SCIENCE
How did khipu help shape South American geography?
Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic
Discussion Ideas
- The Nat Geo News article describes a new analysis of Incan khipu (or quipu). What are khipu?
- Khipu are knotted cords used by the ancient Inca to record events, census data, and accounts. (Khipu can be both singular and plural.) According to Nat Geo, “Spanish accounts from colonial times claim that Inca khipu also encoded history, biographies, and letters, but researchers have yet to decipher any non-numerical meaning in the cords and knots.”
- Here is a terrific outline of the structure of a khipu.
- Each khipu has a primary cord, to which many hanging cords (called pendants) and subsidiary pendants are attached. Pendants may be spaced closely together or far apart.
- Each pendant has a series of knots. Khipu knots occur in one of three types: single knots, long knots, or figure-eight knots.
- Complex khipu, made under the Imperial Inca and used for census data, contained as many as 1,500 pendants and subsidiaries. Simpler ones, comprised of a few strings and knots, were used by herders to count their animals.
- Khipu are made of different types of plant and animal fiber.
- Some khipu pendants are dyed different colors.
- The new research was carried out on 18th-century khipu preserved by the village of San Juan de Collata, Peru. How are the “Collata khipu” distinct from most other examples of khipu? Read through the Nat Geo News article for some help.
- materials. Most surviving khipu are made of cotton. The Collata khipu are made from wool—the hair and fibers of Andean animals, including vicuna, alpaca, guanaco, llama, deer, and vizcacha, a type of chinchilla.
- information. Most khipu are associated with numbers and accounting, but the Collata khipu may be storytelling devices. According to anthropologist and Nat Geo explorer Sabine Hyland, the Collata khipu “are the first khipus ever reliably identified as narrative epistles [letters] by the descendants of their creators.”
- How have anthropologists deciphered the Collata khipu?
- Hyland and other scientists primarily analyzed color combinations used in the pendant cords. “The chords have 14 different colors that allow for 95 unique chord patterns. That number is within the range of symbols in logosyllabic writing systems.”
- Villagers, descendants of the khipu creators but unable to read the cords themselves, told scientists that several variables—including color, fiber type, even the direction of the chords’ weave—encode information. “For instance, Hyland hypothesized that a blue llama cord, twisted clockwise, symbolized the ‘ka’ sound. This particular sound and color association makes sense, as ankas was the regional dialect word for ‘blue’.” (A “written” language that relies on sight, sound, and touch? Awesome.)
- Hyland and other scientists primarily analyzed color combinations used in the pendant cords. “The chords have 14 different colors that allow for 95 unique chord patterns. That number is within the range of symbols in logosyllabic writing systems.”
- This new research opens up a fresh field of study for anthropologists and linguists. What is the primary caution in analyzing the Collata khipu as a linguistic record of the Inca?
- The Collata khipu “are believed to date from the mid-18th century, more than 200 years after Spanish colonizers first arrived in 1532. This raises the question whether they are a relatively recent innovation, spurred on by contact with alphabetic writing.”
- All language evolves and adapts over time. Khipu used for accounting were likely quite distinct from khipu used as letters or storytelling devices. “The khipu was a very heterogeneous device,” says one anthropologist.
- Hyland and other anthropologists point out that the Collata khipu are structurally similar to pre-contact khipu, and match descriptions of khipu given by 17th-century European explorers. She also reminds us that khipu are a three-dimensional form of communication, which is entirely distinct from European written language.
- The Collata khipu “are believed to date from the mid-18th century, more than 200 years after Spanish colonizers first arrived in 1532. This raises the question whether they are a relatively recent innovation, spurred on by contact with alphabetic writing.”
TEACHERS TOOLKIT
Nat Geo: Discovery May Help Decipher Ancient Inca String Code
Discover: Untangling the Ancient Inca Code of Strings
Nat Geo: South America—Human Geography
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