Fantastic Metropolis

Miller goes on to make a very sane and rational argument that apes in the above statement is in fact referring to the word apisk, apess, tapisco which in various Algonquin dialect means “metal” and is referring to the copper mines dug by enslaved Roanoke colonists. He argues that the colonists were enslaved by a native tribe known as Mandoag and that after a time, that they mixed with the native tribes and hired themselves out for copper strikes. To quote: “__Mandoag__ is a name commonly applied by Algonquins to enemy nations. Before 1870 the only other known linguistic group in North Carolina was Iroquoian: therefore the Mandoag were declared to be an Iroquoian-speaking people. This classification held despite later evidence that revealed that most of the nations of the Piedmont spoke Siouan, a very different language.” So, if the Mandoag weren’t Algonquin, and they weren’t Iroquois, who were they?

Perhaps they were the descendants of the Magi, taken in by their co-religionists in the enclosed paradise. Imagine that the School of Night is looking down the barrel of Spanish Imperial power. Each of them has reasons to fear a Spanish government of their island… as mages of a stripe, they can all look forward to the fiery death Bruno was to receive at the hands of the Inquisition, after all. Add into the mix Raleigh’s on again off again love affair with Elizabeth and Spenser’s own adoration of Belphoebe, Gloriana the Queen, and the idea of Phillip II’s Manichean empire as personified by torturers and diasporas getting a claw into Britannia becomes beyond intolerable, it becomes a personal affront. And so each member of the School sets into motion his own plan for thwarting it. Drake, for one, decides to do so via piracy, but this is at once too mundane and too direct for Raleigh. Instead, enlisting Spenser’s aid, Raleigh has himself, Elizabeth and England herself woven into The Faerie Queen and draws upon the mythical power of Avalon, possibly out of recognition that Spanish mages are working against him (as they did his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert) and seeking a counterbalance against them. So shielded by their magics, Raleigh sends his mathematician Hariot to work out the formula for the right settlement in the New World, learn the tongues of the natives, make contact with the right tribes. And Hariot does, making contact with the Powhatan and the Croatan… and the Mandoag, the descendants of the Magi. Greedy for copper, the Mandoag agree to help Raleigh make contact with powerful spirits who can counteract the Spanish, but they want something themselves. They want slaves to help them work the copper, their metal servitor, out of the earth. (And maybe they need someone to keep their apes company. After all, they traveled from Persia to the Americas, according to this theory, who is to say they didn’t bring some apes along? The image of a lost Persian city in the heart of Virginia patrolled by telepathically dominated apes just amuses the hell out of me. Very much a combination of William Burroughs and Edgar Rice Burroughs.)

All very encouraging, but what Lane wants to hear is far more specific. Hariot discloses it at last: “a hundred and fifty miles into the main, in two towns, we found with the inhabitants diverse small plates of copper that had been made, as we understand, by the inhabitants that dwell further into the country, where as they say are mountains and rivers that yield also white grains of metal, which is to be deemed silver… The aforesaid copper we also found by trial to contain silver.” Joachim Ganz confirms it. It is of exceedingly high grade. But who are these copper manufacturers who dwell further into the country? White’s map depicts a hilly land to the west, along the Roanoke River, identified by the name of Mangoak.

—Lee Miller, Roanoke