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El Dorado
El Dorado [Span.,=the gilded man], legendary country of the Golden Man sought by adventurers in South America. The legend supposedly originated in a custom of the Chibcha people of Colombia who each year anointed a chieftain and rolled him in gold, which he then ceremonially washed off in a sacred lake, casting offerings of emeralds and gold into the waters at the same time. This custom had apparently disappeared long before the coming of the conquistadors, but the tales lived on and grew into a legend of a land of gold and plenty. Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana set out in quest for it, the latter drifting down the length of the Amazon River in the process. From the middle of the 16th cent. a series of adventurers searched for El Dorado and its fabulous variants—Omagua, the Land of Cinnamon, or the golden land of Manoa. El Dorado passed into European literature and found its way to the maps. The conquistadors of Venezuela and New Granada— Federmann , Benalcázar , and Jiménez de Quesada —all searched for El Dorado. Perhaps best known to English-speaking peoples is the expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595. The location of the mythical land shifted as new regions were explored, and similar legends appeared in W United States. Cabeza de Vaca told of the Seven Cities of Cibola; interest in these treasure-laden cities reached a peak with the stories of Fray Marcos de Niza and culminated in a tremendous but fruitless expedition under Francisco Vásquez de Coronado . El Dorado is used figuratively to mean any place of fabulous wealth, a utopian dream, or the land of desire.
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"El Dorado." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "El Dorado." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-ElDorado.html "El Dorado." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-ElDorado.html |
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El Dorado
El Dorado the name of a fictitious country or city abounding in gold, formerly believed to exist somewhere in the region of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers; the name is first recorded in English in the title of Raleigh's Discoverie of Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spanish call El Dorado) (1596).
The belief, which led Spanish conquistadors to converge on the area in search of treasure and Sir Walter Raleigh to lead his second expedition up the Orinoco, appears to have originated in rumours of an Indian ruler who ritually coated his body with gold dust and then plunged into a sacred lake while his subjects threw in gold and jewels. The name comes from Spanish, and means literally ‘the gilded one’. |
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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "El Dorado." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "El Dorado." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-ElDorado.html ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "El Dorado." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-ElDorado.html |
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El Dorado
El Dorado (Spanish, “The Gilded Man”), mythical land of great wealth sought by explorers including Pizarro, Raleigh, Cabeza de Vaca, and Coronado. The legend may derive from a custom of the Chibcha Indians of Colombia, who anointed their chief, rolled him in gold, and washed him in a lake into which they threw gold and jewels, but it was attributed to many tribes, including Zuñi. Bandelier's The Gilded Man (1893) deals with the legend. The name was associated with the California gold rush, e.g. works as different as Bayard Taylor's Eldorado, a travel account, and Poe's Eldorado, a symbolic poem written in 1849 about a knight who learns that the true Eldorado is not of this earth but is a wealth beyond the mundane.
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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "El Dorado." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "El Dorado." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-ElDorado.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "El Dorado." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-ElDorado.html |
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El Dorado
El Dorado A fictitious country (according to some, a city) abounding in gold, believed by the Spanish and by Sir Walter Raleigh to exist upon the Amazon. The origin of the belief, which led Spanish conquistadors to converge on the area in search of treasure, appears to have been rumours of an Indian ruler, in what is now Colombia, who ritually coated his body with gold dust and then plunged into a sacred lake while his subjects threw in gold and jewels.
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"El Dorado." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "El Dorado." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-ElDorado.html "El Dorado." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-ElDorado.html |
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El Dorado
El Dorado (Sp. ‘The Golden One’) Mythical city of fabulous wealth, supposedly located in the interior of South America, the focus of many Spanish expeditions in the 16th century.
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Cite this article
"El Dorado." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "El Dorado." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-ElDorado.html "El Dorado." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-ElDorado.html |
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