In 2000, Creek poet Hacho called on Indian writers to draw their own maps and confront land issues. In 1997, Ethiopian poet Miranda embarked on a journey of map making with her poetry collection "Indian Cartography," revealing the traumas of individuals and tribes. The poetry collection won the North American Indigenous Writers Poetry Award. What are the connections and differences between Miranda's map writing and white cartography? The following text will explore the history of mapping the North American continent.

Mapping of the North American continent

Native Americans were the earliest cartographers on the North American continent, and their mapping history can be divided into pre contact, contact, and post contact periods. During the pre contact period, Native American mapping mainly focused on rock paintings and man-made structures, depicting stars and celestial bodies. During the contact period, Native Americans drew maps on birch bark, animal skins, bones, and shells, which influenced European white mapping. During the post contact period, Native Americans communicated with European white people through mapping, helping them obtain information about routes, strategic relationships, and resource locations. Indian mapping follows three principles: only those closely related to the land are qualified to map; Maps reflect contextuality and historicity, covering multiple dimensions such as history, experience, ecology, and stories; The map is sacred, treat it kindly. Indian maps contain a large amount of geographical details, with the main function of depicting various relationships, including social relationships, political relationships, and the relationship between humans and nature. The mapping of North America by European white people began with the Age of Discovery and was divided into contact and post contact periods. During the contact period, Native American maps and cartographers provided white people with a large amount of necessary information, and white maps to some extent absorbed and integrated Native American cartography. During the post contact period, white colonizers intentionally or unintentionally altered geographical knowledge, and Indian maps and cartographers were gradually marginalized, eventually abandoned and expelled, thus legitimizing white colonialism. White people intentionally exclude Native American cartographers and their mapping techniques by using English place names to eradicate existing Native American place names during the mapping process. The act of white cartographers dividing the wilderness is a blatant colonial act. The North American continent underwent an evolution from pre contact Native American mapping to early contact Indo white joint mapping, and then to post contact white independent mapping, which was a land colonization. Sexual colonization often accompanies land colonization, which further exacerbates it. The two are intertwined and mutually reinforcing, causing multidimensional harm to the survival of Native Americans.

'Certain Scars': The Interweaving of Native American Women's Bodies and Native American North American Maps

Explored the intertwined relationship between the bodies of Native American women and North American maps in Miranda's poetry collection "Indian Cartography". Miranda expressed the pain of Indian women suffering from white male sexual violence through poetry, and linked this physical scar to the scars on Indian maps. As an early medium for maps, parchment not only metaphorically represented the bodies of Native American women, but also pointed to the maps of North America. White cartographers gradually pushed Native Americans out of their land by eradicating place names, causing dual harm to Native American maps and women's bodies. Miranda uses the word 'wrinkles against silence' to refer to both the wounds crying in silence and the silence of the map. The "scars" and "parchment" in the poem are both metaphorical and non metaphorical, allowing the poem to shuttle through the semantic fields of the body and the map. Miranda draws inspiration from the image of the spider grandmother in Native American mythology, viewing scars as the core of weaving imagination that radiates to the bodies and maps of Native American women. She believes that rebuilding connections between people is crucial to breaking the survival difficulties of Native Americans, as these connections are not only about individuals, but also about groups.

Open Hands ": Rebuilding the Connection between People with an Open Mind

Explored how Miranda reconstructed the connection between people through the symbolic element of "palm" in "Indian Cartography". In the poem, the "palm" is depicted as a map carrying route information, symbolizing the connection between the individual and the homeland of the soul. Miranda combines physiognomy with Native American understanding of land, and through hands-on practice, she deciphers the secret of returning home. She emphasized the importance of the 'open hand', which not only symbolizes interpersonal connections under an open mindset, but also reflects the reconstruction of kinship and social relationships. Through the 'open hand', the poet depicts the reconnection between individuals, ethnic groups, and nature, as well as the tracing of the roots of Native American traditions. Miranda's' Open Hand 'transcends traditional bodily meanings and presents a dynamic, flowing map in which the connections between individuals and between individuals and ethnic groups are reconstructed, reflecting the spiritual traits of home.

Face down, eyes open, floating on the water surface: Reconstructing the connection between humans and nature in a fused posture

Explored the depiction and symbolic significance of traditional Indian cartography in Miranda's poetry collection "Indian Cartography". The scene in the poem where the father opens a map of California metaphorically portrays the existence of "hands", likening mountains, rivers, and boundaries to family bloodlines, constructing a cognitive map of Indian tradition. This map not only contains natural features, but also incorporates stories and behavioral norms, echoing the concept of cognitive maps proposed by psychologist Tolman. The redrawing of Lake Kachuma reveals the contextual and historical nature of Native American maps, covering multiple dimensions such as history, ecology, and stories. My father, through his dream experience, released a message of behavioral norms towards Lake Kachuma, reflecting the natural views and culture of the Ethiopian people, emphasizing the unity between humans and water. Miranda showcases the reverence and integration of Native Americans into nature through her poetry collection, as well as the uniqueness of Native American map perspectives. This perspective challenges the traditional mapping methods of white people, incorporating long absent elements such as islands and indigenous peoples into the field of view. Miranda's map writing is not only an imaginative recovery of Native American lost territories, but also a revival of traditional Native American cartography, reflecting the political demands of Native Americans for land and identity.