Talk:Quivira

Title
Maybe this article ought to be renamed to something else. It deals more with Quivira and Cibola as two of the Sixteen Cities rather than just Quivira. Maybe make another article titled Quivira that just explains it's one of the two legendary cities, and make this the central article or something.

Timmothias 03:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Or make this a redirect to Quivira and Cibola and put the main article there. Which would best be accomplished by a page move. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jmabel's proposal, though I would include the orthography in the main page's title, thus Quivira and Cíbola. Draeco 18:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes. Oops. Quivira and Cibola should redirect to Quivira and Cíbola. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As soon as they are done with this as translation of the week, let's go for the move and merge. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the article would be clearer if it was called Seven Cities or Seven Cities of Gold, or something like that. Also, does anyone know how closely the legend is related to Antillia?--Cuchullain 06:11, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No idea on how closely related to Antillia; would not object to a move to Seven Cities of Gold, as long as whoever moves it cleans up all the double redirects resulting from the move. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my english is difficult to understand, but it's not really my fault : I'm french! (and too old to have been teached with the European Language Portfolio...)
 * I think that the myth of the «Cities of gold» corresponds to much more than just Quivira and Cibola. The XII century spanish origins of the mythical seven cities evocated by Marcos de Niza initiated a very powerful myth that created various others, like El Dorado, Antillia, La Canela, the City of the Caesars, the Sierra del Plata, Paititi, etc.
 * I suggest that the subject and the title of this article should be Cities of gold, because I'm convinced that not all of the authors of the fictions inspirated by this myth knew the story of de Niza and the names of Quivira and Cibola (or, at least not before having investigated the subject).
 * It's the way I tried to give to the corresponding french WP article, so if you understand french, just take a look at it and at its disambiguation page.
 * El Comandante (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Quivira in Utah
I have an old spanish map showing Quivira as being near to either Utah Lake or the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Also some reference in a book called "The Kingdom of New Spain" by Pedro Alonso O'Crouley from 1774. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dswkamp (talk • contribs) 23 July 2006.

Coronado's surname is Vázquez, not "Vásquez". As his article displays, in fact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1zquez_de_Coronado). "Vásquez" is an incorrect spelling originated in a South-American overcorrection of the z pronunciation of the letter s common in Southern Spain. --217.127.191.232 (talk) 07:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

1150?
Mérida (Emerita Augusta) was taken by the Moors in AD 713. Surrendering under good terms.The Metropolitan see disappeared in 1119 in favour of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) and the Leonese -from the Christian kingdom of León- took the town in 1230, that the Muslims lost for good. What was born in c.1150 was the legend of the 7 bishops.

Propose to split article into 3
Upon further research, I can't find any reliable source stating that the names "Cibola" or "Quivira" were ever recorded before 1539, contrary to what this article had until now. The mythical Seven Cities of Gold should be a separate topic, since the only name I can find applied to them before that is Antilia. In 1539, the Spanish started looking for the rumored "seven cities of gold" called Cibola, but when they found te Zuni country, which all the sources agree was actually called "Cibola", they were not of gold, but adobe pueblos. While among the pueblos, Coronado first heard of Quivira from an Indian called "The Turk", who lied and said there was a lot of gold there, but on going there, he found none. There is enough material on all three subjects to make 3 articles, and no good reason to lump them all together. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There's been no response to my proposal to split the article, so I am going to be making some changes very soon. There are 3 topics here:


 * 1) The Seven Cities of Gold, a European legend dating to the Middle Ages
 * 2) Cibola, a toponym first recorded in 1539, of Native American origin
 * 3) Quivira, a toponym first recorded in 1540, of Native American origin

Cibola and Quivira were not exactly considered two of the Seven cities. "Cibola" in itself was rumored to be composed of the seven cities of gold, and when the Spaniards got there they indeed found it included seven settlements (Zuni), but not of gold. Then Coronado heard from "the Turk" that there was plenty of gold in Quivira, but when he finally got there, could not find the gold.

The European legend is really the same as that of Antilia, so that part of this article should be merged there, with due mention and link from the other articles emerging from this split. Cibola is really the same as Zuni-Cibola Complex, so that part of this article should be merged there. That only leaves the parts about Quivira, so the remnant of this article should be returned to simply Quivira. So in clearing up this confusion, there will not be any actual new articles created; I will simply be splitting some parts off to Antilia and Zuni-Cibola Complex, then renaming the remnant as Quivira. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Just noting due to your renaming that Cibola is currently a disambiguation page which may need amending; and noting also that Cibola, period, is not necessarily the same thing as the Zuni-Cibola Complex, i.e. the legendary place is not proven to be the Zuni-Cibola Complex so may need a still-separate article.Skookum1 (talk) 14:40, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you ever read the primary sources of Coronado's expedition? The idea that there was ever any other legendary Cibola besides the Zuni-Cibola complex seems to be a later popular misconception. It's quite clear that Coronado indeed reached the place called "Cibola" within a year of the name first being heard by them, and disproved the legendary gold, so there was no more "legend" after that, until popular fiction writers resurrected the name much later. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Muhammad al-Idrisi
Ther's another explanation for the controversial reference to 1150. In c.1150 the Northern African geographer al-Idrisi in a book for the Franco-Norman king Roger II of Sicily reported that 8 Andalusian Muslim sailors or adventurers from Lisbon reached a "stinky sea" (the Sargasso Sea?) in the North Atlantic Ocean. See the article Guanches for further reference, to be precise the paragraph by the title of "Before the Spanish Conquest". The Portuguese (with English support) had taken Muslim Lisbon in 1147. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.8.98.118 (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Chivalric Romance: Amadis de Gaula
See Romance (genre).According to the Spaniard writers Fernando Martínez Laínez and Carlos Canales Torres (book 'Banderas lejanas', Edaf, 2009, page 60), the legend of the 7 bishops making away from the Muslim conquest of Visigoth Hispania appears for the first time in 'Amadis of Gaula', a chivalry romance from the 14th century - and highly popular- and printed in 1508. 'Banderas lejanas' is a book on the Spaniard explorers and military in the current USA from the 1500s to the 1820s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.8.98.118 (talk) 11:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

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El Turco or The Turk
Since it seems to have done no good to post this at your talk page, , I'll post this here.

The Turk and others. And then there is this, which is the cite used for info you keep removing from the article. No one has said this person was an actual "Turk" from the Old World, this is in no way connected with Turkish nationalism or "PanTurkism", whatever the fuck that is. But it is an attested historical fact that the Spaniards called this person "The Turk", because they thought he looked like one. I'd drop this if I were you, edit warring over this when you obviously do not know what you are talking about wont go well for you. Continue to remove this information, especially without discussion here or elsewhere, and this matter will be taken to the edit war admin board.  He  iro  13:26, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The "Turk" was not a Turk. He was a Plains Indian, possibly a Wichita. The Spanish called him a Turk because he looked like they thought a Turk looked although their knowledge of how a Turk looked was probably minimal.Smallchief (talk) 13:39, 6 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Poor El Turco paid the ultimate price for leading Coronado on the wild-goose chase to where ever Coronado decided to end the search and/or his life. And of course Coronado himself wouldn't make it home whole....


 * After refreshing my memory on his fate, at Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, I was amused to read this:
 * ". . . thirty-nine years later when the Spanish again visited . . . they found little evidence that Vázquez de Coronado had any lasting cultural influences on the Indians except for their surprise at seeing several light-skinned and light-haired Puebloans. Heh. --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:02, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Origin of the name of Quivira?
In William K. Hartmann's historic novel Cities of Gold, he identifies Quivira as the name of the buffalo in one of the Pueblo languages? I think this was from Fray Marcos de Niza's correspondence with the Viceroy, though it's not like a novel is indexed. But Hartmann's definitely read all the historic literature, including some pretty obscure stuff. For instance, he has harsh words for Carl O. Sauer on the subject of Fray Marcos's veracity re what Estevanico called "Quivira," which turned out to be one of the historic pueblos of modern Zuni. Anyway, I'll look into this a bit, and if I find a verifiable cite, I'll add it. --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:53, 22 May 2022 (UTC)