Mocha Island

Coordinates: 38°21′54″S 73°54′54″W / 38.36500°S 73.91500°W / -38.36500; -73.91500
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Isla Mocha
)

Mocha Island
Native name:
Isla Mocha
Chileans, Mapuches

Mocha Island (Spanish: Isla Mocha

Mapuche mythology
, the souls of dead people travel west to visit this island.

The Pacific degu (Octodon pacificus), also known as the Mocha Island degu, a species of rodent in the family Octodontidae, is endemic to Mocha Island. The waters off the island are a popular place for recreational sea fishing.

Geology

Geologically, the island is made of sedimentary rock stratum of Ranquil Formation, a formation whose main outcrops lie in the continent.[1] The island was permanently uplifted as result of the 2010 Chile earthquake but this uplift was less than in the adjacent coast where Tirúa had the largest uplift of all the coast.[2] The existence of a splay fault called Tirúa-Mocha Fault may explain the different behaviour of Mocha Island relative to the mainland during this earthquake.[2]

History

Depiction of Isla Mocha during an incursion by a Dutch pirate fleet in 1616. From the book that narrates the adventures of Dutch pirate Joris van Spilbergen.

The island was historically inhabited by an indigenous coastal population of Mapuches known as the Lafkenches. The first European to document Mocha was Juan Bautista Pastene on September 10, 1544, who named it Isla de San Nicolas de Tolentino.

According to Juan Ignacio Molina, the Dutch captain Joris van Spilbergen observed the use of chilihueques (a South American camelid) by native Mapuches of Mocha Island as plough animals in 1614.[3]

Mocha Island was regularly visited by

Bio Bio River called the Valley of Mocha that later became the location of the modern city of Concepción, Chile
.

The waters off the island were inhabited by

Jeremiah N. Reynolds in his published account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" in May, 1839 in The Knickerbocker magazine in New York.[4] Mocha Dick was one of the inspirations for the fictional whale Moby Dick in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.[5]

Carahue coastal area with Mocha Island in the distance

Polynesian contact

In December 2007 several human skulls with Polynesian features, such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, were found lying on a shelf in a museum in Concepción. These skulls originated from Mocha Island.[6]

References

  1. ^ García A., Floreal (1968). Ceccioni, Giovanni (ed.). El Terciario de Chile Zona Central (in Spanish). Santiago de Chile: Ediorial Andrés Bello. pp. 25–57.
  2. ^
    hdl:11336/128966
    .
  3. ^ The Geographical, Natural and Civil History of Chili, Pages 15 and 16, Volume II
  4. ^ J. N. Reynolds. "Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal," The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine. Vol. 13, No. 5, May 1839, pp. 377–392.
  5. ISBN 0-375-40314-0
  6. PMID 20538927
    .

Sources

External links

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