renaming
August 22, 2024 8:22 AM Subscribe
When we look at the Northeast, we see familiar places: New York, Philadelphia, Syracuse, Rome, Lancaster, York. All of these names are imports: New York designated the dominion given to the Duke of York, others recalled the powerful ruling families of England, or were echoes of the classical world. Yet beneath these names sites an older and very different cultural landscape. Some Indigenous place names survive: Oneonta, Chittenango, Canandaigua. But much more of this landscape and its names have been reinscribed. [zooniverse]
via treatiedspaces [University of Hull, U.K.]
via treatiedspaces [University of Hull, U.K.]
This is very cool! I love both indigenous place names and also citizen science!
posted by radiogreentea at 9:40 AM on August 22 [2 favorites]
posted by radiogreentea at 9:40 AM on August 22 [2 favorites]
I have called the names of 4½ rivers somewhere in N America. Feel achieved.
When we bought our farm in 1996, the neighbours said that one 3 acre field was called Crowe's. That field had the same boundaries on the 1st Ordnance Survey (1830s,40s) map: the map included a black square near to the adjacent lane. I assumed that was the cabin where Mr and Mrs Crowe lived with their many children before the famine. 10 years later, we fenced off one acre of that field to plant native hardwood trees against an uncertain future. In one place, digging holes for the saplings turned up a lot of broken china . . . we had discovered Crowe's midden. There are ongoing projects in Ireland to capture the names of fields before the death of the last old person who picked stones out them as a nipper.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:06 AM on August 22 [6 favorites]
When we bought our farm in 1996, the neighbours said that one 3 acre field was called Crowe's. That field had the same boundaries on the 1st Ordnance Survey (1830s,40s) map: the map included a black square near to the adjacent lane. I assumed that was the cabin where Mr and Mrs Crowe lived with their many children before the famine. 10 years later, we fenced off one acre of that field to plant native hardwood trees against an uncertain future. In one place, digging holes for the saplings turned up a lot of broken china . . . we had discovered Crowe's midden. There are ongoing projects in Ireland to capture the names of fields before the death of the last old person who picked stones out them as a nipper.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:06 AM on August 22 [6 favorites]
Relatedly, a new friend sent me a bit of work she'd done on Massachusetts place names today, and included in the pages of her zine was the story of John Smith's naming of places in what we now call New England. He floated along the coast and never docked, never so much as stepped foot on the land he was usurping before he renamed it. Accominticus became Boston, Aumoughcawgen became Cambridge, and so on. Not all of the names stuck, but his expropriative sentiment has certainly endured.
posted by criticalyeast at 10:12 AM on August 22 [9 favorites]
posted by criticalyeast at 10:12 AM on August 22 [9 favorites]
There are ongoing projects in Ireland to capture the names of fields before the death of the last old person who picked stones out them as a nipper.
That is cool! As is the main topic, don't get me wrong...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:13 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]
That is cool! As is the main topic, don't get me wrong...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:13 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]
I live just outside Granada, Spain, which was Ground Zero for the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula beginning in 1492 CE.
Some local histories recount how, during and after the expulsions, the Crown had to attract (Catholic) settlers from elsewhere in Spain to what is now Andalucia. Part of that effort was to divvy up the land and its assets that used to belong to the fleeing Muslims and parcel it out to the new arrivals.
The Crown documented the land and assets meticulously before the reapportionment, and I was intrigued to see how many place names in the area at the time appeared to be Amazigh (indigenous North African) in origin. The histories I read were silent on this point.
If I'm correct about the origin of the names, I'd suspect it would have to do with waves of conquests of Andalucia by at least two Muslim regimes from Morocco in the 1000s-1200s CE. So there would have been waves of settlers, or migrants, from Morocco to Andalucia, and they brought their language with them.
Now, this means these people weren't exactly indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, of course. But when their descendants had to flee the country, the place names that reflected their ancestry were erased.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:33 AM on August 22 [7 favorites]
Some local histories recount how, during and after the expulsions, the Crown had to attract (Catholic) settlers from elsewhere in Spain to what is now Andalucia. Part of that effort was to divvy up the land and its assets that used to belong to the fleeing Muslims and parcel it out to the new arrivals.
The Crown documented the land and assets meticulously before the reapportionment, and I was intrigued to see how many place names in the area at the time appeared to be Amazigh (indigenous North African) in origin. The histories I read were silent on this point.
If I'm correct about the origin of the names, I'd suspect it would have to do with waves of conquests of Andalucia by at least two Muslim regimes from Morocco in the 1000s-1200s CE. So there would have been waves of settlers, or migrants, from Morocco to Andalucia, and they brought their language with them.
Now, this means these people weren't exactly indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, of course. But when their descendants had to flee the country, the place names that reflected their ancestry were erased.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:33 AM on August 22 [7 favorites]
If you're interested in this subject, it's worth seeing (or at least reading) Brian Friel's 1980 play Translations, which depicts Victorian map makers' changing of Irish place names into ones more manageable to English tongues. Here's an extract from the play's Wikipedia page:
The action begins with Owen [...] returning home after six years away in Dublin. With him are Captain Lancey, a middle-aged, pragmatic cartographer, and Lieutenant Yolland, a young, idealistic and romantic orthographer, both working on the six-inch-to-the-mile map survey of Ireland for the Ordnance Survey. Owen acts as a translator and go-between for the British and Irish. Yolland and Owen work to translate local placenames into English for purposes of the map: Druim Dubh, which means "black shoulder" in Irish, becomes Dromduff in English, and Poll na gCaorach, meaning "hole of the sheep" in Irish, becomes Poolkerry. While Owen has no qualms about anglicising the names of places that form part of his heritage, Yolland, who has fallen in love with Ireland, is unhappy with what he perceives as a destruction of Irish culture and language.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:41 PM on August 22 [7 favorites]
The action begins with Owen [...] returning home after six years away in Dublin. With him are Captain Lancey, a middle-aged, pragmatic cartographer, and Lieutenant Yolland, a young, idealistic and romantic orthographer, both working on the six-inch-to-the-mile map survey of Ireland for the Ordnance Survey. Owen acts as a translator and go-between for the British and Irish. Yolland and Owen work to translate local placenames into English for purposes of the map: Druim Dubh, which means "black shoulder" in Irish, becomes Dromduff in English, and Poll na gCaorach, meaning "hole of the sheep" in Irish, becomes Poolkerry. While Owen has no qualms about anglicising the names of places that form part of his heritage, Yolland, who has fallen in love with Ireland, is unhappy with what he perceives as a destruction of Irish culture and language.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:41 PM on August 22 [7 favorites]
the story of John Smith's naming of places in what we now call New England.
There's a joke in Episode 3 of Cunk on Earth where she deadpans about how the Pilgrims left Plymouth, England and bravely sailed across the entire Atlantic only to discover that they were still in Plymouth.
I have no idea whether this joke was just a clever Cunk-ism or if it was deliberately-profound because John Smith had already pointed to the then-site of Patuxet and renamed it "New Plimouth" before the Mayflower had even left England. They literally left Plymouth, got tossed around by some storms, and ended up--to their dissapointment--in Plymouth!
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:52 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]
There's a joke in Episode 3 of Cunk on Earth where she deadpans about how the Pilgrims left Plymouth, England and bravely sailed across the entire Atlantic only to discover that they were still in Plymouth.
I have no idea whether this joke was just a clever Cunk-ism or if it was deliberately-profound because John Smith had already pointed to the then-site of Patuxet and renamed it "New Plimouth" before the Mayflower had even left England. They literally left Plymouth, got tossed around by some storms, and ended up--to their dissapointment--in Plymouth!
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:52 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]
New York place names are a hodgepodge of English, Native American, Dutch, and more. I live in Brighton, which is named after the city in England. It's a suburb of Rochester, which isn't named after the English city but after its founder. Northeast of us is Irondequoit. And to the southeast is the aforementioned Canandaigua. Dutch names pop up in the Hudson Valley. Our history is in the names, for better or worse.
posted by tommasz at 2:15 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 2:15 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]
I wonder either if conversations are happening elsewhere about this data set or if this was a set it and forget it project which has been forgotten?
jessamyn, i reached out to one of the project leads on that & will let you know if/when i hear back. i have also done some zooniverse projects in the past & didn't know about talk pages until now. thanks!
also, there is a 'skip' option, if maps have more text than one wishes to transcribe
I have no idea whether this joke was just a clever Cunk-ism or if it was deliberately-profound
RonButNotStupid, that's been a question for a while:
jessamyn, i reached out to one of the project leads on that & will let you know if/when i hear back. i have also done some zooniverse projects in the past & didn't know about talk pages until now. thanks!
also, there is a 'skip' option, if maps have more text than one wishes to transcribe
I have no idea whether this joke was just a clever Cunk-ism or if it was deliberately-profound
RonButNotStupid, that's been a question for a while:
Pilgrims, authorized to settle in Virginia, for some reason deviated from their planned course—perhaps more by design than accident...[nps]posted by HearHere at 2:21 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]
There's a joke in Episode 3 of Cunk on Earth where she deadpans about how the Pilgrims left Plymouth, England and bravely sailed across the entire Atlantic only to discover that they were still in Plymouth.
I don’t think this is the first time this has happened with Cunk, but Eddie Izzard made the same joke in her 1999 concert film Dress To Kill.
posted by mubba at 3:10 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
I don’t think this is the first time this has happened with Cunk, but Eddie Izzard made the same joke in her 1999 concert film Dress To Kill.
posted by mubba at 3:10 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
One of the main streets in Ithaca, NY, is called Cayuga Street. It also has signs calling it Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ , the Cayuga Indians' name for themselves.
posted by mareli at 6:49 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]
posted by mareli at 6:49 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]
Melbourne, Australia was called Naarm by First Nations people. It was briefly called Batmania after one of its founders, John Batman. There is a suburban region still called Batman.
Yes, the street signs get stolen regularly.
posted by chmmr at 10:21 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
Yes, the street signs get stolen regularly.
posted by chmmr at 10:21 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
New York place names are a hodgepodge of English, Native American, Dutch, and more. I live in Brighton, which is named after the city in England. It's a suburb of Rochester, which isn't named after the English city but after its founder. Northeast of us is Irondequoit. And to the southeast is the aforementioned Canandaigua. Dutch names pop up in the Hudson Valley. Our history is in the names, for better or worse.
Yes, out here on Long Island, mixed in with Suffolk, the Hamptons, Huntington, etc., are loads of Native place names, such as Amagansett, Hauppauge, Paumanok, Matinecock, Massapequa, Manhasset, etc. Of course, school districts in a couple of those places are suing the state education department to avoid having to get rid of their Native mascot names.
posted by etaoin at 10:40 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
Yes, out here on Long Island, mixed in with Suffolk, the Hamptons, Huntington, etc., are loads of Native place names, such as Amagansett, Hauppauge, Paumanok, Matinecock, Massapequa, Manhasset, etc. Of course, school districts in a couple of those places are suing the state education department to avoid having to get rid of their Native mascot names.
posted by etaoin at 10:40 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]
rabia.elizabeth that's fascinating, and if you can recommend a way someone who doesn't speak Spanish could read up on this history of placenames in Spain, I'd love to know about it.
The traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee people towns and cities named after classical Greek and Roman places — Ithaca, Rome, Syracuse, Troy — and a few classical statesmen, like Cicero, Aurelius, and Scipio I have always found kind of a mindfuck, because they're not arranged to match the geography of the Mediterranean (e.g., Syracuse, NY is north and a little east of Ithaca, while the Greek colony/city-state in Sicily is almost directly west of Ithaka. I realize this is the least of the sins of colonialism, but man did it mess with my head).
posted by pollytropos at 8:47 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
The traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee people towns and cities named after classical Greek and Roman places — Ithaca, Rome, Syracuse, Troy — and a few classical statesmen, like Cicero, Aurelius, and Scipio I have always found kind of a mindfuck, because they're not arranged to match the geography of the Mediterranean (e.g., Syracuse, NY is north and a little east of Ithaca, while the Greek colony/city-state in Sicily is almost directly west of Ithaka. I realize this is the least of the sins of colonialism, but man did it mess with my head).
posted by pollytropos at 8:47 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
Here in Michigan one has to be careful about “Indigenous” sounding place names. Geographer Henry Schoolcraft mashed up Anishinaabe syllables with Latin and other languages to name many of the state’s counties in the 19th century. Ironically, several counties that were named after actual Anishinaabe people were later renamed, but all the Schoolcraft names stuck.
posted by Preserver at 9:13 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Preserver at 9:13 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
pollytropos, there's an english essay in Smithsonian:
posted by HearHere at 12:56 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
The Umayyad Caliphate ruled from the city of Córdoba for a century, turning Spain into a thriving center of art, literature and science, a florescence that continued when the peninsula was split into separate Muslim kingdoms after 1031. Its libraries contained rare copies of works by ancient Greek authors such as Aristotle, as well as Arab texts on astronomy, science and mathematics, all of which were read by scholars who made arduous trips from northern lands. The Hispano-Arab era was also known for its relative religious tolerance: Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side. But the caliphate fragmented around the year 1100, leaving a patchwork of Islamic kingdoms& a map at historyofinformation of Iberia
posted by HearHere at 12:56 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
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posted by jessamyn at 8:37 AM on August 22 [5 favorites]