Daculi and Bra
On the other side of the Atlantic the much earlier map island Daculi must be reckoned as of kin to them, since its map legends deal with beneficent wonder working or magical medical aid, and its name may be identical with or have originated the saintly one which still denotes an outlying Hebridean island. Though less renowned than the island of Brazil and less significant, Daculi shares with it the record for first appearance of mythical islands on portolan maps.
Dalorto’s map of 1325[303] ([Fig. 4]) already indicated as the earliest one of much interest in this special regard, presents many islands of familiar or unfamiliar names near Ireland and Scotland. Nobody can mistake the rightly located Man, Bofim, and Brascher (the Blaskets). Insula Sau must be Skye, though with the outline of the Kintyre peninsula. Sialand seems to be Shetland. Tille may be Orkney displaced. Galuaga or Saluaga probably stands for the main body of the Long Island (Harris, Lewis, etc.) of the outer Hebrides. Bra is no doubt Barra and has generally been thus accepted, though out of line with Galuaga and too far eastward. Brazil, as already reported, is naturally farther at sea opposite Brascher. Finally our subject for present consideration, Daculi, lies off the northwestern corner of Ireland, north of Brazil Island and west of Bra, with which last it has in later maps a curious legendary association. With Insula de Montonis, as Brazil is also called on Dalorto’s map, it may be linked in another way by their Italian names, for Daculi seems capable of that derivation, “culla” being “cradle” in that language, plural “culli,” easily modified to “culi” by careless speech or writing. The introductory preposition “da” in one use has an especial relation to nativity; thus Zuan da Napoli means John born at Naples, that is John of Naples in this sense. The blending of preposition and noun in one word, “Daculi,” is no more than sometimes happened on the maps to the article and noun “Li Conigi,” the Rabbit Island, making it “Liconigi,” now long known as Flores. This explanation would interpret Daculi as the “Island of the Cradles,” or “Cradle Island.” Some other derivation may indeed possibly be as defensible; but it should be borne in mind that Italian traders ranged very early up and down the Irish coast, and that name would curiously coincide with the tradition at least afterward current concerning the island.
To review a few later but still very early maps:—Dulcert, 1339,[304] shows some irrelevant changes farther north and east; but his Hebridean islands repeat very nearly the form given them by Dalorto (believed by many to be the same man), and there is no significant change in Bra or Daculi, though the first syllable of the latter becomes Di.
The Atlante Mediceo, of 1351,[305] makes more changes than Dulcert among these islands and leaves unnamed the one which by position seems meant for Bra, or Barra. Daculi is largely expanded and named Insul Dach indistinctly.
The Pizigani map of 1367[306] ([Fig. 2]) modifies many names. Daculi becomes Insuldacr in one word; but its place remains nearly as in Dalorto’s map, though most of the other islands are drawn closer to Ireland, so that Bra is nearly stranded thereon. A line of inscription seems to relate to Bra—“Ich sont ysula qu—[possibly pronominal abbreviation] abitabi honõ quõ morit may.” Perhaps some of these words should be read differently, and “abitabi” needs some recasting. I will not attempt to interpret but should infer that Bra had its troubles. They do not seem to have extended to Daculi.
Pareto’s fine map of 1455[307] ([Fig. 21]) applies the following more extended and significant legend to Daculi: “Item est altera insulla nomine Bra in qua femine que in insulla ipsa habitant non pariuntur sed quando est eorum tempus pariendi feruntur foras insulla et ibi pariuntur secundum tempus.” From this we may gather that the outer island Daculi was believed to afford especial aid in childbearing to women carried thither after being baffled on the inner island Bra, and we see readily the appositeness of the name “cradle” applied to the former. Beccario’s map of 1435[308] ([Fig. 20]), though without the legend, had already adopted in “Insulla da Culli” almost exactly the form of the name which we have divined, with apparently that meaning.
St. Kilda seems to me the most plausible original for Daculi that has been suggested. It is true that Barra is actually south of the parallel of latitude of that most lonely western sentinel of the Hebrides, and there is no obvious link of relation between them. Also the rock islet of North Barra is about as far above it, equally unconnected and not likely ever to have maintained much population. But so simple a misunderstanding on the part of the old cartographers would be no more than what happened to them all the time, and exact identity of latitude is unimportant. There is, in fact, no land on the site given Daculi in any of these old maps; and Bra, as noted, is absurdly out of place for Barra. How the tradition grew up we do not know. Perhaps it was some tale picked up by coasting Italian traders, partly misunderstood and passed on by them to the map-makers at home. St. Kilda, lost in the mists and mystery of the Atlantic, of holy name and miracle-working associations, and out of touch with most tests of reality, seems a likely place to be linked to some less abnormal island by a fanciful contribution of saintly white magic, a rumor originating nobody knows how.