by Bob Curran
Similar to many other legends, the idea of the Fountain of Youth became entwined with a number of other fables, and in this case, an actual historical expedition. This was to move the legend back into the Western sphere and to the New World—America. It was also to link the idea with a historical name, that of the Spanish conquistador and explorer Juan Ponce de Leon.
Arawak Legends
Before looking at Ponce de Leon’s contribution to the legend, it is necessary to look briefly at the Arawak Indian legend of Bimini. In Arawak folklore, Bimini was both a place and a person. Although mentioned in the Arawak tongue, linguistic historians have traced it to Tiano, a form of language used by pre-Arawak Indians in the Caribbean. It referred to an ancient Arawak (or perhaps pre-Arawak) goddess who had risen from the primal waters to give birth to the world. The land that she had given birth to was ill defined, but was considered by the Arawaks to be sublimely beautiful—akin to the Garden of Eden in Semitic and Christian mythology. It is not clear as to whether Bem-min-eee (Mother of Waters) was actually a land or an island, but, it was generally agreed that it lay far beyond the reach of most mortal men. The general consensus seemed to suggest that it was a very lovely island that lay just beyond the horizon, and could only be reached by the strongest of rowers in a very fast canoe. If Bimini was indeed an island, then it was considered to lie in the Bahama chain, not far from the coast of Florida.
As the tradition developed, the concept of Bimini began to change slightly, moving away from its original Arawak origins and more toward another tradition, that of Atlantis. No longer was Bimini island an earthly Paradise of Arawak legend, rather it was the center of an ancient and highly advanced civilization that had existed before the Arawaks had come. And indeed, there may have been some evidence to suggest that this might have been true. The mysterious and submerged Bimini Road—a series of what appear to be manually cut limestone blocks that lie just below the ocean surface off the coast of Northern Bimini Island—is suggestive of some form of ancient construction. Although some have argued that it is no more than a natural underwater rock formation, others—notably the American occultist Edgar Cayce—have suggested that it might be the outer defense wall of an ancient harbor or part of an ancient road, which at one time connected the entire chain of islands. According to Arawak tradition, those who lived in Bimini were immortal and retained their youth forever. This concept also transferred into legends concerning the super-civilization. The city of Bimini was inhabited by immortals who owed their endless lives to a great fountain, which gushed in the center of the island, and was considered to be sacred to ancient gods.
Ponce de Leon
Such stories traveled all around the area, and were repeated in places such as Cuba and Mexico where the Spanish had established colonies. The tale of Bimini and the lost Fountain of Youth soon reached the ears of Spanish explorers and conquistadores. The early 1500s were a great age of Spanish exploration when the existence of many things was considered possible, and Spanish adventurers were soon setting out to look for the sacred place. It is here that the name of Juan Ponce de Leon first appears.
No other name is more closely associated with the Fountain of Youth than that of Ponce de Leon. According to legend, this intrepid Spanish explorer actually discovered this wonderful land with its miraculous Fountain on the southern tip of the North American continent (Florida) and claimed it for Spain. However, the truth concerning the discovery and Ponce de Leon’s mission was slightly different.
In 1493, Ponce de Leon had traveled with Christopher Columbus on his second journey to the New World. When Columbus elected to return to Spain, Ponce de Leon remained behind on the island of Hispaniola, where he planned to settle. However, he also had a number of political ambitions as well. This was a new territory where a man might make his name at the Spanish Court as a representative of a far-flung dominion. After holding a number of small governorships, he was immensely successful and ruthless in putting down a number of rebellions among the natives of the Bahamas, and was appointed as the first Spanish governor of the important port of Puerto Rico (then called Boraquien) in 1509. However, events elsewhere were conspiring against his new-found position. Columbus had died in 1506, and his eldest son, Diego, made representation to the courts in Madrid for control of all the lands that his father had claimed for Spain. The courts upheld his claim and in 1511, Ponce de Leon found himself replaced as governor of Puerto Rico by Diego Columbus.
It must have been a galling moment for such a proud and arrogant man who now found himself sidelined in the developing colonial politics of the New World, but Ponce de Leon had a plan to restore his political fortunes. While governor of Puerto Rico, he had heard a strange legend that had been brought to the island from Cuba. It was an old Arawak legend concerning an ancient chieftain named Sequene, who had set out in a canoe with a number of rowers bound for a mystical land named Bimini, which was an earthly Paradise and where no one ever grew old. Here, too, was an amazing restorative fountain, the waters of which could heal any wound and bring back youth to an aged man. Sequene and his men had never returned, and it was imagined that they were still living, ageless and in luxury, in that fabled land. The tale intrigued Ponce de Leon and he resolved to find this mysterious Bimini with its wondrous Fountain and claim them both for Spain.
In 1512, Ponce de Leon applied to Ferdinand, king of Spain, for permission to seek out and colonize Bimini. The king considered the request sympathetically and replied that he could do so on the understanding that he was to finance and equip his own ships. And so in February 1513, Ponce de Leon set sail to look for the wonderful land and its Fountain of Youth.
According to Arawak legend, the country lay somewhere to the north of Cuba, and therefore, this was the route that the expedition took. On March 27, 1513, they made landfall on an unknown shore that Ponce de Leon called “La Florida,” because they had landed during the festival of Pascum Florida (“the flowery Passover,” or the Spanish Easter). He had landed on the shores of what is now the modern state of Florida. Where exactly he set foot on Florida soil is unknown, but some have suggested that it was somewhere near present-day Cape Canaveral. The land was not at all pleasant—not the wonderful island of Bimini—and was largely covered in forest and swamp. Ponce de Leon made several forays inland, exploring parts of several rivers and fighting with local Indians before returning to Puerto Rico. He had discovered Florida, but he had failed to find either Bimini or the legendary Fountain of Youth. However, in 1521, he made another attempt, sailing from Puerto Rico to the Florida coast once more, this time with the intention of founding a settlement there and resuming his quest for the Fountain. However, the land he chose was unsuitable for a sustained community, and was under frequent attack from the Calusa Indians, which prevented Ponce de Leon from venturing too far inland. Riddled with disease and injuries, the colony collapsed. Badly wounded by an Indian arrow himself, Ponce de Leon sailed to Cuba where he died, all but bankrupted by the expense of his failed expeditions. Others would explore and develop his discoveries, but none would find the fabulous Fountain.
In legend and folklore, Juan Ponce de Leon is regarded as the Spaniard who hunted for the Fountain of Youth in an attempt to regenerate himself as a young man; but to make such an assertion is to misunderstand what Ponce de Leon was actually doing or indeed the personal enormity of his failure. He was seeking regeneration, but it was the regeneration of his career as a colonial politician at the Spanish Court rather than any personal quest for youth. Perhaps the wonderful land of Bimini and its Fountain had become a metaphor of his ambition.
Maybe, like the quest of Ponce de Leon, the quest for the legendary Bimini is more about human ambition and endeavor than trying to find an actual place. Similar to the Garden of Eden or Shangri-La, Bimini represents an idealized state, the summit of human struggle. And perhaps that is the true meaning of that legendary country.
Section IV: Subterranean Worlds
Subterranean Worlds
&n
bsp; Having explored much of the planet’s surface, Mankind is now looking toward outer space as the next unconquered region, waiting to be discovered. However, perhaps a more fascinating world might lie beneath the surface of our own world. Lands of wonder and mystery could be lying somewhere beneath our feet.
Since earliest times, stories of subterranean kingdoms have been the staple of the legends of many cultures. There have, for instance, been tales concerning survivors from the Deluge who fled underground when the Flood waters rose and formed a civilization in the depths of the Earth. This story not only appears in Semitic legend (from which the Biblical story of the Deluge originates), but also in Greek, Assyrian, and Roman cultures. References to people living under the ground, and to subterranean civilizations, therefore appear in many places. For example, in the Christian Bible there are several passing (but nevertheless curious) references that have intrigued scriptural scholars through the years; for instance: “No man in Heaven, in Earth, neither under the Earth was able to open the book, neither to look there on” (Revelation 5:3) and “Every creature, in Heaven, on Earth and under the Earth, saying….Glory and power be to the Lamb” (Revelation 5:13).
Semitic folklore taught that the Underworld was the place where evil dwelt. The “Sons of God” (mysterious beings who had existed at the foundation of the world), who had disobeyed Yahweh (Jehovah) Himself, and had mated with the daughters of Men, were exiled for their disobedience to the lower depths. The Lake of Fire, into which the arrogant renegade angel Lucifer was finally cast, also lay in the Underworld. The subterranean realm then became a by-word for darkness and malignancy, and it is no coincidence that medieval Christians located the Kingdom of Hell, where the Devil ruled, deep below the surface of the everyday world.
And yet, for some, the Underworld might be a Paradise. In some Semitic tales it was the location of the Garden of Eden. It was a place where the seasons held, and day and night in the surface world mattered very little. It was also a place of inordinate wealth; gold, jewels, and semi-precious stones were dug out of the Earth, so why should they not exist in abundance in the subterranean realm? In some versions of the apocryphal book of Enoch, there is a description of an underground Paradise—a place of great beauty and wonder where myriad precious stones are to be found. Enoch compares this to a world that existed before the Fall of Man, and this would later translate into visions of prehistoric worlds existing somewhere beneath the Earth’s crust. Such places, it was suggested, might contain dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct creatures as well as flora and fauna no longer existing on the Earth’s surface. They might also contain creatures that had never walked on the Earth’s surface, but had perhaps evolved in the lightless caverns underground.
And the rumors of a civilization somewhere in the depths of the Earth continued to intrigue and fascinate Mankind. There was much speculation about the origins of such a civilization and as to how advanced it was. If somehow, as some believed, dinosaurs and prehistoric fauna had been trapped beneath the Earth’s crust, then this civilization might also be fairly primitive. The idea of cavemen living in great caverns beneath our feet was quite a common theme. Others believed that the civilization might be fairly advanced—perhaps even more advanced than that which was on the surface. Far below the crust might lie wonderful cities, maybe boasting high technology. They might be survivors from Atlantis or from some other advanced prehistoric race, all but forgotten, who had perhaps lived on the surface, but who had fled underground to avoid some catastrophe. There were tales of Roman, Greek, and Mesopotamian-like cultures somewhere far below the ground. Some of these people ignored the surface dwellers; others, it was imagined, were incredibly hostile toward the human race.
Could the lands that they inhabited be accessed from the surface world? The general consensus of opinion was that they could. In various places scattered across the Earth, it was believed, lay entrances to these underground kingdoms. Many believed that the entrances to these inner worlds lay somewhere within the Poles, which at the time such theories were current, still remained a largely unexplored and mysterious area of the globe. Sailors in the northern climes had returned with strange stories concerning great maelstroms and whirlpools in the icy oceans, which were suggestive of water being drawn unto vast underground caves. This, it was argued, was proof that the Earth itself was hollow, and might even boast some form of internal atmosphere in which men and animals could live. Such an idea lives on today in groups such as The Hollow Earth Society. This was based on theories that proposed that the Earth is merely a hollow shell with an interior atmosphere. Works following this train of thought include William Reed’s Phantom of the Poles (1902) and the writings of Marshall Gardner (1913). Following in this tradition, the Hollow Earth was believed to be the home of civilizations much more advanced than ours.
But if these underground civilizations existed so closely with us, why are we so unaware of them? How could such an advanced culture remain hidden, perhaps for centuries? Did they give any indication as to their presence? The answer that is frequently given is that they wish to keep their existence secret from us, or that when they intervene in our world we don’t recognize it as such.
For example, there have been stories since earliest times concerning fairies and “little people.” These, argue some of those who believe in a Hollow Earth, are not supernatural beings at all but the inhabitants of an interior world who have come to the surface. Similar strange beings are said to have been encountered in various parts of the world (in Tibet or in the Amazonian rainforests—there are said to be entrances in both locations). And there are other beings that have been encountered and described as visitors from outer space. This, argues the theory, is to misunderstand—these are not aliens from other planets, but from subterranean worlds. Indeed, some UFOlogists argue that “flying saucers” are craft from the Hollow Earth and that they enter and exit their own sphere somewhere around the North and South Poles. And some more fanciful notions actually combine the ideas of extraterrestrials and subterranean dwellers by claiming that the Hollow Earth is in fact no more than a base for aliens from beyond the stars who are observing us. Some strands of thought even go so far as to claim that Mankind is actually no more than a massive genetic experiment carried on by aliens from beyond our Solar System who are monitoring the results from inside the Earth.
Theosophy, too, has made connections with the idea of interior worlds, and some branches have claimed that the Inner World is actually the home of Ascendant Masters who are secretly controlling and guiding Mankind’s destiny. In the end days of the world, it is suggested, the Masters will emerge to guide the planet to its final end. Such Masters, some assert, are connected to the planet Venus, but have established their main base in the interior of our world. Scrolls known as the Hedon Rogia, purportedly either found in India or else dictated through a “communicator helmet” operated by a believer, reveal an extensive inner world that the Masters benignly dominate. And there are, of course, stories of these Masters sometimes coming to the surface as they are said to do at Mount Shasta in California, only here they appear as survivors from Atlantis or Lemuria. No matter how we may view such claims, they are nonetheless indicative of an interest in a world that lies somewhere far below us.
And there is little doubt that an interior world, populated perhaps by prehistoric cavemen, an advanced civilization still holds a wonderful speculative interest for the human imagination. It has proved to be inspiration for theorists and writers across the ages. Witness Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (originally published in 1871), which set the tone for many subsequent works. Somewhere below, worlds of wonder, beauty, and adventure await the intrepid traveler if he or she dares to go there. The future may not lie out in the stars, but down in the depths.
17
Miners of the Lost Worlds
From time to time, queer stories concerning underground realms are recounted by miners or surveyors engaged in geological work. Tales of prospectors
and mining engineers unexpectedly finding cavern systems with unusual flora and fauna, and even small animals, some boasting their own internal atmospheres (some of which have been proven to be toxic), have come down to us througout the years from many parts of the world. However, because it has such a rich history of mining and gold-hunting, many of these stories tend to proliferate in North America—particularly in the West. The Cascade Mountains of northern California and the Monterey Peninsula seem to be especially rich in such stories, particularly around the times of the California Gold Rush, although some of them date back to the Spanish period.
Underground Vikings
An example of such a “discovery” concerns two miners looking for an allegedly lost silver mine near Carmel in Monterey in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The two—Jim Elliot and Henry Paris—were supposedly searching for a reputed vein of pure silver somewhere in the Carmel Valley’s Cachagua country when they entered a lonely ravine, allegedly located in the Trampa Canyon area, which seemed to bear the marks of ancient workings. They entered a large, uneven cave that seemed to slant downward into the Earth. At its far end, Paris scrambled through a gap in the rock and found himself in a kind of tunnel, which seemed to lead even further down. With Elliot following, he descended a kind of rock “chimney,” eventually emerging in a large, stinking, underground cavern. In fact, the cave was so vast that neither man could see where it went, just the total darkness stretching away beyond their meager lights.
Much of the place seemed to be taken up with a vast underground lake or “sea” that stretched into a dark infinity. The men walked down to a tiny “shore” where a stagnant water swirled around their boots. The “sea” seemed to be teeming with small, pale fish that seemed to glow with a faint phosphoresce and that swam away as soon as they stepped into the water; it unsettled both men greatly. Everywhere the rocks seemed to be coated with a strange type of fungus that made them slip and slide, and giving the place a “bad air” with its vapors. Directly in front of them, however, was a staggering sight. The remains of what appeared to be a Viking longship had been drawn up on the “beach.” The men looked in astonishment at the great wooden head carved on its prow and examined metal areas in which oars had been positioned. They could not see any trace of life, nor did there seem to be any further immediate evidence of Viking visitors. Nevertheless, the two were convinced that there might well be treasure lying out there, somewhere in the darkness of the vast cavern. However, they were beginning to feel sick as the foul air from the fungi started to affect them, and, fearing that they might be poisoned by the toxic atmosphere, they decided to return to the surface and fetch help.