Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2010 Regional narratives, hidden maps, and storied places: cultural cartographies of the Cariri region, Northeast Brazil Jorn Seemann Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Seemann, Jorn, "Regional narratives, hidden maps, and storied places: cultural cartographies of the Cariri region, Northeast Brazil" (2010). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3875. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3875 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. REGIONAL NARRATIVES, HIDDEN MAPS, AND STORIED PLACES: CULTURAL CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE CARIRI REGION, NORTHEAST BRAZIL A dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Geography & Anthropology by Jörn Seemann M.Sc. Universität Hamburg, 1994 December 2010 For Selma and Oliver, Co-mappers of my life ii Acknowledgements Any kind of intellectual production is the result of interaction, communication, and contested worldviews. I did not write my dissertation locked in a windowless room and completely isolated from the human world outside, living on a diet of chocolate bars and strong Brazilian coffee. On the contrary, I am grateful to a large number of people who gave me advice, served as my “guinea pigs”, provided me with valuable insights, or even accompanied me on one or more stages of my “cartographic adventure.” First of all, I would like to thank each member of my committee for his/her outstanding personal qualities: Dr. Dydia DeLyser for helping me focus on my research topic and pushing me further and further ahead in my cultural cartographies; Dr. Kent Mathewson for giving me a more historical perspective of cultural geography and dialoguing about Latin American geographies, including Brazilian foodways and culture; Dr. Miles Richardson who gave me the courage to be daringly creative and “subvert the dominant paradigm”; Dr. William Boelhower for his accessibility and indefatigable interest in multivocal cartographies; Dr. Jill Brody for her openness and readiness to take part in my committee at shortest notice; and Dr. Matthew Fannin, the graduate school representative, for his thoughtful comments. The acknowledgments rarely leave any space to mention the scholars who inspired a dissertation or had a strong influence on a researcher. For this reason, I would like to include my principal academic idols in my list: John Brian Harley who died more than 20 years ago and whose writings I have read over and over again, and Denis Cosgrove who deceased unexpectedly in March 2008 and with whom I was able to have a five-minute conversation during the busy annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in San Francisco in April 2007 – five minutes that seem to be insignificant, but for me they were extremely meaningful. iii Many people in the Cariri helped me understand more about the region during the three months of my fieldwork than I had learned during the four years that I had spent as a faculty member at the regional university. My special thanks go to Dr. Napoleão Tavares Neves, José Flávio Vieira, Roberto Marques, Glauco Vieira, Ivan Queiroz, Maria Soares da Cunha, Edésio Batista, Patrício Aquino, Armando Rafael, Jurandy Temóteu, Arlindo Siebra, and two of my informants who passed on prior to the conclusion of my dissertation: Sarah Cabral and Dr. Raimundo Oliveira Borges. I would also like to show my gratitude to the Department of Geography & Anthropology at Louisiana State University, especially to Dr. Patrick Hesp, for its generous support of my “conference hoppings” and for granting a West Field Award to me that helped me carry out parts of my fieldwork in the summer of 2008. A graduate school writing fellowship helped me “survive” as an international student at LSU during the period from August 2009 to May 2010. Andrew Augustine, Ricardo Nogueira, Rick Hunter, and Paul Watts, my colleagues in the geography program, were fast friends, sharing geographical knowledge along with the good times that Louisiana is justly famous for.. Finally, my special gratitude goes to my wife Selma and my son Oliver who have been my patient companions during this cartographic adventure and who will be essential for my further mappings in life. You never map alone! iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………..iii List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………vi List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………..…vii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………............xiii Chapter One Introduction: A Personal Cartography……………………………..…………………………….……....1 Two Introducing the Region Histories and Geographies of the Cariri ……….………………………………….…..…12 Three Theory and Methodologies A Framework for Cultural Cartographies……………………………………….……….43 Four Map Reading Cartographic (Hi)stories of the Cariri ……….……………………………….……….…67 Five Reading Mappings The Cariri Region on the Mind…………………………………………..….……….…115 Six Mappings Mapping Regional Knowledge in Interviews..……….…………………………...……167 Seven Mapmaking Between Narrative Cartographies and Cartographic Narratives ……….……...….……216 Eight Final Considerations Cultural Cartographies and Cartographic Cultures………………………….…………268 References………………......…………………………………………………………………..288 Map Sources...……………..……………………………………………………………………319 Appendix I: Glossary of Regional Terms……………………………………………………………324 Appendix II: Interviews in the Cariri Region, June 08 – July 09, 2009………………………….…...328 Vita………………………………………………………………………………………….....329 v List of Tables Table 2.1: Cultural production about the Cariri region from the last three decades……………..39 Table 3.1: Mapping perspectives in human science discourse…………………………………..62 Table 4.1: Cartographic material for consultation and/or map interpretation…………………...70 Table 8.1: Comparison of the four cultural-cartographic methodologies………………………277 vi List of Figures Figure 2.1: Map of Northeast Brazil with geographic regions and polygon of drought…………17 Figure 2.2: Fossils on display in the museum of natural history, Jardim………………………..23 Figure 2.3: Cover page of Brígido’s Apontamentos para a História do Cariri............................24 Figure 2.4: Header on title page of Araripe newspaper………………………………………….25 Figure 3.1: Maps and mappings in cultural geography…………………………………………..65 Figure 4.1: Accuratissima Brasiliae Tabula (Hondius, 1630)…………………………………...72 Figure 4.2: Comparison of details in seventeenth-century Dutch maps…………………………73 Figure 4.3: Detail from Le Brésil (Sanson, 1656)…………..…………………………………....74 Figure 4.4: Detail from Le Brésil (De Fer, 1719)…………...…………………………………...75 Figure 4.5: Detail and cartouche from Brasilia (Montanus, 1671)………………………………76 Figure 4.6: Detail from Brazil, or Transatlantic Portugal (Luffman, 1808)…………………….77 Figure 4.7: Detail from A Map of Brazil, Now called New Portugal (Carey, 1814)…………….77 Figure 4.8: Details from Geographical, statistical, and historical map of Brazil (Finlayson, 1828) and Brazil with Guiana & Paraguay (Burr, 1834)………………………..….78 Figure 4.9: Detail from Brazil and Paraguay (Hall, 1828)……………………………………...79 Figure 4.10: George Gardner’s Map of Brazil (Gardner, 1846)…………………………………81 Figure 4.11: Detail from bandeirante map from the early eighteenth century (Anonymous, 1722)……………………………………………………………………………………………..82 Figure 4.12: Cartouche and detail from Mapa Geographico da Capitania do Seará (Amaral,1800)................................................................................................................................83 Figure 4.13: Detail from Carta da Capitania do Ceará (Paulet, 1818)........................................86 Figure 4.14: Detail from Carta Chorographica da Provincia do Ceará (Théberge, 1861)..........87 Figure 4.15: Carta Corographica (…) contendo as províncias de Alagoas, Pernambuco, Parahiba, Rio Grande do Norte e Ceará(Niemeyer, 1843).........................................................88 vii Figure 4.16: Detail from Carta Corographica…(Niemeyer, 1843)…………….…………….…89 Figure 4.17: Mappa Topographico da Comarca de Crato (Macedo, 1871?)................................91 Figure 4.18: Detail from Mappa Topographico da Comarca de Crato (Macedo, 1871?)............92 Figure 4.19: Detail from Mappa Hidrographico de um canal de navegação e irrigação (Franklin,1886)…..........................................................................................................................94 Figure 4.20: Detail from Mapa referente ao indicado canal São Francisco-Jaguaribe (Miller, 1913).................................................................................................................................95 Figure 4.21: Reconhecimento Parcial do Prolongamento da E.F. Baturité para o Rio São Francisco (Brito, 1892)....................................................................................................96 Figure 4.22: Detail from Reconhecimento Parcial do Prolongamento... (Brito, 1892)................97 Figure 4.23: