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How did khipus—knotted cords that encode information—function within the economic systems of the postcolonial Andes? Best known as the method by which the Incas recorded administrative data, khipu use continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Few studies of modern khipus, however, have analyzed how khipu cords were integrated with the institutions of the modern state, such as the hacienda. This article examines a set of modern khipus from the Island of the Sun in Bolivia. These khipus, which contain dried potatoes and beans, are the first ever known to include agricultural produce. Our analysis demonstrates how the circulation of khipu styles within the Island of the Sun was linked to hacienda production, underscoring the intimate relationship between khipus and hacienda culture. Modern herding and crop khipus did not arise out of a generalized Andean consciousness but were products of specific historical and economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two newly discovered khipu (Andean twisted cord) epistles are presented as evidence that khipus could constitute an intelligible writing system, accessible to decipherment. Recent scholars have asserted that khipus were merely memory aides, recording only numbers, despite Spanish witnesses who claimed that Inka era (1400–1532 CE) khipus encoded narratives and were sent as letters. In 2015, I examined two khipus preserved by village authorities in Peru. Villagers state that these sacred khipus are narrative epistles about warfare. Analysis reveals that the khipus contain 95 different symbols, a quantity within the range of logosyllabic writing and notably more symbols than in regional accounting khipus. A shared, mutually comprehensive communication system of such complexity presupposes a writing system, possibly logosyllabic. At the end of each khipu epistle, cord sequences of distinct colors, animal fibers, and ply direction appear to represent lineage (“ayllu”) names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Khipus are knotted-cord devices once used in the Andes for communication and recording information. Although numbers can be read on many khipus, it is unknown how other forms of data may have been recorded on the strings. Scholars currently debate whether elements of cord construction, such as the direction of ply, signified meaning on khipus and, if so, how. Testimony from an Aymara-speaking khipu maker, collected in 1895 by Max Uhle and recovered from Uhle's unpublished field notes, combined with the analysis of his actual khipu provides the first direct evidence that ply was a signifying element in khipus. Moreover, the evidence suggests that ply signified through a principle of markedness in which S ply corresponded to the unmarked (more valued) category while Z ply corresponded to the marked (less valued) category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Khipus are knotied-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 khipu/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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the anonymous seventeenth-century author of the Quito Manuscript, ancient Andeans once possessed a writing system (qillqa) that they replaced with knotted strings (khipu) as part of the religious and sexual reform of their nation. The manuscript's redactor, Fernando de Montesinos, added to the text his own speculations about Andean writing, which he linked to the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. For both of these authors, ideas about indigenous "writing" were not neutral, but were intertwined with arguments about the moral and cultural merits of Andean civilization. This essay explores how each author's claims about writing and knotted strings—qillqa and khipu—were intrinsic to their political and theological aims, fitting into a larger discourse about the justification of colonial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]