Another America : Native American Maps and the History of Our Land
by Mark WarhusSt. Martin’s Griffin: New York: 1997.
(pp. 241)
Map making did not begin in North America with explorers from other lands carefully drawing the landscape. As Mark Warhus and his researchers demonstrate, physical maps created and used by peoples of various Indian nations were made and later preserved by immigrant settlers and government officials. Though Indian nations relied on oral records used to pass on cultural knowledge, trade information, strategic planning and the events of daily life physical maps describing paths taken for other to follow, locations of camp sites and later strategic maps were made a then disposed of.
The maps "found in the national collections of the North American colonial powers and in U.S. and Canadian archives and national libraries" tell a history from the perspective of Indian nations not otherwise available from collected accounts of settlers. Even as the Center for World Indigenous Studies continues its Fourth World Atlas Project to create new documents of territory, people, environments and culture it is now possible, thanks to Mark Warhus to examine some of the earliest maps of North America.