Misinterpretation of Amerindian Information as a Source of Error on Euro-American Maps

Abstract

From the earliest contact times until the recent past Euro-Americans solicited from Indians information about unexplored and superficially explored areas. The Indians almost always responded, communicating geographical information in a mixture of speech, gesture, and pictography. Pictographs, usually in the form of “maps,” were particularly important in influencing the structure and content of Euro-Americans’maps of their terrae incognitae. The communication process, however, was inefficient and often led to the introduction of serious errors. This case study begins by tracing the history of a number of elements and patterns that characterized printed maps of western North America during the second half of the eighteenth century. These were all associated with a great river that supposedly flowed west. Exploration eventually disproved the existence of each of them in the forms that they had been presented on the printed maps. Their origin is first traced back to manuscript maps made by G.S. de Léry in 1730; then to another manuscript map made by P.G. de V. et de la Vérendrye in 1729; and finally to information, including “maps,” supplied by Indians to La Vérendrye. Having established the historical descent, I examine the sources for causes of error. Two sets of causal processes are recognized; first, those associated with the soliciting of information from Indians and its initial interpretation; and, second, subsequent reinterpreting, mosaicing of the reinterpreted information to form a composite map, differentially transforming the scale of the composite map, incorporating the transformed map into an existing map of a wider region, and finally but protractedly, accommodating the initial and subsequently modified incorporations in the light of new evidence.

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