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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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