Team

Nastasia Herold (initiator, humanist – delivering of data and meta data; University of Leipzig, Germany)

Mathilde Blicher Christensen (computer science student – proto type, visualization; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)

Stefan Jänicke (computer scientist, visualization expert – supervisor; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)

Project description

Research question

1: Why do maps published until the 19th century show an ethnonym “Attikamegue” even though some historians say they disappeared around 1700 and even though historical manuscripts after 1700 don’t mention such a people “Attikamegues” anymore?

• Theory 1: The cartographers of the 19th century copied the ethnonym from maps and manuscripts of the 17th century.
• Theory 2: The sources of the newer maps (19th century) are more recent sources and the Attikamegues didn’t disappear.

2: Where do the cartographers localize the Attikamegues?

• The virtual localization of the nation gives us a better understanding of the ancestral territory of the Attikamegues: Did they move farer to the north after the trauma they experienced in the southern part of their territory until around 1660? Was their territory in the South of the “mer du nord” (Hudson’s Bay) already before the traumatic period, which would be an argument against Dawson’s (2003: 60, 100) theory?

Data modeling

Around 30 maps of New France / Quebec from the 17th to 19th century could be found so far showing an ethnonym “Attikamegues” with different orthographies. For the project, facsimiles and digital photographies of the maps are used. Metadata of each map is given (original map title, author(s) name(s), author’s profession, publication date, place of publication, contracting body / purchaser, contracting country, category of purchaser, drawn territory, citation of map’s text, ethnonym in given orthography, category of ethnonym, source of ethnonym, source’s category, source’s year, reproduction yes/no, reproduction of, archive’s name, archive’s location code, access to map in archive, copyright, comments).

On a modern overview map, tags are inserted for the geopoints where the Attikamegues are located in the historical map.

Data collection

• 10 maps from Gallica (1660-1756) – facsimiles
• 15 maps from Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (1669-1824) – digital photos
• 4 maps from Gallica and Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (1656-1744)

Visualization and usage

In the front end is a timeline on the left side that shows dots representing chronologically the maps with publication date and the ethnonym in the map’s orthography. This helps comparing easily and clearly the development of the used orthography of the ethnonym Attikamegue and by that, seeing who probably copied another map or the same manuscript. Some publication dates are unknown; the date shown is the earliest possible year; the range of the possible publication year is given at “Comments” in the metadata of the map. When you move the cursor over a dot, the overview map on the right side shows the corresponding tag. When you click on a dot, the metadata for this specific historical map is shown below the timeline and overview map.

The overview map is from Leaflet and uses OpenStreetMap. It localizes the ethnonym that the cartographers included in their maps. Since the historical making of a map is different than today and especially since the scale and the proportion of geographical places can be in many cases be classified only as an estimate, the overview map cannot use a layer, as it would be possible with a project on modern maps. Thus, the dots or tags on the overview maps are made manually. However, these tags give a better understanding of the ancestral territory of the Attikamegues. When you move the curser over a tag, the ethnonym’s orthography is shown and the timeline on the left side marks the corresponding publication year. This helps answering the second research question in a faster and easier way. When you click on a dot, the metadata for this specific historical map is shown below the timeline and overview map.

When you enable “Table” instead of “Map” above the timeline, a chronological table of the metadata that is most important for answering the research question (publication date, ethnonym in given orthography, category of purchaser, category of ethnonym, source’s category, source’s year, reproduction yes/no) appears. Since it fades out all the other metadata, it enables the researcher to make important links between the historical maps. As the timeline and the overview map, the table is linked to the filter, so specific map categories can be filtered. This visualization helps the researcher to concentrate on his or her exact research question.

The full metadata of a specific map is shown below the timeline and overview map. It appears only when you click on a dot in the timeline or overview map or on a line in the table. There will appear two pictures: one of the historical map in a whole (including a tag where the Attikamegue ethnonym can be found) and one that is a zoomed picture of the Attikamegue ethnonym on the map. The map title is the one that is given on the historical map. As author, many archives name the cartographer and also the publisher etc. In this present project, the given author’s name is linked mostly to the name given on the map, which is mostly the person who actually collected the information and who draw the map relating to this information. When the publication date is unknown, the first possible year is given, and seeing Comments, you find the possible publication period. Information on the contracting body is sometimes given in the texts on the maps, but often are taken from secondary literature on the author’s professional life. Map topic is, what you can see on the map from today’s perspective, using the terms Canada and USA, even though these countries haven’t existed yet when the map was published. Ethnonym original is the original orthography of the Attikamegue ethnonym on the specific map. It’s category is mostly “Attikamegue”, which is the most common orthography in the Jesuit Relation according to Herold (N.N.). According to Herold (N.N.), it is possible that the ethnonym Attikamegue disappeared in the 18th century because it became common that authors combined small Indigenous nations speaking an Algonquian language (like the Attikamegues) to a macro group “Algonquins”. This is why maps that show the Algonquin ethnonym very clearly on the Attikamegue territory are included in the project for the ethnonym categories “Algonquien” (micro group) and Algonquin (macro group). Following Herold’s (N.N.) model, this micro and macro group division depends on the usage of this ethnonym in other places on the map. For more explanations, see the comments in the metadata of the specific map. Some few maps name their information sources, but even then, the information is very general. The corpus used to find the sources of the Attikamegue ethnonyms is composed by the maps of this present project and by the manuscripts of the “Historical Reports project”. However, this information can always be only a more or less presumable assumption because the authors can have unknown sources like unpublished or unknown or disappeared manuscripts or even oral sources. If a map is a reproduction can easily be seen by comparing the ethnonyms and scales etc. of historical maps. However, it is rare to say that is has certainly not been a reproduction, but the first of its type, because the precursor can be unknown or not part of this corpus yet. The text given on the map is transcribed only when it is general text (e.g. part of the title with author etc.) or when it gives more information on the area where the Attikamegues are localized. Information for example on a river in West U.S.A. is not transcribed. What you find at the metadata is the current state of research. All metadata can be changed due to new research findings.

References

Herold, Nastasia (submitted): “Eine quantitative Untersuchung zum ethnonymischen Wandel in den Jesuitenberichten Neufrankreichs im 17. Jahrhundert”, in: Burkhardt, Julia / Annisius, Marie /Arestau, Elena / Herold, Nastasia / Sierig, Rebecca (eds.): Vielfalt und Integration – diversitá ed integrazione – diversité et intégration. Eine Festschrift für Elisabeth Burr. N.N.

Citation

Herold, Nastasia / Blicher Christensen, Mathilde / Jänicke, Stefan (date of last update): “Historical maps”, in: Herold, Nastasia: Atikamekw Studies <> [date of your webpage visit].

Collaboration

When you find any other historical map of North America

• published between the 16th century and 1900 and
• talking about groups with one of these ethonym: Attikamegue, Atikamekw, Têtes-de-Boule, Poissons blancs, Whitefish, Nehirowisiw, Gens de terre, (orthogrphy can vary) – or “Algonquin” on the Attikamegue territory

please send me the source name and how to access it, at: nastasia.herold@uni-leipzig.de The same, if you have new findings or a different opinion due to your own research or due to your knowledge of Indigenous place names (lakes etc.).

It would be great to constantly add maps and information to the web page, so all of us can work with it. Thank you!

Last update: 7 May 2021 by Nastasia Herold