Lake Parime

Lake Parime is a legendary lake located in South America. It was believed that on its shores was located the city of Manõa or El Dorado. The lake was searched for by several explores such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Alexander von Humboldt. The lake was printed on maps in the 17th century up until the 19th century. It was believed to be somewhere in Guiana for several years. Then later cartographers like Robert Schonburg and Van Huevel moved the lake more to the southeast of the Orinoco River and north of the Amazon river, often being situated south of the mountains that border Venezuela, Guiana, and Brazil. However explorers were unable to find the magical and mythical lake, and so they declared the lake as being imaginary.

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The Nhamini-wi and the Lake of Milk

The Tukano and Piratapuias tribes of the upper Negro River tell a story of the Nhamini-wi. The Nhamini-wi was a pre-Columbian road that traveled from the mountains in the west where the house of the night was located. The trail began at axpeko-dixtara, or the lake of milk in the east. Explorer and artist Roland Stevenson found ruins north of the Negro River in the Uaupés basin that are believed to be the remnants of the Nhamini-wi.

Stevenson followed the vestiges of the extinct pre-Columbian road eastward to find the lake at its beginning and ended up in Roraima, Brazil, in the plains of Boa Vista. Upon examining the region Brazilian geologists Gert Woeltje and Frederico Guimarães Cruz along with Roland Stevenson found that on all the surrounding hillsides a horizontal line appears at a uniform level approximately 120 metres (390 ft) above sea level. This line registers the water level of an extinct lake which existed until relatively recent times. Researchers who studied it found that about 700 years ago this giant lake began to drain due to tectonic movement and slowly over the centuries dried up.

Foreign explorers who have come to the plains of Roraima to explore the area with Stevenson have included the Paititi investigator Gregory Deyermenjian, who in 1997 documented Stevenson's finds, and the likely correctness of Stevenson's conclusions concerning the pre-history of the region, in expedition reports filed at the Explorers Club headquarters in New York City.

The lake's previous diameter measured 400 kilometres (250 mi) and its area 80,000 square kilometres (31,000 sq mi). It is believed by many modern searchers of El Dorado that the plains of Boa Vista may be the location of Lake Parime. Though due to the drainage it was not found, and therefore considered a myth.

Reports of Looting

In a recent interview, Ronald Stevenson talked about the "El Dorado" discovery[1]:

When the archaeologist Gregory Deyermenjian made the publications in the U.S. about the discovery of the lake, we had a tremendous surprise that there was an international campaign against our research, because these newspapers were summoned and threatened not to support our work by the Royal Geographic Society of England. We have the fax sent by the director Mr. John Hemming, or he no longer collaborate with them, and discredit them. He spoke barbarities slanderous about me.
The case dates back to 1987, when I announced the possible discovery of Manoa, probably indicating that the legendary El Dorado would be located west of Lake (...), where today stands the island Maraca. A month after my announcement, the Maraca island was closed for "environment research" by the Royal Geographic Society in partnership with the INPA (National Institute for Amazonian Research). Curiously, only the British could enter the island. Brazilians were allowed to search only the carved from the tip of the island. There was brazilian "guards" of course, but control was ridiculous with so many Britishes, more than 200 (...).
After investigating the movement of the island and hear the police guard of Maraca River, known as "Amazon". His true name is Walquimar Felix de Souza, who reported that the British took tons and tons of material tightly packed, flown to British Guyana and then to England. There are also witnesses of the numerous boxes that always awaited boarding at the airport in Boa Vista (Roraima State in Brazil). Even when there was intent to inspect them, the Foreign Ministry (known as Itamaraty) objected to the examination.
Asking the watchman of the island on the contents of the boxes, he expressed ignoring it, but figured it would be gold for overweight them, as many people needed to carry them and taking great care in shipping because they were delicate things. (...)
INPA later claimed that it was ground for analysis in England. But many tonnes in a year? And delicate?
The INPA also clarified that the charges would be stuffed animals. But like so many tons? So it is the largest slaughter of the century, fleeing the rule of preservation. They also contain herbal dissected and insects, but insects and leaves never seen so heavy!
Faced with so much ingenuity, I decided to report in the British newspapers, especially the fact that its director John Hemming was not a naturalist but a historian. (...) At the time I made the complaint, revealing everything in the newspapers, the 200 britishes disappeared from the map, leaving Brazil, perhaps thinking that the authorities would take some action, but nothing happened. And I was not sued for libel, as even issued.

References

  1. ^ From Brazilian blog: "Arqueologia Americana" (American Archeology), at http://www.arqueologiamericana.com.br/artigos/artigo_01.htm, August 2008.

Maps

References