Maps give new view of world and cosmos

Purchased from a Koryak shaman in Siberia nearly 100 years ago, the coat of softened reindeer skin is decorated with what was long thought to be a random design of bleached-hide disks. Only recently has the covey of disks been assigned what may be its true meaning: a sky map representing the constellations familiar to the Koryak.

This remarkable coat — as well as stick charts from the Marshall Islands, a Lukasa memory board from the Congo and an arrangement of knotted strings left by the Inca — represents an indigenous view of place, the subject of the latest volume in the massive History of Cartography project.

“This volume opens up the question of maps in non-Western societies,” said David Woodward, a professor of geography and the co-editor of the multi-volume History of Cartography published by the University of Chicago Press.

“Here we have a whole volume about what many people wouldn’t think of as maps because they look so different from Western ways of representing the world,” Woodward said. “It is really overturning the whole idea of a map.”

Instead of the measured, geometric representation of the world embodied in Western maps, charts and globes, indigenous societies often transcend the scientific measurement of the earthly or cosmological through such things as dance, calendrical art, chants and mnemonic devices such as the Lukasa memory board, a configuration of beads and cowrie shells signifying the locations of lakes, trees, spirit capitals and migration routes.

Such “maps” have different forms and functions than the purely cartographic purposes of traditional Western maps, according to Woodward.

Frequently, indigenous cultures view the physical landscape and universe as much more than a passive backdrop for human affairs. For instance, like the Koryak dancing coat with its summer and winter star maps, traditional cartography has a strong connection with shamanism and mystical knowledge.

Another important difference, said Woodward, is that indigenous maps frequently measure distance in time rather than space. Thus, travel is charted as the number of days it takes to arrive at a destination rather than in miles or kilometers.

Like early Western maps, indigenous cartography has a tendency to place the well known prominently in the center, relegating the unfamiliar to the margins.

But there are some indigenous maps, noted Woodward, that have virtually nothing in common with Western concepts. Intriguing examples are the stick maps used only by the people of the Pacific Marshall Islands.

Made from coconut fronds lashed to an open frame, and using shells to denote islands, the maps were never carried on the great ocean-going canoes. Instead, they were simply consulted before a voyage or used to teach the principles of swell patterns, a navigational technique that can predict the presence of an island by noting changes in the regular ocean swells.

The common purpose of these indigenous cartographic devices — whether it be an Aztec codex, an Australian Aboriginal bark painting or a Marshall Islands stick chart — is to depict a people’s spatial knowledge of the world, said Woodward. But in addition, he said, they serve to remind us that there are other ways to view the world: “As soon as you go beyond the normal Western idea of a map — through a Koryak dancing coat or an Inca khipu — you get new insight and are able to see what rich forms of representation they truly are.”