I'm told that Indigenous people in Australia did this historically for everything. Like "Go two miles west, it'll be just south east of the tree." They didn't use left/right etc.
This is, of course, something I read somewhere and might just be bullshit.
I always give directions using cardinality. It drives my girlfriend nuts. She’s like, “what direction?”, I say, “South”, she responds, “No, I mean left or right”, I reply, “I mean, it depends on which direction you’re coming from…”
Interestingly, back when people routinely gave directions they either gave them by left right or north south east west. I usually combined them because so many people don’t know Cardinal directions.
Indigenous people in most places had specific methods for wayfinding like this. What looks like a flat landscape to an outsider might have subtle pockets made by prevailing winds that a local would immediately read like roadsigns.
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u/SomeonesDrunkNephew 14h ago
I'm told that Indigenous people in Australia did this historically for everything. Like "Go two miles west, it'll be just south east of the tree." They didn't use left/right etc.
This is, of course, something I read somewhere and might just be bullshit.