Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T12:27:06.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knot Direction in a Khipu/Alphabetic Text from the Central Andes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sabine Hyland ,
Gene A. Ware  and
Madison Clark
Sabine Hyland
Affiliation:
Department of Social Anthropology, University of St. Andrews, Top Floor, 71 North St., St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL, UK (sph@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Gene A. Ware
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, Brigham Young University, 459 Clyde Building, Provo, Utah, 84602 (ware.gene@gmail.com)
Madison Clark
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University (madison.mccall.clark@gmail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Khipus are knotted-string devices that were used in the Inka Empire for communication and for recording information. We recently analyzed the names and associated khipu cords in a newly discovered hybrid khipul alphabetic text from the Central Andes. Results indicate a significant relationship in the text between knot direction and a form of social organization known as moieties, in which S-knots correspond to the upper (Hanan) moiety and Z-knots correspond to the lower (Urin) moiety. This relationship suggests that knot direction was used to indicate moiety in Andean khipus and, as such, may represent the first decipherment of a structural element in khipus since the decoding of the number system in the 1920s.

Resumen

Resumen

Los quipu son dispositivos de cuerdas anudadas que se utilizaron en el Imperio Inca para la comunicación y para el registro de información. Nosotros hemos analizado recientemente los nombres y las cuerdas quipu asociadas a un quipu híbridoltexto alfabético recién descubierto en los Andes Centrales. Los resultados indican una relacion significativa en el texto entre la dirección del nudo y una forma de organización social conocida como mitades, en la que los nudos con la dirección S corresponden a la mitad superior (Hanan) y los nudos con la dirección Z corresponden a la mitad inferior (Urin). Esta relación sugiere que la dirección del nudo se utiliza para indicar las mitades sociales en khipus andinos y, como tal, puede representor el primer desciframiento de un elemento estructural en quipu desde la decodificación del sistema numérico en la década de 1920.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 189 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Ascher, Marcia 2005 How Can Spin, Ply, and Knot Direction Contribute to Understanding the Quipu Code? Latin American Antiquity 16:99–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brokaw, Galen 2010 A History of the Khipu. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Burga, Manuel 1988 Nacimiento de una Utopia. Institute de Apoyo Agrario, Lima.Google Scholar
Hanny, Madison, and Ware, Gene A. 2012 Multispectral Analysis of the Mangas Khipu Board. Proceedings of the 18th Annual NASA Fellowship Symposium, 18:1–14. Utah State University, Logan, Utah.Google Scholar
Hassaurek, Friedrich 1967 [1866] Four Years among the Ecuadorians, edited by C. H. Gardiner. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Locke, Leland 1923 The Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Compañón, Martínez y Bujanda, Baltasar Jaime 1985 [ca. 1789] Trujillo del Perú, Vol. 2. Instituto de Cooperatión Iboamericano, Madrid.Google Scholar
Porres, Diego de 1953 [ca. 1572–1579] Instrucciones. In Los mercedarios en el Perú en el siglo XVI, Vol. 4, edited by Victor Barriga, pp. 174–177. Editorial La Colmena, Arequipa.Google Scholar
Rivero, y Ustariz, Mariano 1857 Colección de memurias científicas agricolas e industriales. Vol. 2. Brussels.Google Scholar
Robles Mendoza, Román 1982 Quipu y mashas en la comunidad de Mangas. Seminario de Historia Rural Andina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.Google Scholar
Rojas Runciman, Jorge Luis 2010 Una autoridad cuestionada: El Curaca Callan Poma y su consolidation politica en San Francisco de Mangas, 1662. Unpublished maestría thesis, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank 2004 The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank, and Niño-Murcia, Mercedes 2011 The Lettered Mountain. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank, Brezine, Carrie J., Chapa, Reymundo, and Huayta, Victor 2011 Khipu from Colony to Republic: The Rapaz Patrimony. In Their Way of Writing, edited by Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton, pp. 353–378. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Tello, Julio C, and Miranda, Próspero 1923 Wallallo: Ceremonias gentílicas realizadas en la Región Cisandina, Inca 1:475–549.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary 2003 Signs of the Inka Khipu. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Urton, Gary, and Brezine, Carrie 2007 Information Control in the Palace of Puruchuco: An Accounting Hierarchy in a Khipu Archive from Coastal Peru. In Variations in the Expression of Inka Power, edited by Richard L. Burger, Craig Morris, and Ramiro Matos Mendieta, pp. 357–378. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. Google Scholar