🍌 "It Was Always Bananas to Call Japan Zipangu..." – The Smoking Quill
Behaim’s “Pisang” (banana) silences the myth once and for all.

The mention of banana trees in Cipangu disqualifies Japan instantly — they didn’t grow there in Marco Polo’s day. But in the Philippines? Pisang (banana) is native, abundant, and part of everyday life.

Japan was never a Land of Gold in Solomon’s time — its own historians confirm that. It fails Polo’s description in nearly every category:

• ❌ Lacks most key resources Polo lists

• ❌ Too far from China and Vietnam (3,000+ nautical miles instead of the required 1,500)

• ❌ Has 190% more islands than the "7,448" estimate (Japan: 14,125+ vs. Philippines: 7,641)

• ❌ No ancient banana cultivation

Meanwhile, the Philippines — especially Luzon — matches Polo’s resource list, geography, distance, island count, and agriculture.

So yes... claiming Japan was Zipangu was always bananas.

🪶 THE SMOKING QUILL | June 20, 2025

Bananas, Behaim & Behold — Zipangu Was Never Japan

🍌 The French Edition That Accidentally Exposed the Truth

In 1801, French editors released a new edition of Premier Voyage autour du Monde (p. 61 origin), translating accounts of Pigafetta and incorporating commentary on the Magellan voyage, Martin Behaim’s globe, and early Portuguese navigation. We will cite a historic publishing from 1802 noting this as well. Tucked in this scholarly prologue lies a devastating truth — one the editors themselves never fully grasped:

“...on en doit lire à l’Isle Cipangu: il y a de l’or et des arbres de Pisang.”
("...one should read on the island of Cipangu: there is gold and banana (Pisang) trees.”)

Wait — banana trees?

That’s right. And just like that, Japan is eliminated as Marco Polo’s legendary “Zipangu.” Because bananas didn’t grow in 13th-century Japan — but they thrived in one place Marco Polo’s sources knew well:

🇵🇭 The Philippines.

Even if the term were figs, they are not native to Japan either, but to the Philippines.

🧭 Let’s Break Down the Evidence

This isn’t just about fruit. It’s about how a forgotten annotation in a French translation reveals the geographical and botanical failure of the Japan = Zipangu narrative.

🔍 1. Gold + Banana Trees = Luzon

• Gold: Luzon is historically consistent with gold production, especially in areas like Paracale, which was known to Chinese and Arab traders long before the Spanish arrived.

• Banana trees (Pisang): The annotation reads: “il y a de l’or et des arbres de Pisang” — “there is gold and banana trees.” The term pisang is both Tagalog and Malay for banana — indigenous to the Philippines and Maritime Southeast Asia. This is from the 1492 Behaim Globe inscription the 1801 translator of Pigafetta's Journal is noting. It does not originate in that Journal but in his footnotes defining Behaim used the word Pisang which was mistranslated as figs by many. Pisang is indeed banana but either way, figs are not endemic to Japan or Ryukyu either but to the Philippines.

• 🔤 Etymological Note: Some argue Tagalog borrowed pisang from Malay due to colonial transmission. But this is backward logic — 13th-century trade and migration patterns had already saturated the northern Philippines with shared Austronesian linguistic roots. Polo’s record predates European contact with the Malay world.

• There’s more. In Tagalog, “pisâ” means crushed or hatched — tied to life, emergence, and agriculture. The ligature “ng” forms pisang, just like in Pison, the river surrounding the Biblical land of Havilah (Genesis 2).

• 🍌 Could it be coincidence that the “Land of Gold” is also named for its most fertile produce — the banana?

Only North Luzon fits the bill:

• Zipangu is described as a large island, not a mainland.

• Located southeast of China at ~1,500 nautical miles.Also ~1,500 nautical miles from South Vietnam (champā).

• The only landmass that fits both markers is the Philippines, never Japan.

✅ Tropical, gold-rich, Austronesian-speaking, banana-bearing — that’s Luzon.

• 🚫 Japan’s Problems:

• ❌ Subtropical, not tropical.

• ❌ No banana cultivation or consumption in Polo’s time.

• ❌ Doesn’t match Behaim’s 8°–30° N Zipangu placement.

• ❌ No Malay linguistic or cultural influence in 13th-century Japan.

• ❌ Lacks alignment with Polo’s distance, wealth, and trade data.

The only banana's in the conclusion Japan was Zipangu, is the theory itself!

📜 So Why Didn’t They Say “Philippines”?

Because the Philippines weren’t yet called that in Marco Polo’s time. They were:

• Chryse, Maniola, Sabadibae, Argye, Aurea (by Ptolemy, Mela, Pliny the Elder,  and many others for thousands of years) [Read our Books]

• Lequios (by the Portuguese and Spanish) [Read our Lequios Blogs]

• Zipangu / Cipangu (in Polo’s retelling, and Behaim's mapping as well as many others) [Read the Zipangu Chapter of Garden of Eden Revealed: The Book of Maps]

• Ophir, Aurea, Uphaz, Zipangu, Paradise, and Tarshish (by Columbus and Magellan) [Read the Our Chapter in Garden of Eden Revealed: The Book of Maps]

In other words: same place, different names, which should be no surprise for an archipelago rich in gold and every resource fitting all these designations on its 7,000 islands.

🧠 The Banana Test: When Academia Trips Over Itself

(No peel required)

The French editor never questioned it:

“Cipangu = Japan. It says so on the globe.”

Yet he wrote that Cipangu had banana trees and gold — two clear markers of the Philippines, not Japan. Oh, and you see the globe above, Behaim says Cipangu = Philippines with NO coordinates, not even 1 degree matching that of Japan's big island while fully encompassing Luzon and most of the Philippines from as far South as Mindanao. That is not cartography, it is gross negligence demonstrating an inability to read a map. It's just plain bananas.

In trying to bolster the traditional claim, he dismantled it. And no, bananas are not endemic to Ryukyu either which, in that era, is claimed as Japan selectively, out of 2 different sides of the same mouths.

🔥 Smoking Quill Verdict:

Zipangu was never Japan. Behaim knew it.
Pigafetta knew it.
Magellan sailed to it.
Polo described it.
The French accidentally confirmed it.

And now… the maps, the plants, and the coordinates finally speak:

📍 Zipangu = Luzon, Philippines.

Let the record say it — in banana leaves and gold.

📜 Sources:

• Murr, Christoph Gottlieb von. Histoire diplomatique du chevalier portugais Martin Behaim de Nuremberg; avec la description de son globe terrestre (1802).. p. 3.

• Premier Voyage autour du Monde (p. 61 origin). Later  manipulated translation of Pigafetta by Chez H. J. Jansen. He argues figs are bananas as the word is Pisang. Either way, this is not Japan!

• Behaim Globe (1492)

📚 Clarified Source Attribution

The reference to Pisang trees on the island of Cipangu appears in:

Murr, Christoph Gottlieb von.
Histoire diplomatique du chevalier portugais Martin Behaim de Nuremberg; avec la description de son globe terrestre (1802), p. 3.

This work references the French edition of Pigafetta's Premier Voyage autour du Monde (1801), translated and published by Chez H. J. Jansen, which includes a manipulated interpretation of Marco Polo’s account. However, this is not from Pigafetta, but Jansen's notation about Behaim's Globe.

In it, Murr addresses a significant note: that Cipangu—often misread as Japan—was described as containing “gold and Pisang trees” citing Jansen regarding the inscription on Cipangu on Behaim's Globe. Pisang, of course, is not just a general term for banana in Malay and Tagalog—it is a botanical clue that locates Zipangu in Maritime Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines.

Even if we were to entertain the misrendering of Pisang as “fig,” it still fails Japan. Ficus minahassae, among others, is endemic to the Philippines—not Japan. Either interpretation, banana or fig, further disqualifies Japan as Zipangu, strengthening the Luzon case.

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