“Las Sergas de Esplandian” (The Deeds of Esplandian) was written sometime around 1498 by Garci Ordonez de Montalvo as an additional 5th chapter to his Spanish translation of the Portugeuse “Amadis de Gaula” a very popular book of chivalric deeds written by Vasco de Lobeira around 1400.
Esplandian was the son of Amadis and they were assisting the Byzantine Emperor at the siege of Constantinople. Fighting beside the Turks was a band of Amazons, led by their queen, Calafia. They were from an island of bold rocks and crags located on “the right hand of the Indies.” Their island abounded in gold " no other metals being found there". When her early attack failed (the Turks suffered some friendly fire causualties from the Amazons’ griffins), Calafia and another Turkish champion challenged Amadis and Esplandian to a duel. Esplandian won his match against the other champion but Amadis was too chivalrous to draw his sword against Calafia. He did, however, knock her out with the butt end of her spear. She soon recovered, fell in love with Esplandian’s cousin (Esplandian was already engaged to the Emperor’s daughter), became a Christian, got married, and the female only gender bias on Calafia’s island was broken. This was hot stuff in the 1500’s and any of the conquistadors who could read would have been familiar with the story.
(However, in the “History of Don Quixote” (1605), the village barber and curate decide that Don’s problem was that he read too many “unholy books of misventures”. The first book that they threw on the fire was “Las Sergas de Esplandian”.)
So when the Spanish sailed over to southern Baja California, found the bold and rocky crags, the pearl beds and rumors of gold, the thoughts of Calafia’s island came to them.
There is a problem with this theory. A subtle literary reference was not the standard operating procedure for naming places among the conquistadors. Usually the names were more like (in Spanish) Miry Place, Cape Disappointment, Get Out If You Can, New Year’s Island and, the old standby, whichever saint’s feast day it was. However, “Calafia’s Island” is the standard expected explanation for the name now.
I always like the “calida fornax” (= Latin for hot furnace)or one of its Spanish derivatives explanation but this is out of favor now. Supposedly in 16th century Catalan, “californa” meant “hot oven”, an excellent description of southern Baja in the summer time. However my 16th century Catalan style manual says that the word order should be inverted. That is, not “californo” but “fornicalia”. Has a nice ring to it.
