From the Ship’s Angle

In early modern times the ship, as a means of transport, was an old invention. However, its use in the new context of high-seas navigation and long-distance voyages changed deeply the way of understanding travel, the relation with space and time, and a concrete perception of the world.

A new way of reporting the world was witnessed and made evident by pilots in their nautical rutters.

Nautical rutters fulfilled perfectly their primary task, that was informative, with a neutral language, with a synthetic prose and a pragmatic second person plural. In such an information flow devoted to the reliability of data gathering, the texts should not reach a tone of stylistic pleasantness or elegance. Even so, surprisingly, figurative discourses were not completely absent, and one can find them especially related to the observation of coast profiles.

The images used by pilots were very significant because they represented a piece of world that was not visible from all directions; instead, it was visible only from one specific angle. The observer’s location coincided with the position of the ship at a very precise navigational moment which was the best for a safe navigation.

Figueiredo’s rutters collection was a receptacle of such images. The images were related to pilots’ everyday life, like shipbuilding, known animals, or even food.

An island’s tip could be described by sailors as the spur of a galley (“esporão de galé”), or another could look like a galley with a covered poop (“galé toldada”). Some islands could bring to mind a round bread (“pão redondo”) rising above the sea, or delicious sugar bread (“pão de açucar”) as the Islands Estácio and Saba did. Very common were also the similitarities of coasts with some chess pieces, to indicate especially high peaks, as well as animal heads (like turtle-head or dolphin’s snout).

Such details were never useless: placing themselves in relation to the object observed (with specific expressions like coming from the north side, moving in North-South direction, etc.), the pilots thus reinforced an intrinsic practical value. [Luana Giurgevich]