Cannibalism in a cultural context: Cartographic imagery and iconography of the New World indigenous peoples during the Age of Discovery

This dissertation seeks to explore the imagery of the indigenous peoples as cannibals in the sixteenth-century cartography of the New World. This imagery represented the Amerindians of the South American interior on maps and in the minds of Europeans who relied on accounts and illustrations to inform them about the New World. The geographic specificity of cannibal imagery on New World cartography reflected the accounts by voyagers who returned from their transatlantic journey. This cartography provides present day scholars and historians with an additional resource for studying fifteenth-century Europeans and their understanding of the New World.