Aaron Carapella facts for kids

Aaron Carapella is an American mapmaker who taught himself how to create maps. He makes maps showing where Native American tribes lived in North America around the year 1490. This was just before Europeans arrived. When he was 19, he started researching for his maps. By 2014, he had created maps of Indigenous tribes for the United States, Canada, and Mexico, using their original names.

About Aaron Carapella

Aaron Carapella grew up in Warner, Oklahoma. He has Cherokee heritage from his mother's family. He lives in the Cherokee Nation area in Oklahoma. Aaron speaks Spanish and has a college degree in marketing.

His Inspiration for Mapmaking

Aaron's grandparents taught him a lot about Native American history. They gave him books and encouraged his curiosity. He said they told him, "You're part Native American and that's part of your history."

When Aaron was a teenager, he wanted to find a map that showed all the Native American tribes in the United States. He looked at many powwows and stores. But he could never find a map that showed all the tribes. Most maps only showed about 50 to 100 tribes. He felt these maps were "incomplete" and had "inaccurate" names. This made him want to create a better, more accurate map himself.

Aaron has always been passionate about Native American causes. He is a member of the American Indian Movement. Now, he uses mapmaking as a way to share important truths about Native American history.

How Aaron Makes His Maps

Aaron creates maps that show Native American tribal lands with their original names. These maps show how things were before Europeans came to the Americas. He started his research and mapmaking when he was 19. By 2014, he had been working on them for over 14 years. His main goal is to show how North America looked around 1490.

Researching Tribal Names and Locations

To make his maps, Aaron reads many books and visits library archives. He also calls tribal members and visits reservations. He does this to find the original names of tribes and where they lived. He started his maps on four poster boards in his bedroom.

Sometimes, tribes he contacted did not know their original names at first. But someone from the tribe would usually find the information. For example, they might ask an elder. In one case, Aaron needed to know what the name of the Waileptu or Cayuse people meant. He couldn't find it online or in books. But one of the last people who spoke their language was able to tell him.

Aaron found the Handbook of North American Indians very helpful. He checked this book against other old records, like those from missionaries or the army. This helped him figure out where tribes were located around 1490. Then, he would contact the tribes again to confirm the spelling of their original names and their locations.

Challenges in Mapmaking

Aaron told the Navajo Times that finding all the original names was the hardest part. Some tribes had very few members left. Even fewer people spoke their native languages. Other small tribes had disappeared. The only information about them was found in the larger tribes that had taken them in.

Aaron believes that his research shows that some tribal names are no longer used. But the people from those tribes were often welcomed into other larger tribes. He explained that if you are a member of the Creek tribe, for example, you likely have ancestors from 15 to 20 other tribal nations.

Aaron also noticed that tribes often kept their original names if they still lived near their homeland. He thinks this is because many original names describe a place. For example, a tribe might call themselves "the people at the mouth of the river." If they were forced to move far away, like during the Trail of Tears or the Long Walk of the Navajo, that name no longer made sense. Moving from their traditional homeland caused a "cultural rift" and a sense of loss.

In 2012, Aaron checked with the United States Copyright Office. He wanted to see if anyone else had copyrighted a similar map idea. When they said no, he worked hard to finish his first map. He copyrighted it once it was done.

Aaron's Unique Maps

By 2014, Aaron had finished maps of the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico. The first map of the United States came out in November 2012. The Two Row Times reported it was the first map to show North American Indigenous nations using their original languages.

Doug Herman, a geographer at the National Museum of the American Indian, says Aaron's maps are special. They include both the original names of Native American tribes and the names they are commonly known by today. Herman noted that some common names for Native American tribes are actually disrespectful. Sometimes, one tribe used a negative term in their language to describe another tribe, and that name stuck.

For example, the word "Comanche" comes from the Ute language. It means "anyone who wants to fight me all the time." Aaron's maps show "Numinu" instead of "Comanche." For "Navajo," his maps show "Diné." He also makes maps that show both names, with the original name on top.

Today's maps of Native American lands often show small trust lands and reservations. These are surrounded by huge areas of land that were taken over time. Aaron's maps show that before 1492, North America was full of many independent tribes.

Aaron also wanted his maps to show the size of tribal populations and the areas they lived in. He worked with Overdrive Media and Printing to develop the maps. His maps also include pictures or drawings of people, tools, homes, and clothing. These images are placed in the correct locations for each tribe.

Details of the Maps

The map of the continental United States that Aaron made shows about 590 tribal nations with their original names. About 150 of these tribes are no longer distinct groups. Many tribes were nomadic, meaning they moved around. So, Aaron placed their names where they lived before they were forced to move by European expansion. He uses different font sizes for the tribal names to show their population size and land area. Also, about 150 tribes have their current name listed under their original name. This is because many people do not know the original names.

Aaron had not planned to make a Canadian map. He had hoped someone else in Canada would make a similar map. But when that didn't happen, he decided to make one himself. The Canadian map shows 212 tribes by their original names. There were many smaller groups he couldn't include because there wasn't enough space. Aaron expects to keep updating his maps as he finds new information.

Today's borders between Canada, the United States, and Mexico do not match where tribal areas used to be. For example, Aaron estimates that about 24 tribes have populations split by the Mexico-United States border. When making his map of Mexico, he noticed that the language and culture of tribes in Mexico are often better preserved than those on the United States side. He thinks this might be because the American government made a greater effort to send children to American Indian boarding schools.

By early 2015, Aaron had finished a map of Alaska. Later, he created a map of all the Indian tribes in North America without borders. This map identifies over 1000 tribes. By late 2015, Aaron had also completed a borderless map of tribes in South America. In the future, he hopes to make an "old-fashioned driving atlas." This would let him focus on different areas in much more detail.