Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa
Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa
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热带非洲的土著制图
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发表时间：
2011
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Bassett
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作者：
Thomas;Bassett
自从1910年布鲁诺·阿德勒对非西方制图传统进行开创性的调查以来，我们对非洲地图绘制的了解有了很大的提高。北非的地图绘制尤其如此，它起源于古埃及文明和伊斯兰文化。然而，我们对撒哈拉以南地区地图绘制的了解仍然相对薄弱(见图8)。3.1非洲参考地图)。史学研究尤其匮乏。当非洲地图确实受到关注时，焦点几乎完全集中在欧洲大陆的地图上。对非洲土著地图绘制缺乏研究的原因可能是一些因素共同使土著制图记录边缘化。首先是一种种族中心主义和贬义的观点，即非洲人不像欧洲人那样具有绘制地图的认知能力。这是阿德勒的观点，他写道：“我们更惊讶的是，考虑到黑人精致的木雕和金属雕刻，他们画得并不好……这种制图能力的缺乏使我们认为他们的智力不如他们敏锐的视觉、听觉和嗅觉。”4尽管越来越明显，类似的假设往往一直持续到最近。本章试图通过提请注意非洲人民如何绘制他们的世界来绘制一条不那么以欧洲为中心的路线。尽管如此，刻意强调图形表现本身就是一种西方偏见。本土地图制作没有得到应有的学术关注的另一个原因是殖民时期欧洲地图制作传统转移到非洲。大都市和殖民地国家、专业协会和商业地图制作者制作了地图，以帮助殖民和随后对被征服的土地和人民的控制。欧洲地图对非洲本土地图的包容有助于解释为什么本章所示的符号系统未能发展和传播到当地环境之外。史学贫乏背后的第三个因素是，“地图”的有限定义将一系列过程和人工制品排除在严肃研究之外。即使
Our knowledge of African mapmaking has substantially improved since Bruno Adler's seminal survey of nonWestern cartographic traditions in 1910. This is particularly true for North African mapmaking, which emerged out of ancient Egyptian civilizations and Islamic cultures. However, our understanding of sub-Saharan mapmaking remains comparatively weak (see fig. 3.1 for a reference map of Africa). The historiography is particularly scanty. When maps of Africa do receive attention, the focus is almost exclusively on European maps of the continent. The dearth of studies of indigenous African mapmaking may be explained by a number of factors that have collectively served to marginalize the indigenous cartographic record. First is the ethnocentric and pejorative view that Africans did not have the cognitive ability to make maps the same way Europeans did. This was Adler's perspective when he wrote, "We are all the more surprised that the Negroes do not draw well considering the delicate wood and metal carvings of which they are capable.... This lack of cartographic abilities leads us to impute that they have less intelligence than they do sharp eyesight, hearing, and a sense of smell." 4 Though decreasingly explicit, similar assumptions tend to have persisted until fairly recently. This chapter seeks to chart a less Eurocentric course by drawing attention to how African peoples have mapped their worlds. Even so, the deliberate emphasis placed on graphic representations is in itself a Western bias.s Another reason indigenous mapmaking has not received the scholarly attention it deserves is the transfer of European mapmaking traditions to Africa during the colonial period. Metropolitan and colonial states, professional societies, and commercial mapmakers produced maps to aid in the colonization and subsequent control of conquered lands and peoples. The subsuming of indigenous African mapmaking by European maps helps to explain why the sign systems illustrated in this chapter failed to develop and spread beyond their local settings. A third factor behind the meager historiography is that restricted definitions of "map" have excluded a range of processes and artifacts from serious study. Even if