Encounters, Movements and Travel
How many of us have a moved heart that shies away to a different angle, a millimetre or even less from the place where it first existed, some repositioning unknown to us. (Michael Ondatjee, The Cat’s Table)
Why does one leave one's homeland? What moves the heart onward? The items on display here tell many stories of travelling through lands and seas in pursuit of that new, "different angle" from the places where we were first born. This section offers an impressively varied collection of items ranging in dates between the 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, covering far ranging world areas (Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, South Asia), and hailing from travelers, geographers, historians, biographers, or individuals in exile, and they come in a variety of formats and genres (diaries, maps, reports, missionary accounts, reports, etc.). All the items on display grapple with the meaning, practices as well the contexts of traveling and encounters. The items follow inner and outward journeys and provide compelling testimonies of how encounters contribute to hybrid constructions of self, as well as of ideological, national, religious, colonial and anti-colonial identities. Lying on the cusp of many thresholds, the items on display articulate individual’s perceptions of their own selves and cultures, as well as of others, when they come into contact with one another. Most of the submissions under this section address the notion of how an encounter, a displacement, a journey, brings with it a sense of a repositioning of the self, as well as of dialogue and knowledge of others, while others speak of loss, power, profit and exploitation. Topics explored include mapping and commerce; travelogues; exiles and displacement; pilgrimage; as well as colonialism and exploitation.
La Roque, Jean de.
A voyage to Arabia the Happy
London, G. Strahan, 1726.
B953 L32
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This account of an early Western encounter with the Islamic East was written by the son of a coffee merchant, and was originally published in Amsterdam and in Paris in 1716 as Voyage de l'Arabie heureuse. It contains a description of the Arabian Peninsula, the Red Sea and Yemen.
Ibn ʻAsākir, ʻAlī ibn al-Ḥasan,
al-Juzʼ… min kitāb Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq. Approximately 1141.
MS X893.7 Ib66
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Tarīkh madīnat Dimashq is a biographical dictionary written by Ibn ʿAsākir, a 12th c. scholar who dominated political, cultural and educational life in Damascus then. It celebrates Syria and Damascus, and offers a glimpse onto the lives and achievements of pious figures, notable politicians and scholars who lived in Damascus or passed through it. It is one of the treasures of medieval Islamic historiography in that it preserves extensive excerpts from hundreds of now lost works of Muslim historians and religious scholars.
Behar, Ruth, 1956- Estévez Jordán, Rolando, 1953-
Everything I kept = Todo lo que guarde
Bookart Z232.Ed4 2001 B39
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
RBML holds dozens of books from Ediciones Vigía, a press from Matanzas, Cuba which produces handmade books resulting from collaborations between artists and writers. This book was designed by Rolando Estévez, founder and artistic director of Ediciones Vigía, with text by Ruth Behar, a poet born into a Jewish family from Havana which immigrated to the United States when she was a young girl. The book contains a description of possessions kept by the author in the diaspora, and gives a poignant glimpse into the state of the writer's exile.
Story of a little traveler = Cin̲n̲ap paratēci katai.
Madras : Printed for the American Madura Mission, 1872.
PLIMPTON 494 1872 St76
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This miniature book is part of a broader collection of American Madura Mission materials available in the Missionary Research Library Archives at Burke Library. The collection includes pamphlets, annual reports, and minutes of the American Madura Mission, which was a Jesuit mission that focused on Tamil speaking regions of South India (hence the bilingual Tamil-English text)
![Ha-India ha-ḥadashah [manuscript] : [part 1], 84r](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/files/original/ba79f1fa003bdea820799813a210dd82.jpg "Ha-India ha-ḥadashah [manuscript] : [part 1], 84r")
Joseph, ha-Kohen, translator
Ha-India ha-ḥadashah [The New India], Italy, 1577.
X893 K82
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Christopher Columbus's travels had a deep impact on 16th century Europe, affecting many communities, including Jewish ones. This book is a translation to Hebrew of a Spanish imprint by Francisco López de Gómara's entitled: "Historia General de las Indias," published in 1535, which describes the flora and fauna of the New World. The manuscript is open to the page describing Christopher Columbus, “the Genoan.” Two extent copies of this manuscript are known of today: this one, and one at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
The donor of this book to Columbia, Richard Gottheil (Professor of Semitic Languages, 1886-1836) complained in an article about the manuscript that he had actually purchased a better copy (the author created 11 copies of this manuscript), but was sent an "inferior one". Until very recently, this manuscript could not be opened due to major ink migration, which caused the pages of the volume to stick together. Thanks to the generosity of the Berg Foundation, this manuscript went through a rigorous conservation process and can now be utilized for scholarly research.
Cafsuto, Moisè Vita
Diario di un viaggio in Terra Santa. Florence, 1733.
MS General 243
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The first extant descriptions of Jewish travel to the Holy Land date back to the 12th century of the Common Era. This 18th century manuscript contains the account of a Florentine Jew named Moisè Vita Cafsuto, who followed in the literary footsteps of the 12th century Benjamin of Tudela in describing not only the land itself, but the Jewish communities he encountered during his travels to Palestine. The manuscript was written in at least two copies (there is another in the Gaster Collection at University College London), suggesting that the author may have written it for distribution rather than for personal use.
Houghton, Daniel, 1740?-1791
Elucidations of the African Geography
London, Printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1793.
B966 R294
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The British “Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa”, later known as the African Association, sent retired Irish army officer Major Daniel Houghton in 1791 to the Gambia to travel inland to the “fabled” Timbuktu and the Niger River. Houghton only managed to reach the kingdom of Bambuk, in Western Mali, which is closely associated in history with the sources of gold in the great Mali Empire. The publication is a compilation of letters from Houghton before his death, providing important information to be used for further British imperial efforts in West Africa. Houghton’s “mission” pre-dates the more famous journey of Mungo Park in 1795.
Houghton, Daniel, 1740?-1791
Elucidations of the African Geography
London, Printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1793.
B966 R294
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This map which accompanies the 'Elucidations' of Major Daniel Houghton's 1791 inland journey from the mouth of the Gambia River to Bambuk, was created and endorsed by James Rennell, the most prominent English geographer of the late 18th century.
Hutton, William, 1797-1860.
A voyage to Africa
London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821
Ja1 H979
Union Theological Seminary, Burke Library
Item 1: Title Page
Item 2: Opposite p. 93, color illustration
Item 3: Opposite p. 138, color illustration
Item 4: Opposite title page, color illustration
Item 5: Opposite p. 214, color illustration
Item 6: Fold-out map, between v. and Introduction
This memoir by a British acting consul to the Ashanti Kingdom on the “Gold Coast” in the 1820s features some of the earliest colored illustrations published depicting noble African men, children, and a coastal woman of Fante and Danish or Dutch ancestry, wearing clothing and jewelry of mixed European and African origins. [Consists of 7 items: Title page; 4 color illustrations; plus 2 fold-out maps. (a) “North and South West Africa, Showing the Course of the Niger and Principal Rivers, from the Latest Authorities.” and (b) “Route of the Mission to Ashantee in 1820 by W. Hutton.”]