A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1394 entries
stick chart
A stick chart is a Marshall Islands navigational device made of thin sticks or midribs lashed into a frame, with shells or knots marking islands. The sticks do not show coastlines. They record the way ocean swells bend around and between islands and the places where swell patterns intersect, which is what a navigator lying in the hull of a canoe reads through the motion of the boat.
Etymology
The English name describes the object rather than its use and misses the point. The Marshallese distinguish several types, including teaching charts that show swell behavior in the abstract and charts covering the whole chain, and the knowledge they encode was held by particular navigators and taught within families rather than published.
Notes
The instrument is a chart of a thing you cannot see from above. Swells refract around an island and meet again in a predictable pattern on the far side, and an experienced navigator can locate land well over the horizon by feeling the interference in the canoe’s motion. Charts were memorized before departure and generally left ashore, which means the object is a study aid rather than something consulted at sea.