Early Indigenous Literatures

Indigenous (Re)Mapping

While the Life offers a (re)mapping through qualitative description of Sauk relationships in and with the land, recent efforts are underway to combat settler cartographies directly. Native Land Digital (NLD) is a new project run primarily by Indigenous people that “strive[s]” to go beyond old ways of talking about Indigenous people and to develop a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms.”[1] Embedded in this section is the cartographic rendering in this digital platform of Sauk and Fox lands, which defies state borders. However, the API embedding widget relies upon the backdrop of google maps, which necessitates the use of contemporary borders. Clicking the Native-Land.ca link takes readers of this exhibit to the full-fledged Native Land platform that eschews these settler labels and is a more enriching, interactive experience. [Search: Rock Island, for instance, in the location bar; or, search “Sauk” in the territories bar]



 

An innovative digital project, NLD offers much to its viewers. These users might keep in mind, however, that cartography as a technology—even when repurposed by/for Indigenous people—still tends to portray land in a particularly stable and bounded way that defies, for example, the Life’s more dynamic way of understanding the land. Although NLD offers many overlapping “boundary” lines which signal joint tribal usership, the medium does not easily allow for seasonal, or even chronological, shifts. While certainly a generative Indigenous project of (re)—or counter—mapping, NLD, as this exhibit’s examination of the Life has sought to demonstrate, is a useful-though-not-final tool to unravel the settler colonial script.



 
[1] See, https://native-land.ca/about/why-it-matters/

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