Speak of maps, and most people think of lines drawn
on paper. But American Indians have navigated the land for
thousands of years using mental maps created from generations of
stories and oral history. For them, the landscape is a fusion of
familiar landmarks and mythical or real events that happened there.
Since 1999, the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative
has been combining indigenous and Western methods of mapping. Jim
Enote, associate director of the initiative, says the community-led
mapping projects help tribes retrace their ancestors’
footsteps and then match those journeys with paper maps.
Eventually, he hopes these maps will help tribes win back some
ancestral lands. “Maps are very powerful,” he says,
“they can be used for you, and they can be used against
you.”
The mapping initiative is currently working
with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and the
Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, among others. Enote says the maps
have already helped win federal protection for areas of cultural
significance.
For more information, contact Curtis Berkey,
director of the initiative, at 510-548-7070 or Jim Enote at
505-782-5681, P.O. Box 1068, Zuni, NM 87327.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Project puts tribal lands back on the map.
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