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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Spring 1984

Indian Maps Their Place In The History Of Plains Cartography

G. Malcolm Lewis University of Sheffield

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Lewis, G. Malcolm, "Indian Maps Their Place In The History Of Plains Cartography" (1984). Great Plains Quarterly. 1767. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1767

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. INDIAN MAPS THEIR PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF PLAINS CARTOGRAPHY

G. MALCOLM LEWIS

References to the maps and mapping activities and private collections of Europe as well as of North American Indians have appeared in North America and the problems of searching scholarly writings for approximately two hun­ through the vast literature and the large number dred years and in contemporary accounts of of dispersed archival collections in which ac­ discovery and exploration for more than four counts of the mapping activities of Indians are hundred years. 1 The topic has received rela­ occasionally to be found. tively little attention, however, from modern It would be possible to write on this topic scholars.2 In view of the recent expansion of with reference to any major region of North Indian studies in both and the United America, but areas within and immediately States, this lack may at first seem surprising. In adjacent to the Great Plains are particularly part it reflects the fact that there are relatively frequently represented on extant examples of few extant examples of Indian maps because Indian maps. While most of these date from the Indians and most whites have tended to treat nineteenth century, some are of eighteenth­ them as ephemera, not for the most part century origin, and the earliest (1602) of all worthy of preservation. In part it also reflects the extant examples of Indian maps from within both the geographical scatter of extant exam­ North America covers part of the southern ples through the libraries, museums, archives, Great Plains. North American Indians were in no sense unusual among the world's historic nonliterate C. Malcolm Lewis is a senior lecturer in geog­ peoples in making things which we call "maps" raphy at the University of Sheffield, England. A and which undoubtedly had many of the func­ specialist in geographical communication and tions we associate with maps. Mapmaking is a the history of geography, he has published arti­ universal trait~an aspect of pictographic com­ cles in such journals as Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Annals of the munication that, in Europe at least, probably Association of American Geographers, Carto­ originated in the Upper Paleolithic, perhaps as graphica, and The Map Collector. early as 20,000 B.P. Within nonliterate societies it probably did not have a clearly differentiated [GPQ 4 (Spring 1984): 91-108.] status until after contacts with whites in the

91 92 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 historic period. Throughout the world, white tions such as the contour of a mountain aliens solicited from native peoples geographical range or the course of a river. In various information about their terrae incognitae, and parts of the country, including the Plains, the response was frequently in map form. This Indians of the historic period not infre­ quently drew maps on material other than experience was particularly common in North rocks.... It is possible [therefore 1 that on America, where Inuits and Aleuts as well as occasion rocks were used for the same pur­ Indians conveyed information to whites in this poses, but reasonably convincing examples way. of this type are very infrequently encoun­ The "maps" of nonliterate peoples deserve tered.3 far more attention than they have received to date in at least five contexts. (1) They are im­ No completely convincing examples of maps in portant cognitively for what they reveal about a prehistoric plains rock art are known, however, people's spatial structuring and evaluation of and it seems unlikely that any will be discov­ the earth's surface. (2) For archeological pur­ ered. The reasons behind the ambiguity of the poses, they provide evidence upon which to evidence are threefold. Of these, the first two base searches for settlements and other prehis­ are universal and arise from the properties of toric sites. (3) They have ethnological signifi­ maps drawn by nonliterate peoples. Such maps cance as well, particularly regarding their roles are always structured topologically; that is, within the religious, social, and information they do not conserve true distance or true systems of indigenous peoples. (4) As historical direction. Likewise, they never consistently documents, they should be studied for their represent the relative physical magnitudes of roles in communications and negotiations be­ topographical features; culturally significant tween nonliterate native populations and alien but topographically inconspicuous features are whites. Finally (5), their cartographic impor­ prominently represented and vice versa. In the tance lies in their influence on maps made by absence of other evidence it is therefore virtual­ whites. ly impossible to match maplike patterns in rock This article examines Indian maps in histor­ art with patterns of features on the earth's ical and, more specifically, cartographic con­ surface. "Other evidence," in the prehistoric texts. It draws its evidence almost exclusively context, takes the form of unambiguous pic­ from within the American Great Plains and tographic representations of locally or region­ Canadian prairies, even though in some cases ally distinctive topographic features, such as better examples are available from other North lakes with distinctive shapes, mountains with American regions. distinctive promes, bold escarpments, or sharp breaks in vegetation. Unfortunately, plains rock . POSSIBLE MAPS FROM art, as indeed the region's early historic Indian 4 PREHISTORIC TIMES art, is deficient in such elements. For these reasons, the case for cartographic elements in Peoples on the plains may have made maps prehistoric plains rock art is, and seems likely in prehistoric times or incorporated simple to remain, tantalizingly unprovable, yet at the cartographic principles in some of their graphic same time irrefutable. art. According to a recent comprehensive sur­ The northwestern Great Plains contain a vey of North American Indian rock art, number of pre- or protohistoric structures that Here and there [in the Great Plains region] , are generally known as medicine wheels. Typ­ meandering lines and other abstract elements ically they consist of a central cairn (or small on certain [rock art] panels have suggested circle) of stones, from which radiate at unequal maps to experienced observers since the de­ angular intervals stone lines of unequal length. signs appeared to correspond rather closely At the distal ends of some of these are smaller with the features of nearby natural forma- stone cairns. The age and function(s) of these INDIAN MAPS 93 structures are matters of debate, but according to the shrine, and the name of the shrine be­ to at least one twentieth-century Indian infor­ came the name of the village. Five villages mant they incorporated cartographic principles. formed a central group, and their relative posi­ Supposedly memorials commemorating the war tions were fixed by the relative positions of the exploits of great chiefs, the stone lines show the stars that had given them their shrines. Around directions of each expedition, their lengths the these were approximately seventeen other vil­ relative distances covered, and the presence or lages, each likewise located according to the absence of distal cairns whether or not any of position of its star relative to the others. In this the enemy were killed.5 This technique incor­ way, the villages of the Skidi people· on the porates several of the cartographic principles earth were located as a reflected picture of their employed by Chickasaw Indians in Mississippi stars in the heavens? Each Skidi band possessed in 1737 in conveying information to the French a sacred bundle, and within some of these were abou t in tertribal relationships. 6 star charts painted on skin. One in the Field The Skidi band of Pawnees provides a more Museum, Chicago, is on tanned elk skin (fig. 1).8 certain example of the spatial arrangement of It represents the positions of stars by four­ structures aCCotding to cartographic principles. pointed symbols, drawn according to five dif­ Before these people were removed to Oklahoma ferent magnitudes: eleven of the first order; from the middle platte valley, the band was nine second order; forty-four third order; and divided into several villages, each with a differ­ many more fourth and fifth order, which, un­ ent shrine, the contents of which were deter­ like the others, are apparently distributed at mined by a specific star. The star gave its name random. Across the center of the chart is a

FIG . 1. Pawnee (Skidi band) celestial chart on elk skin, pre-1906 and supposedly much older. Original 65 x 43 cm. Courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. 94 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 band of many small symbols representing the Minnesota. Grossly distorted, highly schematic, Milky Way. According to one analysis, the chart, and with many mythical elements, these charts which is supposed to predate any white influ­ can be related to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence ence, recognizes the same constellations that we drainage system as we now know it, but more do, shows seasonal changes, and records some convincingly so to the west than to the east. double stars.9 They are of course topological and would prob­ ably not have been recognized as maps but for INDIGENOUS MAPS OF HISTORIC TIMES the oral evidence collected from twentieth­ century members of the tribe.10 The Southern Ojibway Indians of northern Given the evidence of indigenous mapping Minnesota and western kept in their for religious purposes by the Skidis and the medicine bags birchbark scrolls, some of which Southern OJ ibways, it is reasonable to specu­ have been fairly convincingly interpreted to be late that historians of cartography may still migration charts, representing in cartographic have much to learn from ethnologists and that, form the route via which the OJ ibways believed conversely, ethnologists might discover more they received the Mide religion-that is, from about the functions of certain art and artifacts beyond the Great Salt Water (Atlantic Ocean), if they had a greater awareness of the ability up the St. Lawrence River, through the Great of Indians to make maps and of the character­ Lakes, and from the head of Lake Superior via istics and functions of the maps that they are the St. Louis River to Leech Lake in central known to have made. Evidence presented by

FIG. 2. Non-Chi-Ning-Ga's (Iowa) map of tribal migrations in the upper Mississippi and Missouri drainage basins, 1837. MS original, 104 x 69 em. Courtesy of the Cartographic and Architectural Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C. INDIAN MAPS 95

Iowa Indians in the course of nineteenth­ Routes were planned in units of a day and the century treaty negotiations suggests that maps days were each recorded by notched sticks. A (both mental and artifact) were used as a means crude map was of preserving important information about the history of the tribe's migrations, although such drawn on the ground with a fInger or piece of wood illustrating the journey of the day maps are not known to have been freserved in represented by the notched stick. The larger medicine bundles (fIgs. 2 and 3).1 At a more rivers and streams are indicated, the hills, ephemeral level, Plains Indians certainly made valleys, ravines, hidden water holes .and dry and used maps for purely indigenous purposes. countries, every natural object, peculiar or In the early nineteenth century, Comanche striking. When this was understood, the stick braves on the Texas plains were briefed before representing the next day's march was illus­ raids by older members of the tribe using maps. trated in the same way, and so on to the end.

(a) Hydrography from Non-Chi-Ning-Ga's "map" of 1837. (b) Hydrography from a modern map.

FIG. 3. Interpretation of the hydrography on Non-Chi-Ning-Ga's "map." The early map ap­ parently includes the following present-day features:

1. Mississippi R. 16. Storm Lake 32. Little Sioux R. 2. Illinois R. 17. West fork Des Moines R. 33. Floyd R. 3. Des Plaines R. 18. East fork Des Moines R. 34. Big Sioux R. 4. Fox R. (Illinois-Wisconsin) 19. Skunk R. 35. Rock R. (Minnesota-Iowa) 5. Rock R. (Illinois-Wisconsin) 20. Iowa R. 36. Skunk Creek? 6. Series of small lakes and swamps on 21. Cedar R. 37. Missouri R. the Upper Rock R. 22. Turkey R. 38. Niobrara R. 7. Green Bay? 23. (a) Root or (b) Zumbro 39. Platte R. 8. Lake Winnebago or (c) Cannon R. 40. North Platte 9. Fox R. (Wisconsin) 24. Minnesota R. 41. South Platte 10. Wisconsin R. 25. Chariton R. 42. Kansas R. 11. Cuivre R. 26. GrandR. 43. Republican R. 12. Salt R. 27. Platte R. (Missouri) 44. Smoky Hill R. 13. (a) South Fabious or (b) Wyaconda 28. Nodaway R. 45. Osage R. or (c) Fox (Iowa) R. 29. Nishnabotna R. 46. Gasconade R. 14. Des Moines R. 30. Boyer R. 47. Heron Lake 15. Raccoon R. (with west and east forks) 31. Blackhawk Lake 96 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984

Briefed in this way, a group of teenage braves, Jean Baptiste Truteau reported that the Indians none of whom had previously undertaken the made journey, memorized and successfully undertook delineations upon skins, as correctly as can a return journey of approximately one thou­ be, of the countries with which they are sand miles from Brady's Creek, Texas, to Mon­ acquainted. Nothing is wanting but the terey, Mexico.12 John Hunter, who as a captive degrees of latitude and longitude. They mark had traveled between the Illinois Country and the northern direction according to the polar the Rocky Mountains with several tribes in the star, and conformably to that, mark out the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, windings and turnings of the rivers, the later recorded that Indians in general could lakes, marshes, mountains, woods, prairies and paths; ... they compute distances by "delineate maps of countries with considerable day's and half day's journeys.14 accuracy." 13 After ascending the Missouri -River as far as the confluence of the Cheyenne Throughout the nineteenth century some River in what is now central South Dakota, Plains Indians continued to make maps for

,. r

. , ~

FIG. 4. Part of Amos Bad Heart Bull's (Oglala Sioux) pictographic representation of the Black Hills in the context of a more formal representation of the surrounding plains, done between 1876 and 1913. MS original, approximately 17.8 x 30.5 cm. Reprinted from A Picto­ graphic History of the Oglala Sioux by Amos Bad Heart Bull, text by Helen Blish, by permis­ sion of the University of Nebraska Press, Copyright© 1967 by the University of Nebraska Press. INDIAN MAPS 97

indigenous purposes, although acculturation Plains Indians began to use other materials. increased as the century progressed. Some­ Almost twenty years after the event, White time between the founding of Rapid City in Bird, a Northern Cheyenne, painted on muslin 1876 and his death in 1913, Amos Bad Heart a representation of the Battle of the Little Big Bull, an Oglala Sioux, drew a map of the Black Horn, in which tepees, Indians, horses, and Hills and surrounding plains on which the for­ soldiers of the Seventh Regiment mer are represented pictographically and the were represented in prome but placed in rela­ latter cartographic ally (fig. 4) .15 The almost tion to a plan of the Little Big Horn and its circular Black Hills, with the traditional "Race tributaries and the prebattle routes of Major Track" in yellow, are represented as an assem­ General George Custer and Major Marcus Reno blage of symbolized features; for example, a (fig. 5).17 bear's head for Bear Butte, a horned head for Between 1878 and 1881, Howling Wolf, a Ghost Butte, a barren rounded prome for Old Cheyenne, painted twelve colorful s£enes in Baldy, and a test-tube-like shape inverted on a sketchbook, reconstructing according to tribal the top of a sketch of a bear's head for the lore significant events in his people's history. towering cylindrical column of Bear Lodge Two of these are presented against a carto­ Butte. In sharp contrast, the drainage net­ graphic background of rivers, wooded valley works on approximately thirty thousand floors, buffalo trails, human tracks, and other square miles of the surrounding plains are features.18 One scene shows the first white men represented in plan and with remarkable ac­ seen by the Cheyennes, supposedly more than curacy. Additional information includes the one hundred years earlier on the Missouri River meridians 1030 and 1040 West. It would ap­ at a camp above the Cheyenne River. The other pear, therefore, that Amos Bad Heart Bull, who reconstructs the first trading for horses by the had been enlisted as a scout in the u.S. Army at Cheyennes with the Kiowas on the Arkansas Fort Robinson in 1890-91, when he must al­ River. A few years before painting these scenes, most certainly have been exposed to official Howling Wolf had been transported to Fort maps and surveys, placed an Indian-style picto­ Marion in Florida. During his exile he was sent graphic map in the context of a Euro-American­ by sea from St. Augustine for medical treat­ style topographic map. In most examples of ment in . Enroute he mailed to his father maps drawn by plains Indians at this period, a prepaid postal card on which he represented however, the mix is far less obvious. his route from St. Augustine to a point off the Atlantic Coast somewhere to the north of CARTOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS IN Savannah, Georgia. Buildings, the steamer, and PLAINS INDIANS' ART persons with their totems were represented in prome but positioned in relation to a map of Throughout the nineteenth century, carto­ the coastline and estuaries. The shape of these graphic principles were also incorporated in geographic features had been grossly distorted, much of the two-dimensional representational pardy, at least, because of the restrictive rec­ art of the Plains Indians. That done by women tangular format of the small (3 in. x 5.3 in.) tended to be abstract but men painted more card.19 naturalistically, frequently representing hills, Of the 414 posthumously published draw­ buttes, men, horses, trees, and wild animals in ings made by Amos Bad Heart Bull, the Oglala prome against a planimetric representation of Sioux, between 1891 and 1913, nine are emi­ river and route networks. Many of the scenes nently cartographic.20 One of the most inter­ were of important events in tribal history. At esting is in black ink and crayons and shows the first they were always painted on skin, though setting of the Black Hills conference of 1876. this practice may have been a continuation of The actual talks, seven Indian camps, and Fort an earlier rock-art tradition.16 Later, the Robinson are depicted in oblique perspective, 98 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984

. .. . . '" ... "" .

FIG. 5. White Bird's (Northern Cheyenne) painting of the Battle of the Little Big Hom, painted in 1894-95. Original on muslin, 171 x 249 em. Courtesy of the West Point Museum Collections, United States Military Academy.

as are White and Crow buttes. Each is located in between 1892 and 1895, with which Sitting relation to the line of Pine Ridge, shown by Rabbit had been supplied. Thomas Thiessen means of a belt of pine symbols, and the valley and his coauthors have recently described system of the White River and its tributaries, this map and stressed its significance in pro­ shown not by the courses of the rivers but by viding leads for later archeological surveys. 23 deciduous tree symbols representing the valley­ Apparently, however, they failed to recognize floor gale ria forests of cottonwoods. 21 the unexplained use of color: blue for the In 1906, the secretary of the State Histor­ channels of the Missouri and Heart rivers; ical Society of North Dakota commissioned orange for smaller tributaries; dark black river­ what must have been one of the last historical­ ine borders of variable width (floodplains?), record maps to have been made by a Plains which are sometimes separated from the chan­ Indian. Painted on canvas in eleven segments nel by narrow bands of brown (bare sand and by a Mandan, Sitting Rabbit, it depicts vari­ silt?); and brown (treeless?) islands. Most ous natural and past and present cultural cultural features are shown in profile, but features along a stretch of the Missouri River American settlements are depicted, albeit more than four hundred miles long, from schematically, according to their grid. plan. about the mouth of the Yel1owstone River One of the earliest surviving examples of a to near the North Dakota-South Dakota map depicting events dates from 1825 (fig. 6).24 boundary.22 The representation of the course Sketched by an Oto Indian, Gero-Schunu-Wy­ of the Missouri is not original, but was derived Ha, it shows events in that year on the middle somewhat freely from the sectional chart Missouri River between Council Bluffs and the published by the Missouri River Commission Little Missouri River and also traces the route INDIAN MAPS 99

., 69'/ - -'t N.

FIG. 6. Gero-Sehunu-Wy-Ha's (Oto) map of events on the middle Missouri and upper Arkan­ sas rivers, 1825. MS original with annotations, 53 x 42 em. Courtesy of the Cartographic and Architectural Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 100 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 of an Oto war party that attacked the Arapahos of the network reflects the constraints imposed in the area between the upper Arkansas and on the Indian by the rectangular sheet of paper upper Cimarron rivers. 25 The events are de­ (fig. 7a). Even so, it is a remarkable map, cov­ picted in typical Indian pictographic style ering about a third of a million square miles of against a network of rivers. The gross distortion the northern and central American plains.

22 ,.

(a) Hydrography from Gero-Schunu-Wy-Ha's (b) Hydrography from a modern map "map" of 1825

FIG. 7. Interpretation of the hydrography of Gero-Schunu-Wy-Ha's "map." The early map apparently includes the following present-day features:

1. Missouri R. 14. Elkhorn N. Fork 27. Horse Creek 2. Little Missouri R. 15. Maple Creek 28. Charles R. 3. Douglas Creek 16. Platte R. 29. Six mile Creek 4. Knife R. 17. Salt Creek 30. Huerfano R. 5. Heart R. 18. Blue Creek 31. Apishipa R. 6. Either Cannonball or Grand R. 19. Rawhide Creek 32. Purgatoire R. 7. Moreau R. 20. N. Platte R. 33. Rule Creek 8. Cheyenne R. 21. Lodgepole Creek 34. Caddou Creek 9. White R. 22. S. Platte R. 35. Mud Creek 10. Ponca Creek 23. Republican R. 36. Clay Creek 11. Niobrara R. 24. Either Smoky Hill R. 37. Two Butte Creek 12. Bow Creek (misconnected) or Walnut Creek 38. Canadian R. (headwaters) 13. Elkhorn R. 25. Arkansas R. 39. Cimarron R. (headwaters) 26. Big Sandy Creek INDIAN MAPS 101

MAPS DRAWN FOR WHITES year, a captured Indian named Miguel was asked to Given the map-drawing ability of Indians in the already settled parts of North America, it is mark with pen and ink on a sheet of paper ... not surprising that from the outset explorers the pueblos of his land. Miguel proceeded to approaching and entering the Great Plains ob­ mark on the paper some circles resembling tained information about its geography in map the letter "0", some larger than others; in form from indigenous peoples. a way easily understood he explained what each circle represented.... Then he drew The earliest of all extant examples (albeit in lines, some snakelike and others straight, and contemporary transcript form) of a map made indicated by signs that they were rivers and on paper by a North American Indian at the roads.27 request of whites was made in Mexico City on 29 April 1602 (fig. 8).26 In the course of Miguel was probably a native of southern Texas, an official inquiry concerning the expedition from where he had been taken north as a cap­ onto the Great Plains made by Don Juan tive by other Indians. The upper right-hand Onate, governor of New Mexico, in the previous part of the map may well show Indian villages

FIG. 8. Miguel's (Southern Plains or West Gulf Coast Indian) map of an area that includes San Gabriel, New Mexico, either the middle Arkansas valley or Texas coastal plain, and proba­ bly parts of Mexico, 1602. MS, contemporary transcript, 31 x 43 cm. Courtesy of the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. 102 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 on the west Texas coastal plain, but the Aces reasonable certainty: on the Red, the Natchi­ Rio certainly indicates the river far to the north toches (Notaukw), Kadohadacho (Katutaucejo), where he was taken by the Spaniards. The most and Kichai (Kejoo); on the Arkansas, the Tawa­ authoritative interpretation published to date koni (Tovocolau), Kansa (Causau), Pawnee suggests that the Aces Rio was one of the east­ (Pauncasau), and Comanche (Commaucerlau). bank tributaries of the Arkansas River in north­ Neither of the maps received by Governor eastern Oklah oma. 28 I tend to favor the Trinity Nicholson indicate the existence of the grass­ River some sixty miles or so downstream from land environment far up the Red and Arkansas Dallas, but in any case a careful interpretation rivers, but a map drawn in chalk in 1743 by needs to be undertaken with reference to de­ Joseph la France, a "French-Canadese Indian," tailed archeological, linguistic, and environ­ on the floor of a dining room at the Golden mental evidence. Fleece in New Bond Street, London, was among French, English, and American approaches the first to indicate grasslands. La France, an to the Great Plains did not commence until ignorant metis who "knew nothing of figures," approximately one to two hundred years later, had spent the previous three years traveling, but they also involved the use of information fishing, and hunting with Indians at and beyond collected in map form from Indians. Indeed, the northeastern edge of the plains, and in one of the earliest pieces of non-Spanish evi­ culture he was almost certainly more Indian dence for the region'S existence, as distinct than French.31 His chalked map of the Lake from its environmental characteristics, may Winnipeg-Nelson River drainage system was have been received in map form. In 1694, incorporated in an important printed map of Lawrence van den Bosh sent a map of the lower 1744. Grossly distorted, and hence difficult to Mississippi valley to Governor Francis Nichol­ interpret, it places the "Assinibouels of the son of . According to the accompany­ Meadows" to the west of what would appear to ing letter, information on all the country "on be Lake Manitoba-that is, in the grassy open­ the left side of the Messacippi River" on the ings and wheatgrass prairies of southwestern map had been obtained "from a French In­ Manitoba.32 Beyond, and to the southeast, dian.,,29 The Red and Sabine rivers are shown were the Nation de Beaux Hommes (generally for an indeterminable distance upstream, but supposed to be the Blackfeet). despite two legends indicating that they are The French approach to the northern plains only sixty-five leagues beyond the Sabine River, was also preceded by the solicitation of geo­ the "Mountains of Silver and Gold Mines" to graphical information from Indians, and some the far left of the map must, on geological of this was likewise in map form. It differed, grounds, be beyond the southern plains in west­ however, from that supplied to the English in ern Texas and southern New Mexico. that some of it became incorporated in impor­ Approximately thirty years later, Nicholson, tant printed maps, with unfortunate conse­ who was then the governor of South Carolina, quences for the growth of knowledge about the received from an Indian chief a map of the area. In a report to the governor of New France whole of southeastern North America painted dated 10 October 1730, the fur trader Pierre on a d eer s km.· 30 Sh owmg.. nvers, coast1· mes, Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye men­ tribal locations, and Indian trails, it appears on tioned obtaining information from various first examination to terminate to the west at groups of Cree Indians.33 Much of this informa­ the Mississippi. However, squeezed between tion, concerning lands to the west and north­ that river and the hind end of the skin are west of Lake Superior that were then virtually grossly distorted representations of the Red and unknown, was in map form. Some of these Arkansas rivers, as well as named sites of Indian maps have survived, though none, apparently, villages associated with the rivers. Of these in their original form. The closest to an original villages, the following can be recognized with is a crude compilation from several Indian INDIAN MAPS 103

sources showing the drainage systems between further believe that the "Mountain of Bright the head of Lake Superior and the northern end Stone" was not a prominent peak within the of Lake Winnipeg.34 The map indicates that Rocky Mountains but an important painted the information for the area near the latter lake stone very near to the portage between the is based on a map drawn by Cree Indians. It headwaters of the Hayes and Echimamish rivers; shows prairies occupied by the Assiniboeles and that the prairies near the Echimamish were not Sioux to the west and southwest of what we grassy openings in the forest, of the type al­ may now infer to be Lake Winnipeg. This was ready familiar to the French, but swampy probably the first map to indicate the existence openings, of which there are many to the east of the wheatgrass prairies of the Canadian and and northeast of Lake Winnipeg; and that "the Dakotan plains. Far less boldly the map shows a place where the waters begin to ebb and flow" "River of [or from 1 the West," (Flouve de was not a tidal zone near the Pacific Ocean L'ouest), passing prairies on one side and a (Bellin's River of the West was actually repre­ "Mountain of Bright Stone" (Montagne de sented as flowing toward the west) but the pierre Brillante) on the other. This river termi­ area around the twenty-pace-long portage nates at the edge of the map, where "the waters between the Echimamish and Hayes rivers, begin to ebb and flow" (Commencemens de which, to quote an early nineteenth-century flux et reflux). explorer, was "remarkable for the marshy This map, or one or more transcripts of it, streams which rise on each side of it, taking evidently came into the hands of three eminent different courses.,,38 French cartographers. In 1754 Philippe Buache It is not my purpose to review in any detail merely reproduced it as an inset to his elegant the collection and use of Indian maps by the map of western Canada.35 In 1730 or soon staff of the Hudson's Bay Company as they after, Guillaume de l'Isle rescaled the map and moved southwestward through the forests into pasted it as an insert on a manuscript map of the grasslands during the last few years of the North America.36 In doing so, he placed Lake eighteenth century; by the Spaniards during Winnipeg and the source of the Mississippi in their brief period of exploration on the middle the same longitude as the Gulf of California, Missouri in the late eighteenth century; or by and both the Mountain of Bright Stone and the American explorers from Lewis and Clark on­ source of the River of the West were located ward.39 Five maps embracing all or parts of the almost on the Pacific Coast. This false geogra­ plains of what are now Alberta and Montana phy was widely disseminated in 1743, when it were collected from Blackfeet Indians by the was incorporated in Nicolas Bellin's "Carte de Hudson's Bay Company surveyor Peter Fidler l'Amerique SeptentrionaIe.,,37 in 1801-1802, and at the Mandan villages in the The supporting evidence is far from conclu­ late winter or early spring of 1805, William sive, but it would appear that the Crees' infor­ Clark collected two similar maps of the upper mation was correct according to their principles Missouri and Yellowstone basins.40 These are of mapping and that it was the French cartog­ relatively well known, but an even more remark­ graphers' interpretations of topologically ar­ able map collected at approximately the same ranged information which were wrong. The period has virtually escaped attention. Drawn River of the West as conveyed by the Cree In­ on paper with a watermark dated 1801, it has dians was not what was later to become known names that appear to be in the hand of the fur as the Saskatchewan River (Le., a great river trader David Thompson, as does the endorse­ flowing from the west) but the thirty-to-forty­ ment on the verso: "Indian Chart Rocky Moun­ mile-long Echimamish River, a small, east-bank tains.,,41 Although there is no reason to doubt tributary of the Nelson River by which Cree the source of information, the latter part of the Indians, using the Hayes River, traveled west on endorsement is a misnomer, as the map shows an important route inland from Hudson Bay. I the rivers and lakes from Hudson Bay westward 104 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 to the Canadian Rockies and from Lake Atha­ corporated by cartographers who had even baska southward to the Great Plains in what less, such patterns often appear to us, in the are now Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Da­ light of our knowledge of the geography, as kotas-an area of more than one million square ~o erroneous as to have been based on little miles. more than myth. Had the plains not had an aboriginal population, this may well have been the case, but in fact, many of these patterns INDIAN INFLUENCE ON PRINTED MAPS were derived from Indian sources. We need to Only rarely can one demonstrate the in­ reexamine early white maps of the region in fluence of Indian maps on the maps of ex­ order to recognize the seams where the terrae plorers and on the printed maps on which semicognitae, as communicated by the Indians, they in turn had an influence. Eighteenth­ are welded to the terrae cognitae of the Euro­ and early nineteenth-century cartographers peans, Canadians, and Americans-for example, seldom cited the sources of their information where rivers appear to cross, to bifurcate down­ or explained the ways in which they selected stream, or to flow uphill. from and modified it. For the most part one Indian maps often incorporated pictographic can only infer the Indian contributions. One conventions, especially those relating to quan­ line of inference is that maps made by whites tity. Camps, villages, and tribes, for example, often represented with some degree of truth were frequently represented on their maps by the geography of areas well beyond the fron­ clusters of dots (or of symbols) approximately tiers of exploration. For example, Peter Pond's proportional in number to their respective im­ map of 1785 shows the South Saskatchewan, portance, or by symbols (such as circles) the Assiniboine, Qu' Appelle, Souris, and upper sizes of which denoted relative importance. Missouri rivers and depicts, albeit schematically, Such techniques are found on several of William the range of mountains, "called by the natives Clark's transcripts of maps made for him by Stony Mount," in which the first and last of Indians, though we do not know whether he these rivers have their source.42 Having traded was faithful in the manner in which he copied in what are now western Minnesota, southern them. It is interesting that Collot's "Map of the Manitoba, and southern Saskatchewan between Missouri," which is generally supposed to have 1774 and 1777, Pond probably obtained this incorporated the results of Truteau's expedition information from Indians. up the Missouri in 1794-96, uses clusters of Other lines of inference can be deduced between two and five tepee symbols to denote from the general characteristics of maps made the locations of Plains Indians tribes far to the by Indians. First, Indians frequently failed west and northwest of the limit of Collot's to distinguish on their maps between river explorations.43 This device, together with the courses, portages, and trails, which to them strange representation of the courses of the were merely parts of a single communication rivers of the central and northern plains, the network. Second, they would represent small naming of the "Yellow [Rocky 1 Mountains rivers of strategic route significance as equal according to the Indians living on the Missouri," to or greater in importance than hydrologically and the use of a different proportional symbol maj or rivers. Third, arrows indicated the to represent the tribes of earth-lodge dwellers direction of travel, which, as often as not, of the east-central plains and domed-house was opposite to the direction of the river dwellers of the Great Lakes region, suggests flow. Fourth, in the absence of any sense of that much of Truteau's information may well or need to use absolute scale or direction, have been obtained directly or indirectly from shapes and patterns were grossly distorted. Indians in map form-perhaps from those When copied by explorers who had little whose "delineations on skin" he praised so knowledge of these characteristics and in- highly. 44 INDIAN MAPS 105

THE WAY AHEAD George Bishop et al., 1600), p. 438. Bray ex­ plains and reproduces marks made by a Dela­ Given that the outer limit of the mapping of ware Indian on a tree by the Muskingum River, the plains by whites in the eighteenth and early which show several events of war in relation to nineteenth centuries was frequently several the sites of Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit and the hundred miles in advance of their exploration, courses of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and it is reasonable to suppose that Indians supplied upper rivers. Alarchon describes how, on request, an Indian on the lower Colorado River much of the information about these fringe drew a map of the river and settlements up­ zones. The more we understand about the maps stream. known to have been made by Indians, the more 2. Early modern writings on Indian, as dis­ we will understand about the whites' represen­ tinct from Inuit, maps and mapping include: tations of these terrae semicognitae on their Cottie A. Burland, "American Indian Map maps, about the false geographies that were Makers," Geographical Magazine 20 (1947-48): thus disseminated, and about the consequences 285-92; Delf Norona, "Maps Drawn by Indians thereof for those who were then beginning to in the ," West Archeologist 2 push forward the limits of the terrae cognitae. (1950): 12-19, and "Maps Drawn by North These relationships are an important source of American Indians," Bulletin of the Eastern Indian-white misunderstanding that, to date, States Archeological Federation 10 (1951): 6; and Robert F. Heizer, "Aboriginal California has barely been recognized by scholars or, in­ and Great Basin Cartography," Report of the deed, by those involved in litigations regarding California Archeological Survey 41 (1958): Indian land claims. Historians of cartography 1-9. Recent and in general more interpretative ought to be contributing far more to the eluci­ contributions include: John Warkentin and dation of these former misunderstandings, not Richard I. Ruggles, Historical Atlas of Mani­ only within the context of the Great Plains but toba (Winnipeg: Historical and Scientific for the continent as a whole. To do so they will Society of Manitoba, 1970), pp. 72-73, 86-91; need to increase their knowledge of both the David H. Pentland, "Cartographic Concepts of real world and the Indians' worlds in the past. the Northern Algonquians," Canadian Cartog­ They will also need to apply more sophisticated rapher 12 (1975): 149-60; Wayne Moodie and conceptual approaches to problems of carto­ Barry Kaye, "The Ac Ko Mok Ki Map," The Beaver, Outfit 307, no. 4 (Spring 1977): 4-15; graphic interpretation. Louis De Vorsey, "Amerindian Contributions to the Mapping of North America: A Preliminary NOTES View," Imago Mundi 30 (1978): 71-78; Thom­ as D. Thiessen, W. Raymond Wood, and A. The author gratefully acknowledges finan­ Wesley Jones, "The Sitting Rabbit 1907 Map cial assistance received from the Canadian High of the Missouri River in North Dakota," Plains Commission, London, the Newberry Library, Anthropologist 24, pt. 1 (1979): 145-67; and Chicago, The Social Science Research Council G. Malcolm Lewis, "The Indigenous Maps and (U.K.), and the University of Sheffield Re­ Mapping of North American Indians," Map search Fund. Collector 9 (1979): 25-32, and "Indian Maps," 1. William Bray, "Observations on the in Carol M. Judd and Arthur J. Ray, eds., old Indian Method of Picture Writing," Archae­ Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third ologia 6 (1782): 159-62; "The relation of the North American Fur Trade Conference (Tor­ navigation and discovery which Captaine Fer­ onto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), nando Alarchon made by order of the right pp. 9-23. To date there has been only one honourable Lord Don Antonio de Mendoca monograph on the subject: Rainer Vollmar, Vizeroy of New Spaine ..." [in 1540], in Indianische Karten Nordamerikas: Beitrage zur Richard Hakluyt, The Third and Last Volume Historischen Kartographie (Berlin: Dietrich of the Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques and Reimer, 1981). Discoveries of the English Nation . .. (London: 3. Klaus F. Wellmann, A Survey of North 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984

American Indian Rock Art (Graz, Austria: 1877), p. 414. Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 13. John D. Hunter, Manners and Customs of p.13l. Several Indian Tribes Located West of the Mis­ 4. David S. Gebhard, Indian Art of the sissippi, ... (: J. Maxwell, 1823), Northern Plains (Santa Barbara: The Art Gal­ p.209. leries, University of California, 1974), p. 13. 14. Jean Baptiste Truteau, "Remarks on the 5. Thomas F. Kehoe, "Stone 'Medicine Manners of the Indians living high up on the Wheel' Monuments in the Northern Plains of Missouri," Medical Repository, 2d hexade, 6 North America," Proceedings of the 40th In­ (1809): 56. ternational Congress of Americanists, Rome, 15. Amos Bad Heart Bull and Helen Blish, 1972, 11: 184. A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux 6. [A Chickasaw Indian], "Nations Amies (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), et Ennemies des Tchikachas ... Ie Sept Sep­ no. 198. tembre 1737," transcribed by Alexander de 16. Jacob J. Brody, Indian Painters and Batz, MS, General Correspondence of Louisiana White Patrons (Albuquerque: University of C.13, V.22, Archives des Colonies, Paris. New Mexico Press, 1971), p. 25. 7. Alice C. Fletcher, "Star Cult among the 17. White Bird (Northern Cheyenne), Un­ Pawnee: A Preliminary Report," American An­ titled painting of the Battle of the Little Big thropologist, n.s. 4 (1902): 730-36. Horn done on muslin in 1894-95, 171 x 249 8. Pawnee (Skidi band) celestial chart on cm, no. 407, West Point Museum, United States an oval elk skin, undated but collected at Paw­ Military Academy, West Point, . nee, Oklahoma, in 1906 from a Skidi named 18. Howling Wolf (Cheyenne), Nos. 1 and 2 Big Black Meteor. Artifact, 65 x 43 cm., no. of a set of twelve paintings made in a commer­ 71, 898-10, Department of Anthropology, cial sketchbook between 1878-81, owned by Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Mrs. A. H. Richardson and on loan to the 9. Ralph N. Buckstaff, "Stars and Constella­ Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; reproduced in tions of a Pawnee Sky Map," American Anthro­ Karen D. Petersen, Howling Wolf: A Cheyenne pologist, n.s. 29 (1927): 279-85. Warrior's Graphic Interpretation of His People 10. Selwyn Dewdney, The Sacred Scrolls of (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West, 1968), the Southern Ojibway (Toronto and Buffalo: plates 1 and 2. University of Toronto for the Glenbow-Alberta 19. Howling Wolf (Cheyenne), Postal Card Institute, Calgary, Alberta, 1975), chap. 5. addressed to his father Minimic at Fort Marion 11. Non-Chi-Ning-Ga (Iowa), Untitled map of with a pictographic map done at sea in July the Upper Mississippi and Missouri drainage 1877 after leaving Savannah, Georgia, showing systems between Lake Michigan and the Great coastline and major settlements along the route Plains showing "the route of my (Ioway) fore­ from St. Augustine, Florida, 7.6 x 13.0 cm, fathers-the land that we have always claimed," Francis Parkman Papers, His­ presented at a council between Indians of the torical Society, Boston, Mass.; reproduced in Mississippi and Missouri in Washington, D.C., Karen D. Petersen, Plains Indian Art from Fort on 7 October 1837. MS, 104 x 69 cm., Record Marion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Group 75, Map 821, Tube 520, Cartographic Press, 1971), plate 43. Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; 20. Bull and Blish, Pictographic History, nos. "Map of the Country formerly occpied by the 103, 129, 170, 177, 197, 198, 218, 297, and Ioway Tribe of Indians from a map made by 301. Waw-Non-Que-Skoon-A An Ioway Brave," in 21. Bull and Blish, Pictographic History, no. Henry R. Schoolcraft, Infomation Respecting 197. the History, Condition, and Prospects of the 22. Sitting Rabbit (Mandan), Untitled paint­ Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadel­ ing on canvas of the Missouri River from Stand­ phia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1853), vol. 3, plate ing Rock Reservation to the Yellowstone con­ 30, facing p. 256. fluence, MS [1906-1907], in seven sections, in 12. Richard 1. Dodge, The Hunting Grounds all 44 x 707 cm, no. 679, State Historical of the Great West (London: Chatto and Windus, Society of North Dakota, Bismarck. INDIAN MAPS 107

23. Thiessen, Wood, and Jones, "Sitting to Francis Nicholson Esqr. Governor of Caro­ Rabbit 1907 Map." lina." MS (ca. 1720), 114 x 142 cm., CO 700, 24. Gero-Schunu-Wy-Ha (Oto), A map of the North American Colonies General, No.6 (2), middle Missouri and upper Arkansas Rivers Public Record Office, London. with names and legends added by Captain Wil­ 31. Christian Brun, "Dobbs and the Passage," liam Armstrong, or a member of his military The Beaver, Autumn 1958, pp. 27-29. party of 1825. One legend states, "This Map 32. "A New Map of Part of North America was Sketched by an Otto Indian Called in that from the Latitude of 40 to 68 Degrees. Includ­ language Gero-Schunu-wy-ha, i.e. the man that ing ... the Western Rivers and Lakes falling is very Sorry-He was a member of the war into Nelson River in Hudson's Bay as described party traced hereon-Aug. 12, 1825." MS, 53 x by Joseph La France a French Canadese Indian 42 cm., RG 75, Map 931, Cartographic Branch, who Traveled thro those Countries and Lakes National Archives. for 3 Years from 1739 to 1742," in Arthur 25. W. Raymond Wood, Notes on the Histor­ Dobbs, An Account of the Countries Adjoin­ ical Cartography of the Upper Knife-Heart ing to Hudson's Bay (London: J. Robinson, Region (Columbia: American Archaeology Divi­ 1744). sion, College of Arts and Science, University 33. "Continuation of the Report of the Sieur of Missouri, 1978), pp. 62-63. de la Verendrye touching upon the discovery 26. This map, made by an Indian named of the Western Sea (Annexed to the Letter of Miguel, perhaps from within what is now M. de Beauharnois, of October 10, 1730)," southern Texas, has proved difficult to inter­ French and English versions in Lawrence J. pret, but it certainly includes San Gabriel in Burpee, ed., "Journals and letters of Pierre the Rio Grande valley, New Mexico, and pos­ Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye and His sibly Mexico City; it almost certainly represents Sons," Publications of the Champlain Society rivers, trails, and settlements on the Texas no. 16 (Toronto, 1927), pp. 43-63. coastal plain and southern Great Plains. The 34. Untitled manuscript map of the rivers map is endorsed "Pintura que por mando de and lakes between Lake Superior and Lake Win­ Don Franco Valverde ... ," 1602. MS, 31 x 43 nipeg of which the parts adjacent to Lake cm., Estante 1, Cajon 1, Legajo 3/22, Ramo 4, Winnipeg are indicated as "Carte Tracee Par Les Archivo General de Indias, Seville. Cris," undated but supposedly 1728-29. Origi­ 27. George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, nal in the Archives Nationales, Paris; photo­ "Don Juan de Onate, Colonizer of New Mexico, graphic copy in the National Map Collection, 1595-1628," part 2, Coronado Cuarto Centen­ Ottawa, H2/902-19 (1728-29). nial Publication, 1540-1940, vol. 6 (Albuquer­ 35. Philippe Buache, "Reduction de la Carte que: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), tracee par Ie Sauvage Ochagach et autres, ... " pp.872-73. an inset of "Carte Physique de Terreins les plus 28. Waldo R. Wedel, "Archaeological Re­ eleves de la Partie Occidentale du Canada ... ," mains in Central Kansas and Their Possible in Considerations geographiques et physiques Bearing on the Location of Quivira," Smith­ sur les nouvelles decouvertes au nord de la sonian Miscellaneous Collections 101, no. 7 grande mer . .. (Paris: Imprimerie de Ballard, (1942): 18-20. 1753-54), part 3. 29. Lawrence van den Bosh, Untitled pen­ 36. Guillaume de l'Isle, Manuscript map of and-ink manuscript map of the lower Missis­ North America with pasted-on copy of an In­ sippi valley that was accompanied by a letter dian map, undated but supposedly 1730, dated North Sassifrix, 19 October 1694. MS, Biblioth~que Nationale, Department des Es­ 32 x 38 cm., no. 59, Edward E. Ayer Collec­ tampes, Paris, Serie Vd, vol. 22. tion, Newberry Library, Chicago. 37. Jacques N. Bellin, "Carte de l'Amerique 30. Cacique (Chickasaw?), "A Map Describ­ Septentrionale ... ," in Pierre F. X. de Charle­ ing the Situation of the several Nations of In­ voix, Histoire et description de la Nouvelle dians between South Carolina and the Missis­ France . .. , vol. 1 (Paris: Nyon, 1744). sippi; was Copyed from a Draught Drawn upon 38. John Franklin, Narrative of a]ourney to a Deer Skin by an Indian Cacique and Presented the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819, 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984

20, 21 and 22, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, Across: The Overland Emigrant and the Trans­ 1823), p. 63. Mississippi West, 1840-1860" (Ph.D. diss., Uni­ 39. Richard I. Ruggles of Queens University, versity of Kansas, 1975), pp. 224-25. Kingston, Ontario, has recently undertaken a 40. Five transcripts of maps made by Black­ major program of research on the history of the feet Indians in 1801-1802, Peter Fidler's manu­ cartography of the Hudson's Bay Company script journal, E3/2, fol. 103-107, Hudson's between 1670 and 1870. Soon to be published Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg; two tran­ as a Hudson's Bay Record Society publication, scripts by William Clark of maps made by In­ this includes an authoritative review of Indian dians in the winter or early spring of 1805, maps and mapping on and around the Canadian both showing the Missouri River from the Man­ prairies. See also James P. Ronda, "'A Chart in dan villages to the Yellowstone River, Coe Col­ His Way': Indian Cartography and the Lewis lection, Beinecke Library, Yale University. and Clark Expedition," Great Plains Quarterly 41. Manuscript map in ink on paper with the 4 (Winter 1984): 43-53. More information on watermark "I. Taylor 1801" and endorsed on this subject should become available within the the verso, "Indian Chart Rocky Mountains," next few years with the publication by the 38 x 50 cm., Manuscript Collection, Royal University of Nebraska Press of a new edition Commonwealth Society, London. of the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedi­ 42. "Copy of a Map Presented To the Con­ tion. Although nineteenth-century accounts by gress by Peter Pond a Native of Milford in the American explorers contain many references to State of Connecticut ... New York 1st March overlanders soliciting route information from 1785 ... ," MS, 71 x 53 cm., Add. MS 15, Indians, they are often unspecific as to the 332-C, Department of Manuscripts, British geographical extent and content of the informa­ Museum, London. tion and the mode in which it was transmitted: 43. "Map of the Missouri ... ," in Georges John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across (Urbana: H. V. Collot, A Journey in North America, ... University of Illinois Press, 1979), pp. 156-57. (Paris: A Berstrand, 1826), atlas volume. Unruh's doctoral dissertation treats the same 44. Truteau, "Remarks on Manners of In­ subject in . somewhat greater detail: "The Plains dians."