Mapping with/in: hearing power in Yokuts landscapes at the beginning of the twentieth century

Abstract

The unpublished field notes on Native American Yokuts cultures and languages taken by linguist and ethnologist John P. Harrington in 1914–1942, now kept at the Smithsonian Institution, are analysed in the framework of Edward S. Caseýs concept of mapping with/in. The Yokuts’ process of mapping tripni places (powerful places) with/in their ancestral territories during the early twentieth century is discussed, paying particular attention to the role of hearing and sound. Moreover, in these archival materials, Yokuts tribal members relate with different bodies of water in an absorptive and porous way, with sound being part of a complex haptic and multi-sensory process. By listening to the testimonies of the Yokuts tribal members who collaborated with Harrington, we argue that sound perception, song, and the sense of hearing played a key role in the process of mapping tripni.