The Meaning of Magellan

What's Next: The Ceremonial Lynching of Linnaeus?

   The new old name on the long list of those to be erased is 'Magellan.'  Back in early October, his name showed up in many of those anniversary, "What happened on this date in history," articles with a text like this:

"1520: Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator, and his expedition team are blown by storms into a strait that separates South America from Tierra del Fuego and other islands south of the continent and that also connects the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The strait now bears his name."
This month he is under attack and there are those who think that both the strait and the clouds in the sky which are also named after him, should be re-labelled. I am not sure what they think about all the other things named "Magellan" and if they are going to have to pull their investments from the Fidelity Magellan Fund.

   Once again, I will tack differently on this issue and continue the battle against the bowdlerizers, who everywhere seem to be in the ascendancy. I will add quickly, however, that Magellan was not a nice fellow, a fact that has been known for a few hundred years. Over those years, somehow most people were able to admire the man for his nautical achievements, be critical of his bad behaviour and not be traumatized by seeing his name on a globe. What name is next, or for that matter what word? Suppose one of the new linguistic puritans learns from the OED that their favourite and very useful word was coined by a colonizer, do we all have to lose it?

   Readers of MM will know my general position on the re-naming issues which I will attempt to briefly offer below, but I will say simply here that I don't think we should throw caution to the wind when it comes to the radical alteration of our vocabularies. 

 

The Throw Magellan Overboard Camp

   I will not attempt to interpret the arguments offered by those who want to see the word 'Magellan' disappear, but instead point you toward their arguments and the sources in which they are found. 

   Suprising to me is the fact the "Magellan Issue"  has been brought forward by those on the STEM side of campus. Perhaps they fear the citizens on the other side of the quad. Here you will find an entire essay on the subject: "The Magellanic Clouds Must Be Renamed, Astronomers Say: A Coalition of Over 50 Astronomers Is Calling to Rename the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds," Monisha Ravisetti, Space.com, Nov.3, 2023. Two major points seem to be that: 1) the author indicates that she is a "Filipino-American, and Magellan is an infamous figure in Filipino history, so this has always been at the back of my mind." , and 2) "The primary issue is that the clouds aren't his discovery." The Indigenous observers saw them first. 

   There will surely be more reactions, but here are a couple available now: "Violent Colonialist' Magellan is Unfit to Keep His Place in the Night Sky, Say Astronomers: Indigenous Peoples Already Had Their Own Names for the Galaxies Named After the 16th- Century Portuguese Explorer," The Guardian, Nov.12, 2023 and "Astronomers Request Retitling of Galaxies Named After 'Violent Colonialist' Explorer Magellan: Large and Small Magellanic Clouds Claimed to Have Been Discovered by Portuguese and His Crew in the 16th Century," Genevieve Holl-Allen, The Telegraph, Nov. 12. 2023. 

The Heretical Minority View (Mine)
   I will simply point you to two of my posts relating to this issue (there are more) and then offer my last defence. See, "Names on the Land", but avoid it if you are going to be injured by names like, "Squaw Tit" or "Whorehouse Meadow." The best writing in it is not mine and is taken from a book you should read before you make up your own mind on the matter - Names on the Land. In it, George R. Stewart writes that,

 The land has been named, and the names are rooted deep. Lake Mead may fill with silt, and Lake Michigan again spill south to the Gulf -- but the names may still remain. Let the conqueror come, or the revolution rage; many of our names have survived both already, and may again. Though the books should be burned and the people themselves be cut off, still from the names -- as from arrowheads and potsherds -- the patient scholar may piece together some record of what we were. 

  Another pertinent post is (spoiler alert), "No More Name Changing" and in it you will learn about "Awful Anna" the hummingbird that the American Ornithological Society is going to kill. If you think all those old bird names need to go, you have an ally in Margaret Renkl, who wrote this article yesterday: "North American Birds Will No Longer Be Named For Racists - or Anybody Else," New York Times, Nov. 13, 2023. That this hummingbird was named for someone's wife does not keep me awake at night and it is likely that the new one will not sound much better.

  If it is decided that one solution for improving names is applying ones that are more descriptive, it will work very well for most birds, unless they are homely, in which case, care must be taken. Sacrificing colourful or contentious names on the landscape or in the heavens will result in areas that are linguistically blighted and devoid of historical references.

  Enough energy has been expended on this issue, if not much thought given. My side in this debate is expressed in the first lines in the poem, "American Names" by Stephen Vincent Benét who expresses sentiments similar to those of George R. Stewart quoted and bolded above. Given the current zeitgeist, this debate is likely to continue, but I think I will no longer be a participant. 

                                              American Names

I have fallen in love with American names,

The sharp names that never get fat,

The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,

The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,

Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

......

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.

I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.

You may bury my body in Sussex grass,

You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.

I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

    I included the last lines as well and you will recognize among them, the final one which has been bolded. The questions now being considered by those of you concerned about such things are: Should the writings of Stephen Vincent Benét be delisted from curricula because of his reactionary liking of established names? Should the non-Indigenous Dee Brown be cancelled because of his appropriation of such a subject for his book with that title? And should Buffy Sainte-Marie be further vilified for borrowing the phrase from either Brown or Benét, a dead old white male American poet? I suggest that the excessive focus on identity is about as useful for the geographers as it is for the political theorists. Genug Shoyn.