knowhomo: LGBTQ* History You May Have Missed: How California Got Its Name “The Spaniards h
knowhomo: LGBTQ* History You May Have Missed: How California Got Its Name “The Spaniards had observed primarily male behavior. Typical of European men of the era, female same-sex relations, and even gender inversion, was the stuff of fantasy for them. They were enamored of Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s protolesbian-tale about a mythical island called ‘California’ where Queen Califia lived with her beloved subjects, all of whom were masculine women. ‘And there were no males among them at all,’ Montalvo wrote. He described the women as having “energetic bodies and courageous ardent hearts.’ Like the Amazons of Greek myth, they waged bloody war on other lands, killing most of the males but carrying away a few so that they might copulate with them for the sake of procreation. Female babies were kept among them; male babies were slaughtered. In 1535, Hernan Cortes, sharing his era’s enchantment with the story of these fierce, manless women, wrote the name ‘California’ on a map of a strip of land on the west coast of North America. It has remained the name ever since—though the protolesbian source is long forgotten.” From Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians, edited by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons. (The first photo is the first map to print the toponym [place name] “California.” 1562, Diego Gutierrez.) (The second photo is of Las Sergas de Esplandian [The Adventures of Esplandian], the romance novel by Garci Rodrigues de Montalvo that mentions the legend of California. 1510.) -- source link