3 · Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa THOMAS J. BASSETT Although [they are] also known for their mapmaking A third factor behind the meager historiography is that skills, the cartography of the peoples of Africa is less restricted definitions of "map" have excluded a range well known than that of the Indians [of North and of processes and artifacts from serious study. Even if South America].1 This chapter could not have been written without the contributions of many individuals who provided references, illustrations, and critical Our knowledge of African mapmaking has substantially comments at various stages of its preparation. In particular I thank improved since Bruno Adler's seminal survey of non­ Daniel Ayana, Edmond Bernus, Donald Crummey, Jim Delehanty, Western cartographic traditions in 1910. This is particu­ Henry Drewal, Kimbwandaende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Christraud larly true for North African mapmaking, which emerged Geary, Christian Jacob, Manfred Kropp, Jamie McGowan, Philip out of ancient Egyptian civilizations and Islamic cultures.2 Porter, Labelle Prussin, Allen Roberts, Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts, Charles Stewart, Jeffrey C. Stone, Taddesse Tamrat, Claude Tardits, and However, our understanding of sub-Saharan mapmaking Jan Vansina. remains comparatively weak (see fig. 3.1 for a reference 1. Bruno F. Adler, "Karty pervobytnykh narodov" (Maps of primi­ map of Africa). The historiography is particularly scanty. tive peoples), Izvestiya Imperatorskago Obshchestva Lyubiteley Yeste­ When maps of Africa do receive attention, the focus is al­ stvoznanya, Antropologii i Etnografii: Trudy Geograficheskago Otde­ most exclusively on European maps of the continent.3 The liniya (Proceedings of the Imperial Society of the Devotees of National Sciences, Anthropology, and Ethnology: Transactions of the Division of dearth of studies of indigenous African mapmaking may Geography) 119, no. 2 (1910), esp. 177. be explained by a number of factors that have collectively 2. A. F. Shore, "Egyptian Cartography"; S. Maqbul Ahmad, "Carto­ served to marginalize the indigenous cartographic record. graphy of aI-Sharif al-IdrisI"; and Svat Soucek, "Islamic Charting in the First is the ethnocentric and pejorative view that Mediterranean," all in The History ofCartography, ed. J. B. Harley and Africans did not have the cognitive ability to make maps David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987-), 1:117-29, vol. 2.1 (1992): 156-74 and 263-92, and James A. Harrell the same way Europeans did. This was Adler's perspec­ and V. Max Brown, "The World's Oldest Surviving Geological Map: tive when he wrote, "We are all the more surprised that The 1150 B.C. Turin Papyrus from Egypt," Journal of Geology 100 the Negroes do not draw well considering the delicate (1992): 3-18. wood and metal carvings of which they are capable.... 3. Youssouf Kamal, Monumenta cartographica Africae et Aegypti, This lack of cartographic abilities leads us to impute that 5 vols. in 16 pts. (Cairo, 1926-51), facsimile reprint, 6 vols., ed. Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt: Institut fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wis­ they have less intelligence than they do sharp eyesight, senschaften, 1987); John McIlwaine, Maps and Mapping of Africa: A hearing, and a sense of smell." 4 Though decreasingly ex­ Resource Guide (London: Hans Zell Publishers, 1997); Jeffrey C. Stone, plicit, similar assumptions tend to have persisted until ed., Maps and Africa: Proceedings ofa Colloquium at the University of fairly recently. This chapter seeks to chart a less Eurocen­ Aberdeen, April 1993 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University African Studies tric course by drawing attention to how African peoples Group, 1994); R. V. Tooley, Collectors' Guide to Maps of the African Continent and Southern Africa (London: Carta Press, 1969); and [Os­ have mapped their worlds. Even so, the deliberate em­ car] 1. Norwich, Norwich's Maps of Africa: An Illustrated and Anno­ phasis placed on graphic representations is in itself a tated Carto-bibliography, bibliographical descriptions by Pam Kolbe, s Western bias. 2d ed., rev. and ed. Jeffrey C. Stone (Norwich, Vt.: Terra Nova Press, Another reason indigenous mapmaking has not re­ 1997). ceived the scholarly attention it deserves is the transfer of 4. Adler, "Karty pervobytnykh narodov," 186 (note 1). European mapmaking traditions to Africa during the 5. Personal communication, Labelle Prussin, 22 February 1995. Also See Labelle Prussin, African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and colonial period. Metropolitan and colonial states, profes­ Gender (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), 34­ sional societies, and commercial mapmakers produced 37. maps to aid in the colonization and subsequent control of 6. Jeffrey C. Stone, A Short History of the Cartography of Africa conquered lands and peoples. 6 The subsuming of indige­ (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1995), and Thomas J. Bassett, "Carto­ graphy and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa," Geo­ nous African mapmaking by European maps helps to ex­ graphical Review 84 (1994): 316-35. plain why the sign systems illustrated in this chapter 7. Denis Wood, "The Fine Line between Mapping and Mapmaking," failed to develop and spread beyond their local settings. 7 Cartographica 30, no. 4 (1993): 50-60. 24 Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa 25 20' o • <;fo O' 0' o ANGOLA o 250 500 750 miles 1 LI 1-1_--1...TI_ --,,';' o 500 l000km O' 20' FIG. 3.1. REFERENCE MAP OF INTERTROPICAL AFRICA. we employ the most general definition of a map as "a provide an overview of the range of maps one might en­ graphic representation of the geographical setting,''8 we counter in the historical record. By no means does it pre­ are bound to exclude the bulk of what may be justifiably tend to be an exhaustive study. Rather, one of its princi­ called mapmaking in the African context. Examples of pal objectives is to encourage further research and mapmaking that are excluded by this definition are analysis of this understudied subject. mnemonic maps, body art (scarification, tattoos), the lay­ out of villages, and the design and orientation of build­ COSMOGRAPHIC MAPS ings. Here we view maps as social constructions whose meaning lies as much in their making as in the interpre­ Graphic representations of a divine spatial order are ex­ tation of constituent elements. The approach considers pressed in a variety of schematic maps in which cardinal the making as well as the product. Just as art produces directions and geometric forms (crosses, diamonds, cir­ meaning by stimulating thought rather than by simply cles) are characteristic features. The power of these in- symbolizing the ideas of the individual or group that made it/ maps influence the social situations in which 8. Arthur H. Robinson et aI., Elements ofCartography, 6th ed. (New they are created. York: Wiley, 1995), 9. Given the extraordinary diversity of African cultures 9. Jean Laude, African Art of the Dogan: The Myths of the Cliff Dwellers (New York: Viking, 1973),21,30,45, and Allen F. Roberts, and societies, one can only point to examples of map­ "Tabwa Tegumentary Inscription," in Marks of Civilization: Artistic making as illustrating what is clearly a cross-cultural cre­ Transformations ofthe Human Body, ed. Arnold Rubin (Los Angeles: ative activity. Thus the rest of this chapter is organized to Museum of Cultural History, 1988),41-56, esp. 51. 26 Traditional Cartography in Africa signs, and where men and women sleep.ls This repetitive patterning of the cosmological order at ever-expanding scales is also found in other African societies. For exam­ ple, Blier shows how cosmological truths shape the spa­ tial patterning of everyday life in her study of Batammal­ iba architecture in northern Togo and Benin, where "the direction of openings and the positioning of parts often 10. Thomas A. Dowson and David Lewis-Williams, "Diversity in Southern African Rock Art Research," in Contested Images: Diversity FIGS. 3.2 and 3.3. DOGON ROCK PAINTINGS. On the left in Southern African Rock Art Research, ed. Thomas A. Dowson and is the aduno kine or cosmographic map of the "life of the David Lewis-Williams (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, world." The cardinal directions are represented by the torso 1994), 1-8, and Whitney Davis, "The Study of Rock Art in Africa," in and arms of the sign painted on cave walls. North is at the top. A History of African Archaeology, ed. Peter Robertshaw (London: The rock painting on the right shows the cardinal directions James Currey, 1990), 271-95, esp. 284-85. and illustrates the moment in the Dogan creation myth when 11. For example, landscape features depicted in Khoisan rock art the god Amma stretched a ball of clay in four directions to from the Brandberg, Namibia, are believed to represent the natural form the earth. resources of a group's n!ore or "exploitation space"; see Andrew B. Left, after Marcel Griaule, "L'image du monde au Soudan," Smith, "Metaphors of Space: Rock Art and Territoriality in Southern Journal de la Societe des Africanistes 19 (1949): 81­ Africa," in Contested Images: Diversity in Southern African Rock Art 87, esp. 81 (fig. 1A). Right, after Marcel Griaule and Ger­ Research, ed. Thomas A. Dowson and David Lewis-Williams (Johan­ maine Dieterlen, Signes graphiques soudanais, L'Homme, nesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994), 373-84, esp. 383­ Cahiers d'Ethnologie, de Geographie et de Linguistique 3 84. The paintings are thought to represent the out-of-body travel of (Paris: Hermann, 1951), 21 (fig. 40A). shamans in trances during which they drew power from the land and its beings. Thus the images are metaphors of such journeys and at the same time represent a group's construction of its social identity through its control over the natural resources of a territory; Whitney Davis, "Re­ scriptions lies in their mixing of sacred orientations with presentation and Knowledge in the Prehistoric Rock Art of Africa," the spatial patterning of everyday life, such as in the lay­ African Archaeological Review 2 (1984): 7-35, esp.