Oral Spaces & Exchanges

To begin with my exposé I would like to give a definition of Spaces and Exchanges. Space can be a physical place or a virtual one. Here we are going to talk about the geographical space where exchanges can be made. These exchanges are the act of giving and receiving something in replacement for something else. In today’s world these exchanges are various: economic; cultural; ideological; people; media, etc… This last month’s we’ve been studying this notion with the ancient Polynesians expansion. I would like to illustrate this notion through the theme of voyages, in the past, in our days, and in the future. We may wonder to what extent voyages show that our world is constantly looking for foreign spaces and how mankind tries to establish himself with exchanges. So, to answer this topical question my exposé will be divided into 2 parts. The first part will focus on ancient civilizations voyages, and for the second part, I will underline the space voyages today and in the future.

I/ Ancient civilizations voyages

a. Polynesians; (History channel “Polynesian discovery”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJk_a4iWj0)

“Polynesian discovery” is a History Channel documentary that deals with the ancient Polynesians expansion all over the Pacific sea and America. In this footage, the narrator is detached and omniscient as he gives information all long the documentary cut by various specialists that stresses the fact that Polynesians are the greatest voyagers of all times and that they reach South and North America way before Columbus.. This excursion is actually quite an exploit because the Pacific sea is 600 times bigger than the land on it. To voyage all of those miles they use a boat called the “Tepuke” which is an 18 meter ship with double hulls and crab claws sails. This kind of ships are actually very well done and current studies agree about the fact that Polynesians were able to reach America thanks to the “Tepukes” and with exchanges between civilizations. In South America they actually brought chickens and went back with sweet potatoes, in the north, we have a trace of Polynesians with the fishhooks and a particular kind of canoe.

Even if this is a great example of expansion of spaces using exchanges the Polynesians weren’t the only ones to reach America before Columbus and make exchanges with it.

b. Vikings (History channel “The Viking Explorer Who Beat Columbus to America” https://www.history.com/news/the-viking-explorer-who-beat-columbus-to-america)

To compare something with the last achievement (Polynesians reaching America)we have the Norseman. As I said earlier, Christopher Columbus is credited to be the first European to reach America but historians believe that Vikings sailors from Norway arrived to what is now Canada around 1000 AD, 492 years before Columbus. “The Viking explorer who beat Columbus to America” is from the website History.com and tell us that there is evidence of that fact. The Vikings achievement is captured in legends called sagas. A key figure in these northern adventures is a Norse outlaw called “Eric the red”. Eric sailed north way with his family, then west way to Iceland, then west again until he reached an isolated earth sure for his family because in Iceland he may have killed his neighbor. He named it “Green land” because, as he said, people would be attracted there because of the favorable name. The legend tells us that it was his son Eriksson Leif who actually sailed west from “Green Land” to a new world. He might hear the tale from a lost sailor called Bjarni Herjolfsson who a decade earlier had spotted Greenland and sailed by the shores of North America landing it. Leif intrigued and about 1000AD started an expedition to this new world, gathered 35 man and left “Green Land”. Soon they’ve arrived and landed near mountains and using his father’s talent for calling lands he named the new land “stone slab land”,. The explorers explored this

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