The comedian Stephen Wright once told an audience he had the most accurate map in the world. "But it is a 1:1 scale so it takes a very long time to unfold."
Maps are a key component of the Borderlands Project. Together with a good GPS unit they are one of the necessities...right up there with a good snake-bite strategy. In the age of satellite photography and Google-Earth we have come to think of ourselves as the proud possessors of the most accurate maps in the world. But are we?
Check out the picture of the Marshall Islanders map on this page. It is reproduced from a 1938 edition of General Cartography by master topologist Erwin Raisz. It is constructed from shells and sticks that partly provide support and partly show the prevailing curvature of the wave fronts. These island voyagers used this sort of map to traverse the expanse of ocean that separated their island destination points.
Another insight into the diversity of map making and way finding can be found in the description by Eric Hansen of his experience in the rain forests of Borneo (Stranger in the Forest). Hansen had a map, the kind most of us are familiar with, but had extreme difficulty getting his guides to tell him exactly where they were or how long it would take to get to the next camp. His Penan guides (a forest tribe highly regarded for their abilities in the Borneo rain forests) navigated by the direction of streams or by where a certain vine grew on a tree, they told him. Hansen measured the journey in hours and minutes and the difficulty of the route. His guides measured the journey by how good the hunting was. For instance, if the hunting was good in an area it may take them five days to traverse it because they spent time tracking and hunting. If game was scarce they might traverse the same route in a day or less to get to where the hunting was better. The route also depended on mood or need so a reference to a destination "not too far away" may relate to it being a place where good tobacco could be secured from a friend. The fact that it took five walking days was not a factor.
