is only a compilation of information already published. If any merit this approach has, it would be the result of simply putting together different references to discuss each particular place name, see where, and if, the authors agree, and finally conclude a list with the most probable and secure locations.

In some extraordinary cases, when I found resources enough or had achieved more secure / probable related locations, I dare to identify or approximately locate new place names that I haven?t found in any other previous work.

More often, when authors hold different opinions and there is enough evidence in Mendes Pinto?s explanations, I also analyze the data and offer a location as more probable than others.

Now, my main aim when publishing this list of place names and its related map is to offer a new tool for the present traveler, researcher, archeologist, sailor, or whoever could be interested, to confirm the less probable locations, to identify new place names or just to serve as a guide to follow Mendes Pinto travels with the visual aid of a map.

May you find it as stimulating as I did.