Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
nia are singularly interesting because they explicitly reveal the ideological interests of
the maps and provide the texts for particular readings of them.
12
Imperial Mapping
Thequestionsposedbymapswentwellbeyondwhethertheywere“good”or“bad,”“ac-
curate”or“false”;themeaningliesbehindtheirvirtueorprecisionorlackofthereof.As
rhetorical devices,mapstookauthorityfrombeing“scientific” ratherthansimplydecor-
ation or propaganda, but the technical means of producing the map, whether through ce-
lestial orientation, traverse surveys, or copying, did not leach political content and dom-
ination from the acts of representation. Maps ratified claims, whether or not locals had
any idea about these assertions of dominion, as with the partition of the New World by
the Tordesillas Line or the maps used by European states for the Scramble for Africa,
or, for that matter, for the terrains of North America. Geographical gerrymandering em-
bodiedaccidentsofdiscovery,ceremonialandcommercialassertionsofsovereignty,and
imagined territorial futures.
Shoreline areas and views from the rivers would almost by definition be best known,
since ship pilots were the practical mapmakers of the day. Field cartographers were
mostly “aquatic creatures,” so it is not surprising that interior spaces of continents were
ciphers marked by mythic toponyms that acted as placeholders for arenas of future con-
quest. Such toponyms might indicate indigenous populations (Land of the Chunchos) or
resources (El Dorado). It was symbolically and politically less provocative in imperial
matters to situate oneself next to the “Land of the Amazons” than in “possible Spanish
territories.”Forbiddingsnakessurroundingthemaps(or,alternatively,crownedheadsof
Europe implicitly claiming “the Map”) and drawings of naked savages enjoying human
barbecues on inland spaces became cartographic clichés among the map copyists. The
threats implied by the maps were the first lines of defense against incursions when the
areas were vast, knowledge minimal, and militaries sparse. But maps were also used as
seductions: Esmeraldas, El Dorado, the Amazons themselves were useful ways to lure
adventurers and imperial freelancers to test the reality against the chimeras of fables and
rumor.
At the level of the state, the great South American interior was a vast obscurity where
myth, chronicle, and theory were easily conflated. As da Cunha put it, “what we know
ofthe
sertões
islittlemorethanitsrebarbativeetiology,
desertus
.. . .Likemedievalcar-
tographersidealizing portentousAfrica,wecouldeasilyinscribeonlargeswathesofour
mapsourownsearingignoranceanddread:
HicLeones
.. . .Ourowngeographyremains
an unwritten text.”
13
“Mistakes,” too, had their logic, as the inventively mapped Tordesillas Line relent-
lessly moved to the west for hundreds of years on Brazil's maps of its interior, effect-
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