What’s in a name? Indigenous Knowledge and Ways of Making Sense of the World
Skicinuwihkuk (in or on Native land) in Skicinuwatuwewakon (the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet language), by Jordan Engel and Robert Leavitt. Courtesy of Decolonial Atlas Project. Decolonial Media License 0.1.
In Nuremberg, Germany in 1524,[1] a detailed map was printed that showed the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was published along with the letters of Hernán Cortés, the Spanish invader who, in 1519 had entered Mexico and whose imperial campaign resulted in the rather swift decimation of the Aztec Kingdom. The map, deemed fantastical at the time, shows a large, almost circular body of water—a lake—at the centre of which was situated a densely built city made of stone. There were numerous canals, hanging gardens and aqueducts bringing fresh water to the city and a fortified central square. Several broad main roads emanated outwards from the central square towards the island’s shore. Wooden bridges connected the island with the mainland. Numerous turreted suburbs hugged the shoreline.
By all accounts—and there were a number at the time of Spanish arrival—Tenochtitlan was a place of wonder. The Spanish chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo was so struck by the astonishing beauty of the city and the power of the civilization it represented that he acknowledged the likelihood of its destruction, the necessity of a type of consecration.
But while the staggering consequences of the Spanish invasion of Mexico deserve consistent and critical consideration, what is significant about the Nuremberg map is that while it was acclaimed as being the product of European observation, it was largely based on an Indigenous image—picture writing as it has been called—depicting the lake city of Tenochtitlan and the surrounding lands. Its publication, as historian Barbara Mundy argues, “assumed a symbolic function supporting Cortés’ (and thereby Spain’s) just conquest of the Amerindian empire.”
As in so many instances in the history of contact between European and Indigenous peoples, Indigenous knowledge was often used, taken and reconfigured to the point of seeming disappearance to become part of western historical narratives of erstwhile progress. Indeed, while the entwined operations of the denial and appropriation of Indigenous knowledge by Europeans can be explained by way of colonial presumptions and claims of cultural superiority, in truth, the operations of European imperialism and settlement was about “land theft” in the words of cartographer Jordan Engel, and the systematic suppression, if not erasure, of Indigenous knowledge systems.
Nayanno-nibiimaang Gichigamiin (The Great Lakes) in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), by Charles Lippert and Jordan Engel. Courtesy of Decolonial Atlas Project. Decolonial Media License 0.1.
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Writing in 2017, Engel, a member of the Decolonial Atlas Project, cited the work of the late Bernard Nietschmann, a geographer and activist who wrote extensively about the effects of European colonization on Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island (North America). Citing Nietschmann, Engel noted that colonization usually commences with the surveying and mapping of land:
“Colonial powers, without the consent of Indigenous peoples, draw up political borders that, more often than not, do not reflect any real natural or cultural boundaries. They are imaginary lines that are superimposed on the land by people who have little knowledge of the land. These people then proceed to populate their maps with names for rivers, mountains, and towns—names that are invented specifically for this purpose. [2]”
In discussing the ways that European cartographic practices were tied to ideologies of dominion, Engel asks that people consider taking on the work of decolonizing culturally biased maps. By aiding in the restoration of Indigenous place names and the thought systems in which the realities of the land are translated into spatial knowledge, an ethics of co-existence can be mapped. It is a compelling call for all peoples who, mindful of vulnerable ecosystems and the deleterious effects of industrial capitalism, share in the desire to dismantle the systems and artifacts of power and remake the world.
To this end, the Decolonial Atlas Project seeks to change dominant thinking about the ways that modern European cartography (as an essential piece of the imperial-enlightenment modernist project from the 17th century onwards) has been deadly to Indigenous peoples, languages and cultures. Not only does the project invite Indigenous peoples from around the world to share their knowledges of places—“new maps, in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), Gaeilge (Irish), Hinono’eitiit (Arapaho), Kanien’kéha (Mohawk), Lakȟótiyapi (Lakota), Māori (Maori), Meshkwahkihaki (Fox), Myaamia (Miami-Illinois), Nāhuatlahtōlli (Nahuatl), ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian), Runa Simi (Quechua), Tamaziɣt (Berber), Tsoyaha (Yuchi), and more”—encourage the protection and revival of Indigenous languages and share Indigenous thought systems with settlers.[3]
That the government of the United States removed the name of Mount McKinley in Alaska in order that the mountain be known by its Indigenous name of Denali, or that the Australian sacred site formerly known as Ayers Rock can once again be known as Uluru suggests that the informing legacies of colonial place-making are starting to be confronted. Perhaps one day, the authorship and cosmological implications of the map picture of the lost city of Tenochtitlan will be rightly honoured.
[1] Barbara E. Mundy, “Mapping the Aztec capital: The 1524 Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlan, its sources and meanings,” Imago Mundi 50, no. 1 (1998): 11-33.
[2] Jordan Engel, “Decolonial Mapmaking: Reclaiming Indigenous Places and Knowledge.” Langscape Magazine 4, no. 2, (November 2017), https://medium.com/langscape-magazine/decolonial-mapmaking-reclaiming-indigenous-places-and-knowledge-4779b7f8b81c.
[3] The Decolonial Atlas (blog), https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/about/.
This article was published in the Fall / Winter 2020 issue of Studio Magazine
