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Native names are only part of the fascinating story of Off the Map, an amusing, fact-filled book that recharts geography and human history through the eyes of intrepid seafarers, arrogant imperialists, feuding neighbors, gullible mapmakers, and bumbling tourists from the time of Ptolemy to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Far from being straightforward labels for countries or regions, place-names and the maps that establish them can reveal a sensitive record of exploration, conquest, and liberation, shot through with geographic error, linguistic decay, and ethnic misunderstanding.
Some place names are outright errors: the Cape Verde Islands, after all, aren't verdant, and the Red Sea isn't red. Gypsies got their name from Egypt, but didn't come from there, nor did the Bohemians come from Bohemia. The Lachine (or China) Rapids on the St. Lawrence River are a sarcastic momento of Sieur de la Salle, an explorer who had planned to go up the St. Lawrence, then down the Mississippi to the China Sea.
Maps are an attempt to depict an unstable world with a complex past and, as Nelson (Moonshiners, Bootleggers, and Rumrunners, not reviewed) notes, to "send ominous messages and trace ethnic and religious fault lines." At any given time, more than a hundred boundaries are disputed, but some maps skirt reality or create their own. For example, Arab maps ignore Israel or call it Palestine, and Syrian maps claim territory for Syria that has been part of Turkey for 50 years. But then, imaginative map-making has an established history. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Prester John was a staple of European maps. Even an increase in firsthand accounts did not ensure accuracy; for example, Columbus insisted that he that he had reached the Orient, and accommodating cartographers stretched Asia to fit his claims. One place may acquire several designations because of transliteration snags, mispronunciation, or misunderstanding, as when Chinese told foreign traders that they were from Chin (their ruling dynasty) rather than Kung-ho-kuo (their country). Some names reveal fragments of local history: Mohawks sneered at the hunting skills of Algonquins residing in New York State's northern mountains by calling them Hatiróntaks ("they eat trees"), whence Adirondack. Others trace changes in government, as when St. Petersburg changed to Leningrad and back again. Place names can be wonderfully descriptive, such as Mose-os-Tunya, "smoke that thunders," or imperialist, such as Victoria Falls, thus named by David Livingston. Such claiming by naming continues even today: While orbiting the moon, astronaut James Loving dubbed one of its peaks Mount Marilyn, for his wife.
Enlightening entertainment for those who browse the atlas so long that they forget what they meant to look up.
Overview