1774 Bonne Map of Southern Brazil, Northern Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay

An attractive example of Rigobert Bonne's 1774 map of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina, including Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires. This map generally corresponds to modern day Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande du Sol, Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Motto Grosso, and Paraguay. Offers speculative detail of the largely unexplored interior, including the Laguna de Xarayes, a mythical lake at the northern terminus of the Paraguay River associated with the Earthly Paradise.

Laguna de Xarayes

The mythical Laguna de Xarayes is illustrated here as the northern terminus, or source, of the Paraguay River. The Xarayes, a corruption of 'Xaraies' meaning 'Masters of the River', were an indigenous people occupying what are today parts of Brazil's Matte Grosso and the Pantanal. When Spanish and Portuguese explorers first navigated up the Paraguay River, as always in search of El Dorado, they encountered the vast Pantanal flood plain at the height of its annual inundation. Understandably misinterpreting the flood plain as a gigantic inland sea, they named it after the local inhabitants, the Xaraies. The Laguna de los Xarayes almost immediately began to appear on early maps of the region and, at the same time, to take on a legendary quality. Later missionaries and chroniclers, particularly Díaz de Guzman (1559 - 1629), imagined an island in this lake and curiously identified it as 'Island of Paradise,'

...an island [of the Paraguay River] more than ten leagues [56 km] long, two or three [11-16 km] wide. A very mild land rich in a thousand types of wild fruit, among them grapes, pears and olives: the Indians created plantations throughout, and throughout the year sow and reap with no difference in winter or summer, ... the Indians of that island are of good will and are friends to the Spaniards; Orejón they call them, and they have their ears pierced with wheels of wood ... which occupy the entire hole. They live in round houses, not as a village, but each apart though keep up with each other in much peace and friendship. They called of old this island Land of Paradise for its abundance and wonderful qualities.

Publication History and Census

Drawn by R. Bonne for his Atlas De Toutes Les Parties Connues Du Globe Terrestre. The map appears on the market from time to time, but more frequently in later editions lacking Bonne's title as Ingénieur-Hydrographe de la Marine.