Between Cancer and Capricorn: The Cartography of the Tropics

Museen Dahlem – Kunst und Kulturen der Welt – Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin
From May 20 until August 27, 2006, the special exhibition “Vermessen: Kartographie der Tropen” (“Between Cancer and Capricorn: The Cartography of the Tropics”) is shown at the Ethnological Museum Berlin. More than 10 institutions and museums located in Berlin are contributing to this joint project, such as the National Museums Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the National Library Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) , the German Museum of Technology (Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin), and the Museum of Communication (Museum für Kommunikation Berlin).

Concepts of orientation and spatial representation relating to the tropics are the central theme of this unusual exhibition. Cartographic concepts of the “Old World” are compared with their non-European counterparts that have originated in the tropical regions. Such concepts are by no means limited to “maps” in the conventional sense. They may also include, for example, cosmological ideas.

The exhibition offers an introduction to the early cartographies of Europe, China, and the Arab world. It becomes apparent that people have always perceived their own lebensraum as the center of the world. At the same time, however, they were preoccupied with the unknown, expressed in depictions of fantastic creatures. In spite of the monsters that were thought to lurk in the unknown, people at all times felt an urge to journey away from their center of the world. In the course of time, they developed increasingly reliable maps, particularly by closely observing the movements of the heavenly bodies. Thus, one section of the exhibition focuses on the scientific instruments that made such mappings possible.

The geographical definition of the tropics reaches back to antiquity. It refers to the solstice region between the Tropic of Cancer (23,5° northern latitude) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23,5° southern latitude). The tropical region thus stretches from the equator, where the climate is always hot and moist, to the arid tropics, such as the Arabic Peninsula. It also includes the “cold tropics”, situated in elevations of 4000 meters (like the Andes of South America), and vast sheets of water in the southern Pacific. The length of days in these regions varies between 10,5 and 13,5 hours.

Mercantile interests of aspiring great powers like Spain and Portugal certainly were one factor that triggered the “discovery” of the tropics by the Europeans: On his search for the sea route to India, which was important for the spice trade, Columbus came across the tropical part of the Americas. As the Portuguese, too, searched for a sea route to India, that venture led to the colonization of coastal areas in Africa.

The voyages of discovery are included in the exhibition to demonstrate how the European picture of the Earth gradually took shape. In addition, Cook’s journeys around the world exemplify how, in the South Seas, European cartography made acquaintance with the stick charts, an elaborate indigenous method of cartography. Since discoveries often went hand in hand with colonization, colonial cartography is also an important issue in that context. The colonial powers mapped “their” territories as quickly as possible in order to establish their spheres of influence.

Simultaneously with the colonial conquest, however, the scientific exploration of the tropics began. Three very different examples illustrate that research, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries: James Cook sailed around the world three times with the goal – among others – to find Terra Australis incognita, the unknown southern continent. Alexander von Humboldt, on his expeditions in Middle and South America, observed the skies, travelled on the Orinoco, and studied volcanoes. Franz Junghuhn, a German scholar, was interested in the islands of Sumatra and Java, where he did research in the 19th century. For the first time, he gave a quite thorough description of the topography, geology, flora, and fauna of these islands, employing scientific methods. He conducted field surveys, drew up map books, and also recorded the islanders’ way of life.

The people who first advanced into the tropical regions, and populated them long before the arrival of the Europeans, developed various methods for opening up their physical environment. That diversity is reflected in the development of navigational techniques, and in depictions of land and water, routes, and places. This is illustrated by maps dating from different times, made by peoples who are indigenous to the tropics – for example, a Balinese earthquake calendar and a Chinese map, measuring nine meters in length, that depicts the coastline all the way to Vietnam. Sometimes, maps dating from colonial times will show a mixture of indigenous and European cartographic concepts, as is excellently exemplified by some early colonial manuscripts from Middle America. These documents are land register maps, used by the indigenous peoples to defend their land claims in law courts established by the Spaniards.

Cosmologies, too, are included in that section of the exhibition, because the cosmological order of the world is always reflected in map-like depictions. Often, the cosmos is divided into four main directions and a center. Sometimes people have also recorded their perceptions of the afterworld on map-like documents. This is reflected by two objects from the Egyptian Museum (Ägyptisches Museum) on display in the exhibition. One of them illustrates the ancient Egyptians’ perception of their afterworld, the other is a very stylized map of the hereafter.

Both the number and the diversity of the exhibits bear witness to the abundance and variety of objects found in the Berlin collections. Only a small part of these objects can be presented in the exhibition. Many of the pieces shown have never been displayed in an exhibition before.

The exhibition is part of the project “Auf dem Weg zum Humboldt-Forum” (“On the Way to the Humboldt Forum”), in preparation of the new Forum for non-European Cultures, arts and sciences in the New Middle of Berlin.

The book (in German language) that accompanies the exhibition contains 112 pages, with about 85 illustrations, most of them in color. The ISBN number is 3-88609-531-2.