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Taming the Land of Monsters: Dutch Maps of Brazil c. 1596-1643
From: The British Library
| By:
Surekha Davies |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
In the medieval European worldview, the easternmost part of the world was depicted as terrestrial paradise, while southern regions were believed to be inhabited by monstrous races. During the sixteenth century, maps of Brazil depicted Amerindians as cannibals, simple savages or woodcutters. But by the early seventeenth century, as Europeans became more familiar with South America, the image of the woodcutter replaced the cannibal. |
  he rediscovery of the Americas by Europeans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to an enormous influx of knowledge which challenged existing geographical ideas. Encounters with Amerindians prompted many artists, settlers and explorers to describe what they saw, in words and illustrations. Subsequent maps of the Americas often contained illustrations of the native inhabitants, which were inspired by the writings and drawings of those who had been there. |
Early geographical beliefs
Observations of Amerindians were strongly influenced by existing European beliefs as to what could be found at the far reaches of the earth. In medieval world maps, or "mappaemundi," the easternmost point of the world was often the terrestrial paradise, while the southern fringes were inhabited by monstrous races. As knowledge of the South grew, and monsters weren't found, the myths were transferred to the West. Since America was reached by sailing west, its geographical position could be described as the westernmost region of the earth, with respect to Europe. However, since it was also believed that the new lands discovered to the west adjoined the eastern reaches of Asia, they could be described as the easternmost region. While accepting that the earth was a sphere, cartographers still tried to reduce it conceptually to a flat surface. By analogy, if paradise was in the East, hell on earth might be in the West. Thus the New World in the sixteenth-century imagination was alternatively viewed as paradise or purgatory. |
These preconceptions led early European explorers to expect America to be a menagerie of wondrous people and animals. Classical writers such as Herodotus and Pliny had written of "blemmyae," or headless men with faces in their chests, dog-headed "cynocephali" and other races which could be found if one journeyed far from Europe. Medieval bestiaries, or books of beasts, derived their ideas from these classical sources. They described "anthropophagi" who ate human flesh, and beings that were part human, part animal. |
Making sense of observations
In order to make sense of the new peoples they encountered, explorers and settlers compared them to existing ideas about the inhabitants of the fringes of the earth. Thus, on observing people eating human flesh, Brazilian tribes such as the Tupinamba were immediately identified as cannibals--people who ate human flesh. In fact, the consumption of human flesh was confined to specific religious rituals, rather than being the norm. The medieval vocabulary was often used to describe the Indians--words like "anthropophagi" suggest that observations made in the New World were seen to support the classical authorities. |
Common motifs, 1502-96
During the early sixteenth century, images of Amerindians based on firsthand evidence began to circulate. Since few people had been to the Americas, many map and book illustrators relied on earlier maps, medieval traditions of monstrous races and a few published illustrations drawn from life of both North and South American natives. Three prominent motifs were the Indian as cannibal, as the peaceful, pliant native and as the woodcutter. They represent the perception of the New World as both curiosity and commodity. |
Monstrous races fascinated people: Shakespeare's Othello wooed Desdemona with tales of cannibals, anthropophagi and "men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders." Mapmakers used such images in order to make their maps look sensational, memorable and commercially attractive. The earliest extant map on which an Indian appears is the Kunstmann II map (1502-6) in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. It shows an Indian roasting what appears to be a European on a spit, and is believed to be based on a real event. Amerigo Vespucci related how a crewmember of an expedition he accompanied in 1501-2 was captured and eaten. Other depictions of Indians as cannibals illustrate the Rotz atlas (1542), Diego Homem's "Queen Mary" atlas (1558) and Diego Gutiérrez's map (1562), all of which are held by the British Library. London Hans Staden's account of his experiences as a prisoner of the Tupinambas of Brazil (first published in 1557) contains graphic illustrations of cannibals catching and cooking their victims. The later printed maps such as Claesz's and Hondius' maps of Brazil (1596 and 1625) continued this theme. |
In contrast, Indians were also depicted as simple, peaceful folk. Some of the best-known images from life were drawn by John White, an artist who accompanied Walter Raleigh's expedition to and settlement of Roanoke, in North America. White's drawings would illustrate a book written by the surveyor of the expedition, Thomas Hariot, first published in 1588. The book was republished along with Staden's work and the writings of many other early observers, in Theodor de Bry's Grands Voyages. De Bry's work, published in numerous editions, was one of the first and most influential sources of information about what the Indians looked like, and the engravings became the models for illustrations in numerous maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Hondius the Younger's map of America (c. 1632). |
The third motif used was that of the Indian as a woodcutter or servant, often supplying such commodities as dyewoods which European traders sold at great profit. The very name of Brazil comes from brazilwood, which was used to make dye. In the early 1500s, Europeans began collecting brazilwood from the Americas, and the northeastern portion of South America, which used to be called Vera Cruz (True Cross), gradually came to be known as Brazil. Indians cutting wood are found in the Miller atlas (1519) and, interestingly, also the Rotz and "Queen Mary" atlases. In the "Queen Mary" atlas, there is a lone woodcutter some way away from the 12 or so Indians clustered round a fire on which they are roasting someone--there is a greater emphasis on the cannibals than on the commodities of the region. |
Later maps, 1596-1643
Early seventeenth-century Dutch maps of Brazil increasingly emphasized the peaceful native and the woodcutter. Initially perceived as curiosities, the Amerindians, forced into supplying dyewoods and other goods, were themselves portrayed as commodities. The Dutch presence in Brazil intensified in the 1620s, following their invasion and capture of the northeast coast in 1624, which they would control for 30 years. Under Governor Johan Maurits of Nassau, scientists and artists flocked to Brazil. A new map of Dutch Brazil by was produced by Georg Marcgraf in 1643, illustrated by drawings made in the field by Frans Post. Initially published by W. Blaeu, it was reissued as late as 1720 by Covens and Mortier, also of Amsterdam. The large village scene shows natives and imported slaves co-operating with Europeans; it could almost be an advertisement to encourage settlers. Post's drawings are idyllic, lacking the sensationalist imagery of the earlier Hondius and Claesz maps. Marcgraf's was the most accurate map of northeast Brazil until the nineteenth century. Its view of Brazil and its peoples as peaceful subjects surrounded by valuable commodities would predominate over time. |
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