The concept of secondary provenance: Re-interpreting ac ko mok ki's map as evolving text

Archivaria

Volumn 58, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 147-159

  Nordland, Lori Podolsky ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249294777     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. J.B. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, Cartographica 26, no. 2 (1989), pp. 1-20.
2. Hugh Taylor, Transformation in the Archives: Technological Adjustment or Paradigm Shift?, Archivaria 25 (Winter 1987-1988), pp. 12-28.
3. In one of Taylor's articles, Recycling the Past: The Archivist in the Age of Ecology, Archi-varia 35 (Spring 1993), pp. 203-213
4. He acknowledges Ed Dahl of the (then) National Archives of Canada for drawing Taylor's attention to Harley's article Text and Contexts in the Interpretation of Early Maps. Since Taylor became aware of Harley's work a couple of years after Harley's death, the two men would not have had the chance to exchange correspondence.
5. Joan M. Schwartz, Records of Simple Truth and Precision: Photography, Archives, and the Illusion of Control, Archivaria 50 (Fall 2000), pp. 1-40.
6. For supportive analyses of the early comments of Taylor and Harley, see the two double-length thematic issues of Archival Science 2, nos. 1-2, and 3-4 (2002) on Archives, Records, and Power, edited by Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, which contain fifteen essays critiquing traditional approaches across all archival functions.
7. Terry Cook, Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth: Postmodernism and the Practice of Archives, Archivaria 51 (Spring 2001), p. 20, note 14, for an extensive listing of similar writing.
8. Taylor, Transformation in the Archives, p. 11
9. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, p. 3.
10. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, p. 3.
11. While the original has not survived, the copy commonly known as Ac ko mok ki's map is located in the Archives of Manitoba, Hudson's Bay Company Archives.
12. Ala Rekrut, Archives of Manitoba Preservation Services Chief, removed the linen overlay prior to the map being sent on exhibition in June 2003.
13. Archives of Manitoba, Hudson's Bay Company Archives map collection finding aid, Ac ko mok ki's map (HBCA G.l/25).
14. Terry Cook, A Reconstruction of the World: George R. Parkin's British Empire Map of 1893, reprinted in Tom Nesmith, ed., Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance (Metuchen, NJ, 1993), p. 325.
15. Cook provides an excellent case study of George R. Parkin's British Empire Map of 1893 to illustrate how maps are used to create particular ethnocentric views and to portray important contemporary political and cultural themes.
16. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, p. 5.
17. For a more in-depth analysis of European concepts of land and cultural meanings of conquest.
18. Elizabeth Vibert, Traders' Tales (Norman, OK, 1997), chapter 3, Landscaping the Wilds: Traders Imagine the Plateau.
19. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, p. 6.
20. J.H. Andrews, Introduction, in J.B. Harley, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography (Baltimore and London, 2001), p. 8.
21. When viewed as cultural texts, maps contain social relations that construct a mythic geography of points of interest and societal values, in which the cartographer codifies and legitimizes the ethnocentricity of, in the case of Ac ko mok ki's map, the Hudson's Bay Company. Cook's analysis of Parkin's map suggests how the importance of imperial power legitimized the political and socio-cultural power of the British Empire. Also, Thomas Richards points out that information on a map is constructed and construed to support the will of imperialist nations. In this sense, the use of symbolism reinforces imperial ideology. Imperial powers act to make the mythic geography and societal values real.
22. Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire (London, 1993).
23. Harley, Deconstructing the Map, p. 7.
24. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London, 1991).
25. Anderson goes one step further in critically analyzing the relationship of European power and the census. He argues that the real innovation of the census-takers [was in] their systematic quantification which lead to subsequent uses of information. Accordingly, Fidler's enumerations of the Siksika also aided the Hudson's Bay Company's financial goals relating to its control of the fur trade by locating Aboriginal nations on the map. Such subsequent use by the Company is important in understanding the broader context and provenance of Ac ko mok ki's map.
26. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 168 (emphasis in original).
27. Richards, The Imperial Archive.
28. Judith Hudson Beattie, Indian Maps in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives: A Comparison of Five Area Maps Recorded by Peter Fidler, 1801-1802, Archivaria 21 (Winter 1985-1986), p. 166.
29. Taylor's reference to transmedia shifts encourages archivists to rethink the electronic record as the same image and text consuming less space and moving faster through space and time. This requires a new paradigm of understanding how organizational culture utilizes information that is available from all directions and levels, rather than being fixed and dispersed through chains of force or command.
30. Taylor, Transformation in the Archives.
31. For a more detailed discussion on the wider meaning of provenance. David Bear-man's Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations (Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994).
32. Terry Cook Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts, Archival Science 1, no. 1 (2001), pp. 3-24.
33. Taylor, Transformation in the Archives, p. 14.
34. D.W. Moodie and Barry Kaye, The Ac ko mok ki Map, The Beaver 56, no. 4 (Spring 1977), pp. 4-15.
35. Beattie, Indian Maps in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, pp. 166-175.
36. Richard I. Ruggles, A Country So Interesting: The Hudson's Bay Company and Two Centuries of Mapping, 1670-1870 (Montreal and Kingston, 1991).
37. Theodore Binnema, How Does a Map Mean? Old Swan's Map of 1801 and the Blackfoot World, in Theodore Binnema, Gerhard J. Ens, and R.C. MacLeod, eds., From Rupert's Land to Canada: Essays in Honour of John E. Foster (Edmonton, 2001).
38. Although these are Har-ley's words, Binnema's approach to Ac ko mok ki's map is an excellent example.
39. Like Binnema, historical geographer Malcolm Lewis presents an argument regarding the problematic interpretations of Aboriginal historical cartographic conventions, and how these misinterpretations were reproduced as scientific inaccuracies in European maps. Aboriginal cartographers frequently failed to distinguish on their maps between river courses, portages, and trails, which to them were merely parts of a single communication network. Instead, they chose to highlight significant strategic routes, even though this meant representing small rivers and minor mountains as equal to major rivers or noteworthy mountains (as determined by European cartographers). These markers served to communicate routes rather than ensure topographic accuracy.
40. G. Malcolm Lewis, Indian Maps: Their Place in the History of Plains Cartography, in Frederick C. Luebke, Frances W. Kaye, and Gary E. Moulton, eds., Mapping the North American Plains: Essays in the History of Cartography (Norman, OK, 1987), pp. 63-80.
41. Binnema, How Does a Map Mean?, p. 210.
42. Theodore Binnema, Old Swan, Big Man, and the Siksika Bands, 1794-1815, Canadian Historical Review 11, no. 1 (March 1996), p. 24.
43. Hudson's Bay Company Archives: http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/index.html
44. The Louisiana State Museum: http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/2-5a.htm
45. Arizona State University: http://www.asu.edu/clas/history/h-amindian/bib_-_direction_and_navigation.htm
46. Common Grounds Community Mapping Project: http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/cground/lydon%20article.htm (all Web sites accessed 24 February 2004).
47. Personal Communication, Dr. Shelley Sweeney, Head, University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections, 23 April 2003. The look and feel of the document is modified in such a way that the researcher may not always get a sense of what the original looked like. The dimensions and colour are changed, and in some cases text may even be enhanced, to draw the researcher's attention to a particular aspect of the record, or to sharpen the image. In addition, the sense of awe that results when faced with the original record can have a strong impact on the researcher's perception of the record - we can contrast the experience of viewing the Mona Lisa or the United States Declaration of Independence in person with viewing virtual images of these documents.