Paper short abstract:

Cartographic folding screens acted as complex interfaces that initiated a process of material translation and cultural assimilation in tandem with the transmission of geographical knowledge. This is illustrated through the analysis of scenes of cannibalism featured on the screens.

Paper long abstract:

Many of the folding screens produced in Japan by the Jesuit painting school for the conversion of local rulers featured maps of the world. This makes sense if we think of folding screens as performing the equivalent function to Renaissance court tapestries: that of large-scale formats for political statements. In Japan, the makers of the cartifacts employed creative strategies for reconciling disparate sources of knowledge. For example, the versions in the collections of the Imperial Household Agency and the Kosetsu Museum of Art feature a large cartouche with tribesmen roasting human limbs over a fire. The source are depictions of South America on Dutch maps of the world which in turn originate in illustrations of European accounts of encounter with Brazilian tribes. In their new context, cannibals illustrated the pagans civilized by the Christian religion. A possible reason for their prominence on the screens is their similarity to Buddhist hell scenes such as those featured on the 'Kumano Mind Contemplation Ten Worlds Mandala'.

The visual appeal of the maps and their associated figures quickly exceeded their religious context: they were later reproduced in cheap printed editions in Nagasaki and Kyoto. Therein world maps were accompanied by an assembly of 'people of the world' increasingly assimilated with figures of alterity already present within Japanese culture. Brazilian cannibals were thus unlikely participants in the coagulation of a collective identity in Japan. It is a telling example of how folding screens acted as complex interfaces that initiated a process of material translation and cultural assimilation in tandem with the transmission of geographical knowledge.