Venezuela and potatoes

I am currently reading Rivers of Gold by Hugh Thomas. It describes the first two generations of the Spanish encounter with the New World. Here are a couple of fascinating snippets:



Potatoes

There are certain roots which the natives call batatas and grow
spontaneously. The first time I saw them I took them for Milanese turnips or huge mushrooms. No matter how they are cooked, roasted or boiled, they are equal to any delicacy or indeed to any other food. Their skins are tougher than
mushrooms or turnips, and are earth-coloured while the inside is quite white.
When raw, they taste like green chestnuts, only sweeter.

Cavan tambien de la tierra unas raices que nacen naturalmente y los indígenas las llaman batatas; cuando yo las vi, las juzgué nabos de Lombardia o gruesas criadillas de la tierra. De cualquier modo que se aderecen asadas o cocidas no hay pasteles ni nigun otro manjar de mas suavidad y dulzura. La piel es algo mas fuerte que en las patatas y los nabos y tienen color de tierra, pero la carne es muy blanca.

This is the first European description of the potato, recently brought back to Spain from the New World. By Peter Martyr, c.1513 quoted in Rivers of Gold p.373/702



Venezuela

1499. During the exploration and discovery of the New World:

Alonso de Hojeda, Juan de la Cosa & Amerigo Vespucci "landed too on the islands of Curaçao (where they found some exceptionally tall people) and Aruba, where there were numerous natives living in houses standing in the sea 'like Venice'. Hence they spoke of the mainland there as 'little Venice', 'Venezuela'. The name remained.

Rivers of Gold p.216

Members of 'the thing'

The quote I posted last week intrigued me for its reference to 'the thing'. It just sounds so cool; kind of sci-fi. But the actual explanation is also fascinating:

The quote is from A History of Christian Missions by Stephen Neill (2nd ed. 1986; Penguin). It comes in the context of the spread of Christianity to Norway in the late 10th century, and the explanation of 'the thing' is as follows:

A thing referred at that time to a local assembly. Neill adds this footnote:

"This sense of the word is also found in Anglo-Saxon. The Oxford Dictionary gives as the meaning in Old Saxon 'assembly for judicial or deliberative purposes, conference, transaction, manner, affair, thing, object', a definition which is in itself a brief history of the process of development in language." (p.89)

!!