Man Driving: Carmine, give me directions  to Appleville Powwow Fairgrounds.

GPS Device: Calculating route to Apple store.

Man Driving: No, no, no...  Appleville Powwow Fairgrounds.

GPS Device: Calculating  route to Appleton, Wisconsin.

Man Driving: Ugh... GPS Device: Make two lefts and then a right at the  dead end.

Make a U-turn, then follow the tree line until you see two cows standing in a field.

Man Driving: That’s not right.

Hey,  maybe this guy knows where we're going.

Hey, what's up?

Lee Francis IV: Hey there.

You need a little  help finding your way around these parts?

Man Driving: Yeah, unfortunately  Carmine's a little off today.

Lee Francis IV: Ah, indeed...  mapping is complicated,   but did you know that Indigenous people have  been master cartographers for thousands of years?

I'll tell you all about it today on Indigi-Genius.

Man Driving: Who you talking to?

♪ ♪ Lee Francis IV: Cartography, the art and science  of graphically representing a geographical area,   usually on a flat surface, such as a map  or chart.

There are many ways geographical   areas can be represented and the practice of  cartography has evolved throughout the centuries   to become more and more sophisticated.

Cartography can include traffic routes,   political representations, demographics,  events, food and television preferences.

But,   these more recent representations have their roots  in the ways Indigenous people have been creating   maps for millennia.

For Indigenous  peoples, cartography is more than just   topography or mapping locations.

For many  Indigenous communities, it's about values,   culture and traditional understandings.

Perhaps  the earliest representations of cartography   can be highlighted in the petroglyphs and stone  art of numerous Indigenous peoples around the   globe.

Not only were these artistic and cultural  representations, they often held cartographic   significance that could determine distances,  directions, stories, cultural values and more.

As travel and trade evolved and Indigenous  societies became even more complex,   the need for portable, cartographic media became  absolutely essential, but they were not simply   limited to roads and thruways, as many of those  topographies were memorized and passed down   through the generations.

Instead, the maps took  on deeper and more meaningful significance for the   entire community.

The Indigenous mapas in Mexico  are a key example of the brilliance of Indigenous   cartography.

They are not only topographical,  but they point out origin and creation stories, family trees and connections,   battles and property boundaries for entire  regions and groups of people.

Winter counts,   from the Northern Plains Communities, show  not only battle locations and casualty counts,   but important locations and other defining  factors for all of those peoples in the north.

Maps can come in so many shapes and sizes and  sometimes they can surprise you.

As we think of   land as the main feature here in North America,  the Indigenous peoples from the Pacific Islands   view the water in the same way.

For them,  the land are just small features to help them   guide a person across the great expanses of water.

It's similar to the way we would give directions,   like, “Turn right at the intersection.” Our ocean  relations would say, “Turn toward the northern   horizon when the star line shifts behind you.”  This wayfinding is deeply embedded in that culture   and history and gives insight into  the very origins of cartography.

I love maps.

I've always loved to follow their  lines and stories.

I remember when the first GPS   maps came online and I rushed to get my hands  on the new technology.

But, over the years,   I found myself yearning for the old, hand-held,  fold-out maps, with all their creases and tears.

I never knew how the practice of modern  cartography was so deeply influenced by Indigenous   understandings of geography and art, throughout  the millennia.

And, these understandings and expressions and creases and folds  are all around us, each and every day,   here on Indigi-Genius!

♪ ♪