ELDORADO (1547-74)

A name first applied to a ruler of an Indian town near Bogotá who according to legend plastered his naked body with gold dust during festivals, then plunged into Lake Guatavita to wash off the dust after the ceremonies.

His subjects threw jewels and golden objects into the lake, Spanish conquistadores heard the tale before 1530 and one of them reported that he had visited Eldorado himself in a city called Omagua.

In 1538 Spaniards from Peru and Germans from Venezuela converged on the Bogotá highlands in search of the gilded man. No trade of him was found but the area remained under Spanish rule.

As the search continued into the Orinoco and Amazon valleys, Eldorado came to mean an entire fabulous country of gold with legendary cities named Manoa and Omagua. In this quest Gonzalo Pizarro crossed the Andes from Quito (1539), Francisco Orellana sailed down the Napo and the Amazon (1541-42) and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada explored eastward from Bogotá (1569-72).

In 1603 the Portuguese Pêro Coelho de Sousa explored northward from Pernambuco and the golden city of Eldorado was shown on maps of Brazil and the Guianas for years thereafter.

Eldorado was only one of the many mythical regions of great riches -Cíbola, Quivira, the City of the Caesars, Otro Méjico being among the most famous of the others.

Since then Eldorado has come to mean any place where wealth can be quickly and easily gained. The story is often mentioned in literature as in Milton´s Paradise Lost and Voltaire´s Candide.