18.8.04

Cabo Mabo

Have been searching for other early references to Cape Mabo, so far without success. The word does not appear to be Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch or French. Dampier, who says the name was Dutch usage, was following charts laid down by Abel Tasman. Tasman made two voyages through the northern Australia-New Guinea area, one in 1642-3 (when he 'discovered' Aotearoa), which took him, on his way back from Tonga to Batavia, along the north coast of New Guinea, and another the following year, when, coming from the west to seek a way through to the Pacific, he assiduously mapped the coast of northern Australia from the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria as far as Port Hedland, without, however, sailing through Torres Strait or perhaps even realising the passage was there. If he originated the name Cape Mabo, it was likely that he did so on his first voyage, since it appears to be (or to have been) on the western extremity of the north coast of New Guinea. Andrew Sharp's 1968 edition of the Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman apparently includes a detailed concordance of Tasman's place names; but both copies are presently out of the library. Like this blog, my search is frozen or at least on hold.

1 comment:

mark young said...

"Richard Rowney Connell, in Masonic Stones, a wonderful little essay, claims that Mabo Mabona was a name of a Celtic Goddess, and the true Lost Word."