Seven Cities of Gold (myth)

The Seven Cities of Gold is a myth that led to several expeditions by adventurers and conquistadors in the 16th century. It is also featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold could be found throughout the pueblos of the New Mexico Territory. The cities were Hawikuh, Halona, Matsaki, Kiakima, and Kwakina. While there have always been mentions of a seventh city, no evidence of a site has been found.

Origins of myth

In the 16th century, the Spaniards in New Spain (now Mexico) began to hear rumours of "Seven Cities of Gold" called "Cíbola" located across the desert, hundreds of miles to the north. The stories may have their root in an earlier Portuguese legend about seven cities founded on the island of Antillia by a Catholic expedition in the 8th century. The later Spanish tales were largely caused by reports given by the four shipwrecked survivors of the failed Narváez expedition, which included Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and an African slave named Esteban Dorantes, or Estevanico. Eventually returning to New Spain, the adventurers said they had heard stories from natives about cities with great and limitless riches. However, when Francisco Vázquez de Coronado conqueror finally arrived at Cíbola in 1540, he discovered that the stories were unfounded and that there were in fact no treasures as the friar had described — only adobe towns.

While among the towns, Coronado heard an additional rumor from a native he called "the Turk" that there was a city with plenty of gold called Quivira located on the other side of the great plains. However, when at last he reached this place (variously conjectured to be in modern Kansas, Nebraska or Missouri), he found little more than straw-thatched villages.

Seven Cities of Gold in popular culture

• The film O No Coronado by Craig Baldwin details Coronado's ill fated expedition, in the context of contemporary treatment of indigenous Americans and usage of their traditional lands.
• The 1982 cartoon-serial The Mysterious Cities of Gold and its 2012 sequel are inspired by the legend but add a science fiction twist: the cities were constructed by the empires of Mu and Atlantis.
• The 1984 video game The Seven Cities of Gold, dramatizing the Spanish conquest of the Americas, takes its name from this legend.
• In the turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Colonization (1994), scouting lost city rumors (tiles in the map) may result in finding one or more of the Seven Cities of Cibola, granting the player a treasure with a huge amount of gold.
• The Western genre game Gun centers on a land baron's search for Quivira in the 1880s.
• In Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo DS, players can find the Seven Cities of Gold. The player who finds the Seven Cities of Gold receives 200 to 350 gold pieces, depending on the era, to spend on building cities, military units, settlers (people that found new cities), or roads.
• The novel The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell, tells the story of one such (fictional) expedition through the eyes of a teenage cartographer.
• In the Stephen King book The Stand, Trashcan Man is instructed by Randall Flagg to meet him in Cibola, which is later revealed to be Las Vegas.
• Scrooge McDuck and his nephews discover the seven cities in the comic "The Seven Cities of Cibola" (Uncle Scrooge #7) by Carl Barks.
• Scott O'Dell's 1966 book The King's Fifth refers to seven cities of gold in the land of Cíbola.
  • The book in its turn inspired the 1980s Japanese/French animated children's series The Mysterious Cities of Gold.
• The Vertigo/DC comic book series Jack of Fables recently began a storyline called "Americana" which relates the efforts of Jack of the Tales in entering Cíbola (issue 17, January 8 cover date).
• Cíbola was discovered beneath Mount Rushmore in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, a 2007 film starring Nicolas Cage and Diane Kruger.
• David Moles' 2010 alternate history novella, Seven Cities of Gold, draws upon the legend of Cibola to set the stage for cultural and religious conflict.
• Edward Abbey's autobiographical recount of his summer as a park ranger at Arches National Park, Desert Solitaire, contains a reference to "seven modern cities of Cibola" including Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff.
• The quest for Cibola was in an episode of the U.S. television series Daniel Boone with Fess Parker.
• There is an arc in the Italian Western/science fiction comic Zagor about seven cities of gold which were abandoned and were remnants of an ancient highly developed civilization (Zagor #355-357, ITA/CRO: "Le sette città di Cibola" / "Sedam gradova Cibole").
• Fictional romance author Kristin Hannah wrote "The Enchantment" which is a story of the quest for the legendary lost city of Cibola in the late 1800s. (1992)
• Progressive rock band Rush released a song "Seven Cities of Gold" on album Clockwork Angels on June 12, 2012. The liner notes refer to Cíbola.
• The video game Uncharted: Golden Abyss uses Quivira (one of the Seven Cities of Gold) as a final destination for the quest. The game also gives an explanation why Marcos de Niza lied about the location of the cities even though he really did find them.
• The video game Europa Universalis IV has the El Dorado expansion which gives Western nations the ability to hunt for the Seven Cities of Gold in the New World.
• A mod for the game Mount & Blade Warband called Seven Golden Cities uses this myth.
• Cibola Burn is the fourth book in the science fiction novel series The Expanse by James S. A. Corey. The novel describes the flood of humanity out into the galaxy and the race for the newly accessible resources therein.

See also

• Cibola (disambiguation)
• City of the Caesars (Ciudad de los Césares)
• El Dorado
• Shambhala
• Shangdu
• Shangri-La
• Sierra de la Plata
• Quivira