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and not merely a prosaic means of getting from one place to another?'' (Carter
1996 , p 295). Only from above is the path 'planarised' into a flowing line. Yet
while the dotted line on the topographic map may well position the location of a
track, it reveals few of these experiential qualities. How then might movement,
rather than its site, be imaged in a map?
4 Temporal Maps
The links between journey and cartographic trace can be clearly seen in many
early maps, including the earliest European maps of New Zealand (Maling 1996 ,
p 31). While their purpose is to describe Abel Tasman's discoveries of 1642, one
senses in the irregular dotted line of his route that the coastlines discovered are
almost arbitrary adjuncts to his journey. The size of interval between consecutive
dates and his zigzagged and occasionally criss-crossing course describes the
manner of his travel as much as reveals his route. Maps drawn by indigenous
peoples during these periods of encounter with European explorers and settlers
elicit similar qualities (see for example Harley 1992 ; Turnbull and Watson 1993 ;
Aberley 1993 and Edney 1999 ).
In Fig. 3 this relationship is made clear. This map, redrawn and published in
1894, is a 'Sketch of the Middle Island of New Zealand'. Rather than portray the
spatial arrangement of the island, its configuration describes patterns of movement
around the coast. Stretches of the coastline expand or contract according to the
degree of activity in an area. Hence areas with little safe harbour are collapsed
spatially, while areas with more settlement, resources and activity are rendered
more substantially. The island itself is drawn long and very thin. This accentuates
the importance of the coastline while features including harbours, reefs, tidal
zones, rivers and settlements are recorded for their role as waypoints when
following different routes.
When compared with the spatially accurate representation of the same area, the
map is unrecognizable (added in black on the lower left of Fig. 3 ). Yet, this
cartogram-like representation offers an innovative method of evocatively
describing the ways by which the land was inhabited at the time. Turnbull states
such maps operate by ''conserving connectivity between the parts but distorting
distance, angles and, hence, shape'' ( 1993 , p 19). Indeed, this map can be read not
as an amalgam of form but as the congealing of many journeys. Dimensioned by
the directions and time taken to travel, it images landscape as fundamentally
temporal and ongoing.
A further quality is the map's composite nature. It is not the record of a single
journey of survey or the result of steadfast adherence to a set of standards. Instead,
the map is the accumulation of multiple descriptions that have been passed on, not
through earlier maps, but in iterative conversational exchanges. Such exchanges
were necessarily improvised, transient and timely; the resulting cartographic
description presents a knowing of the land that is ever-evolving rather than
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