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Newspaper Page Text
Was It Here That the Ancient Queen Calm Ruled Over Her Golden Manless Kingdom ASK a Californian about m re**m*s, beauty and climate of his state and he will answer your questions by the hour. Ask him how his state came to be named California and he looks at you in embarrassment. The truth is, he doesn't know. Nobody knows—at least not any of the persons you might ask. For the origin of the name has been concealed in ancient romances of fabulous times, and until recently no one was interested enough to trace it. The story has to do with an old legend concerning California's first queen. She was young, she was strong, she was beautiful, and she and her band of Amazonian maidens made things lively in her dominions. When you have read this story you may realize why California is the land of gold, of warriors, of the suffragette and why it is so named. Garcia Ordonez* de Montalvo first made California fabulous—2s years before Cortez discovered it to be real and 338 years before Marshall's pick, resounding: through the civilized and avaricious world, announced the lull extent of the fabulous nature of this empire of the west. Cortez, acting on an inspiration that could not have been born in the rocky beaches of Lower California, gave to it the the island which was described by the novelist Montalio as "on the right hand of the Indians, very close to the side of the terrestrial paradise." Cortez could not have forseen, either, the ascendency of women in this commonwealth, yet the name that he gave to Cali fornia was the name given by the early Spanish MAGAZINE SECTION k PART I ■ Arthur L. Price romancer to this island lying close to the-terrestrial paradise and peopled by Amazons. In the romance they were black Amazons, led by the wondrous, Queen Calafia, which has not been fulfilled in the present day; but the interesting fact is that the land of California was fabulously rich in gold and gems, that the women ruled and that it was close to the terrestrial paradise. Captious Californians might say that if the name California referred only to a,place that was "close to the terrestrial paradise" it might better have been given to Oregon, Nevada or Arizona, owing to their historic juxtaposition to the terrestrial para dise—but'that criticism is beyond the point. All of California may not be considered paradise—that description applies ,fully only to the particular county in which each of us lives—so, possibly, Cprtez in his nomenclature was even right on that point. It was in the romance "The Deeds of Esplandian," one of the tales of the "Amadis of Gaul" series, which were written at the beginning of the six teenth century, when America was first being explored, that the tale of the island of California, and particularly of Calafia, the queen of the .land, appeared. The author of the romances was Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, although there is some dis pute as to whether or not he wrote the fifth and concluding book of the series, "The Deeds of Esplandian," in which-the narrative of Calafia is given. There has been much uncertainty among histor ians regarding the name of California, and until Continued on Next Page The San Francisco Sunday CALL I HOW CALIFORNIA I GGT rSSfr '