Norumbega

Detail of a map from the atlas of Abraham Ortelius from 1570, in which Norumbega is drawn along with a number of other fabulous and legendary places and some so-called phantom islands.

Norumbega , also Nurumbega or Norombega , is the name of a legendary settlement in northeastern North America that appeared on maps from the 16th century. The term is supposed to come from the Algonquin languages and roughly means a quiet place between the rapids or a calm stretch of water . The first reference to the place appeared on a map by Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1542 and another entry is in a report by Jean Alfonse , a French navigator and corsair . Accordingly, the place is said to be south of Newfoundland on a large river, where most historians have agreed on the Penobscot River . In the 19th century, however, the Hudson River was also mentioned, as in 1844 by Arthur James Weise.

Norumbega later received an entry in many European maps of North America as a city that was often relocated to the south of Arcadia , as the area of ​​what later became New England was called at that time. There were speculations that it was a large and affluent Aboriginal settlement with a strong influence on the region around it. In the imagination of some contemporaries at the time, the fabulous place became a kind of Eldorado . The French explorer and explorer Samuel de Champlain probably also used such rumors as an opportunity to go in search of Norumbega in 1604. He sailed the Penobscot River upstream to the rapids at what is now Bangor in the US state of Maine , but without encountering any significant settlements of the indigenous people. On the maps he drew there is no longer any entry of Norumbega, neither as a city, nor as a river or region.

In the late 19th century, Norumbegas was linked to the Vikings and Leif Erikson's attempts to settle in the New World. Two of the most important proponents of this hypothesis were the French historian Paul Gaffarel and the American natural scientist Eben Norton Horsford . This connected the term Norumbega with the area around Cambridge in Massachusetts . At the confluence of the Stony Brook and Charles River , where in his opinion the fortified city of Norumbega had been, he had a tower built, which he called the Norumbega Tower .

The city of Bangor commemorated the legend of Norumbega with the construction of a city hall in the Greek-classical style and named it Norumbega Hall . However, it fell victim to the devastating fire of 1911. The city park Norumbega Mall is in its place today .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Norumbega. Retrieved September 13, 2016 .