Athena Review Image Archive ™
New World parrots on the Cantino Map (1502)
New World parrots from the 1502 Cantino Map.
The Journal
or logbook kept by Columbus on his first voyage of 1492 and summarized
by his son Ferdinand includes considerable detail on the daily life of
the Taino and their houses, trade goods, personal belongings, and pets
including dogs and birds. Parrots were seen as trade goods among the
first Islanders encountered by Columbus. A few days later, the
Spaniards visited houses in Cuba that were "well swept and clean, their
furnishing made of very beautiful palm branches... There were wild
birds, tamed, in their houses."
Several weeks later in
Hispaniola, when the Taino villagers were providing Columbus with bread
made from yams (manioc), they also gave him a native parrot, which he
much desired: " They gave... bread and fish and whatever they had. And
as [they] had understood that the admiral wished to have a parrot ...
they brought them parrots and gave them as many as they asked.
The earliest known Spanish illustrations of New World parrots are those shown here from the 1502 Cantino Map.
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