Guineas

Trish started it.  She said she was reading a book I might enjoy, said the setting was New Guinea.  I'm no geography expert but vaguely recalled there being several colonies or countries called New Guinea.  I asked Trish, "What's with all the New Guineas?  And, why isn't there an Old Guinea?"  There had to be an old one, couldn't be new ones if there wasn't an old one.

I brought up the Guinea subject later, at Gary and Nancy's, with Terry and Lisa in attendance.  I said there was a Guinea in South America and that Devil's Island was part of it.  Devil's Island was an infamous French penal colony, the setting for the movie Papillon.  Gary agreed but ours was the minority opinion.  We were partially right: Devil's Island is indeed off the coast of South America but it was part of French Guiana, not Guinea.  It's now the independent country of Guyana.

French Guinea was the first colony to bear the Guinea name.  Located in West Africa, it is now the independent country of Guinea.  Other areas of Africa were claimed by other European countries and named Guinea, some with the 'New' prefix, some not: Dutch Guinea, German Guinea, Spanish New Guinea, Portuguese New Guinea, etc.  The British minted gold coins (from 1663 to 1814) that were called guineas because the gold came from the Guinea area of West Africa.

The setting in Trish's book is the island of New Guinea, which used to be called British New Guinea; it's located north of Australia.  One online source said there 13 different places named Guinea at one time or another.  Currently, there are four: Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea. Good grief!

My first ever exposure to the term 'guinea' was guinea hens.  My uncle had a few, very ugly, very noisy.  He also had geese, nasty buggers that chased me when I was a little kid.

PS: Papillon starred Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen and they did a great job of acting.