13-14)Ĭhristopher Columbus’ contact with the New World exposed Europeans to hammocks for the first time. Oviedo even observed a warehouse-like place with an abundance of hammocks, implying that they were a desired commodity. Their writings describe them as made of cotton and a standard widely-used household item. Many early explorers described the use of the cotton hammock including Columbus in 1492, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo in 1542, and Sir Walter Ralegh in 1598. Then another group, the Caribs, brought the cotton hammock to the Lesser Antilles. The sub-Caribbean group of the Arawak, the Taíno, adapted the concept with the use of cotton. Although uncertain, scholars, such as Sven Loven, think the Arawak were the first to develop the hammock, weaving them from cassava, bark, agave, or bast fiber. Its origin of tropical fibers from humid environments mitigated against its survival as an artifact in the archaeological record. The date and location of the development of the hammock within in the New World is unclear. From a master's thesis (reference below) on the use of hammocks and the origin of hammocks used on board ship, predominantly wind-driven sailing ships, come the following paragraphs: Since many of my mates really are sailors, it's worth delving a little deeper into the origins and history of this curious word. In the course of the seventeenth century its use spread to the navies of Western Europe, and eventually it was given the same name as the Caribbean hammock of netting which came to Europe when Columbus returned. The medieval canvas hammock may have been an English invention which was not known on the continent when Columbus made his voyage. It may be significant that in the first official mention of hammocks in the Royal Navy of 1597 they are not referred to under that name, but as 'hanging cabbons or beddes'. The Dutch historian of technology André Sleeswyk argues that it may have been this English type that eventually spread through the European navies despite the word hammock later being adopted from the Americas: Like the earliest known naval specimen the fabric is canvas, not the netting the Spanish later encountered in the New World. The sling now ends in two rope beckets that anticipate the rings of the naval hammock. ![]() The hammock reappears in unequivocal form in another medieval English source, the Luttrell Psalter (dated to c. 1330), where it has developed to a regular hanging bed. Hamaka was meaningfully transformed into modern German Hängematte, Swedish Hängmatta and Dutch Hangmat, and calqued from Swedish into Finnish riippumatto (all literally hanging mat). Samuel Johnson claimed that it was of Saxon origin, but his etymology was soon debunked. The Amerindian origin of the word was often obscured in English-language sources from the late 18th century onward. ![]() ![]() The word hammock comes, via Spanish, from a Taíno culture Arawakan word meaning "stretch of cloth" from the Arawak root -maka. But, historically, just what is a "hammock", and where did the word come from? With somer a-comin' - though spryng has barely sprung, at least not in these parts - it's time to drag out our dusty, trusty hammocks and hang them between two trees. If I were a cruciverbalist, I might use that as a clue for "hammock", though it didn't turn up here:
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