The
Fountain of Youth
Humankind’s
search for the Fountain
of Youth
[1] (a miraculous spring whose waters restored youth) has
been an obsession for millennia its location always just beyond the
boundaries of the known world:
The Polynesians believed the fountain to be located on Hawaii.
Herodotus,
a Greek historian, attributed the longevity of
the Ethiopians to a miraculous fountain hidden deep within their
kingdom.
In the Alexander romance, a collection of
stories about the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great, the
Macedonian, along with his servant Andreas, entered the land of
darkness
(the land immediately east of the Black Sea) searching for the
“Water of Life.” Alexander became lost while his servant after finding
and drinking the "water," became immortal.
It is
Florida, however,
and the seeming
fixation of the Spanish explorers, that most people are familiar with:
The Arawaks and other Caribbean natives told stories
to their Spanish conquerors of a mythical land called Beimeni, a land
of plenty, and of an island called Boinca upon which was allegedly a
marvellous spring possessing the ability to restore youth and vigour to
those that drank its waters. The exact location of this miraculous
island and its miraculous spring was uncertain, some
natives believing it to be situated in the Gulf of Honduras while
others believed it
to be located in or near the Bahamas. (According to legend
Sequene a Cuban Arawak chief along with a number of his followers
sailed north never to return, the more optimistic of those left behind
believing he had found paradise and was living in luxury.)
That
Ponce de Leon had heard of the "Fountain" is a certainty, whether he
believed in it enough to make it the focus of his expeditions to
Florida [2] would be conjecture. He certainly never mentioned the
fountain in his writings, that connection was made by Spanish historian
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes after the adventurer’s death [3]
(allegedly de Leon was impotent and needed the water to cure himself)
an account echoed by another historian Francisco Lopez de Gomara.
It
was Indian captive Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda who in his memoirs
placed the curative waters in Florida with a reference to de Leon, but
it is Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas who made the reference definite
in his history of the Spanish in the New World in which he romanticizes
the memoirs (some less kind might say, embellishes). He states that
the local chiefs visited the "Fountain" on a regular basis, the water’s
restorative properties being such that an old man could resume "all
manly exercises . . . take a new wife and begat more children." He
further
added that the Spanish had unsuccessfully searched every
"river,
brook, lagoon and pool along the Florida coast looking for the
legendary fountain." [4]
[1] The phrase "Fountain of Youth" has
become a catch-all for a vast array of items claiming to halt or
reverse the aging process, but in reality, so far at least, halting or
reversing the ageing process lies beyond the capabilities of 21st
century technology. What the future holds is something else again,
research especially in the sciences of genetics offers great promise
and may result in the eventual, hopefully positive, manipulation of the
building blocks of life itself.
[2] After setting out from Puerto Rico
March 4, 1513, on his first northern expedition, Ponce de Leon made
landfall April
2, near what
is today St Augustine on Florida’s northeast shore, stayed 5
or 6 days and then headed south exploring the
coast before returning to Puerto Rico almost eight months later.
[3]
On February 20, 1521, de Leon, newly knighted by King Ferdinand and
armed with a contract confirming his right to settle and govern the
“islands” of Florida and Bimini once again headed north from Puerto
Rico. Landing on Florida’s west coast he attempted to establish a
colony near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, possibly on Sanibel
Island. Unfortunately, for the Spanish, the resident indians were
having
none of it, their
attacks quickly forcing the colonists to withdraw de Leon
mortally wounded by a poison arrow in the process.
[4] Ironically "Warm Mineral
Springs" an artesian well whose warm, soothing, mineral
infused waters and remarkable restorative powers had been enjoyed by
the local natives for thousands of years (and thought by some to be the
source of the "Fountain" myth) lay only a
few miles to the north of the Caloosahatchee
River and de Leons new settlement.
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