Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu

Latin American and Latino Art and Culture

by Jeffrey Quilter (Editor), Gary Urton (Editor)

The Inka Empire stretched over much of the length and breadth of the South American Andes, encompassed elaborately planned cities linked by a complex network of roads and messengers, and created astonishing works of architecture and artistry and a compelling mythology—all without the aid of a graphic writing system. Instead, the Inkas' records consisted of devices made of knotted and dyed strings—called khipu—on which they recorded information pertaining to the organization and history of their empire. Despite more than a century of research on these remarkable devices, the khipu remain largely undeciphered. In this benchmark book, twelve international scholars tackle the most vexed question in khipu how did the Inkas record and transmit narrative records by means of knotted strings? The authors approach the problem from a variety of angles. Several essays mine Spanish colonial sources for details about the kinds of narrative encoded in the khipu. Others look at the uses to which khipu were put before and after the Conquest, as well as their current use in some contemporary Andean communities. Still others analyze the formal characteristics of khipu and seek to explain how they encode various kinds of numerical and narrative data.

391 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2002

About the author

Jeffrey Quilter is a New World archaeologist with expertise in Peru. He is past Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, and of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Reviews

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s always going to be speculation and guesswork in an academic (or at least semi-academic) work about historical artifacts that are still largely by understood.

This book does a good job of delineating between “this is what we know”, “this is what we think we know”, and “this is conjecture/theory based upon the following evidence...”

The more speculative theories are pretty fun, and I think the author(s) did a very good job of laying out the case for just how much (and what kinds of) information could be kept and transmitted with khipus - including textile patterns!

All in all, a very good read if you want to learn more about these fascinating artifacts.

[Kim Zinkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting subject with many unanswered questions...a good introduction. I need to find out if there are any recent publications in this area.

[Jonna Higgins-Freese]

Absolutely fascinating. Who knew that there was an entirely alternative indigenous manner of record-keeping -- certainly for numeric/accounting purposes, and likely for narrative purposes as well?