Khipu Historiography

"Khipu Historiography" by Sabine Hyland 2018. Encyclopédie des Historiographies. Sources et genres. Ed by P Ragon, N Kouamé, E Meyer, A Viguier. Electronic publication. In recent years, the field of Native American historiography has expanded to consider "histories executed in graphic registers other than alphabetic writing, specifically those that are painted, knotted, and threaded" (Boone 2012, 211). Such non-alphabetic inscriptions, it is argued, reveal the indigenous epistemologies for perceiving and registering the past in a uniquely insightful manner. Khipus, the Andean corded communication system that reached its zenith during the Inka Empire (AD c. 1400 - 1532), have presented a challenge to the study of such nonalphabetic historiography because, until very recently, very little was understood about how khipus recorded information (Urton 2003; 2017). Numerous advances, however, have provided for a greater understanding of khipu historiography, both in terms of how khipus can inform us about Inka history and of what khipus reveal through modern ritual practices. Archaeological Khipus Khipus form a series of closely related cord technologies that can take a variety of forms (Salomon 2004). The earliest generally recognised khipus are those associated with the Wari Empire (AD 600 - 1100), which are divided into two primary types: pendant and loop/branch khipus. Wari pendant khipus have a long horizontal primary cord from which hang pendants that are wrapped in bands of coloured camelid threads. In loop/branch khipus, thread-wrapped cords are attached directly to an elliptical loop from which are suspended a series of loops and branches. Although the wrapped pendant cords on both kinds of Wari khipus 1 sometimes possess simple knots, it does not appear that these knots indicate numbers. The relationship between Wari and Inka khipus is unclear; nonetheless, we know that by the Inka imperial period (c. AD 1400 - 1532), khipu technologies were well established throughout the Andes. Most Inka khipus were made of cotton, although some were constructed from animal fibres and occasionally included metallic threads, human hairs and items like seashells. Approximately 600 khipus exist in museum, university and private collections around the world. A typical Inka cotton khipu is composed of a top cord from which hang multiple pendant cords; pendant cords may have subsidiary cords tied onto them (Figure 1). Knots on Inka pendant cords usually indicate decimal numbers by knot type and positionality; in other words, most pendants with knots will have a numerical value ranging from 1 to the 100,000s. 2 Figure One. Inka era khipu from the Lurin acropolis, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University. 1931.32.1. Photo by author. According to 16th and 17th century Spanish and Andean chroniclers, Inka khipus served various functions. Khipus recorded demographic data, labour tribute, inventories, and other types of accounting information, as well as narrative histories, geneaologies and biographies. Additionally, some early chroniclers asserted that khipus were sent as missives from one regional administrator to another, carried overland by Inka runners known as chasquis. Until recently, scholars believed that khipu use died out in the Andes soon after the Spanish conquest, lingering only in the simple cords used by herders to keep track of animals. There is compelling evidence, however, that khipus continued to be made and consulted by indigenous Andeans throughout the Spanish colonial period and beyond. Native witnesses read from contemporary khipus during court cases in the 16th and 17th centuries, indicating that the creation of khipu records persisted among the rural population of this time. This khipu testimony from colonial trials, known as "paper khipus", has provided insights into the ongoing role of khipus in the colonial Andes (Pärssinen and Kivijarju 2004). Catholic missionaries sporadically encouraged parishioners to make catechetical khipus for prayers, confessions, and other ecclesiastical purposes, although no examples of such Catholic khipus survive, other than the khipu boards described below (Brokaw 2010). In the 18th century, rebel forces employed khipus as secret missives in the 1750 and 1783 rebellions of Huarochiri province, suggesting widespread local khipu literacy (Salomon 2004; Hyland 2017). Radiocarbon dating of small groups of 3 museum khipus has revealed that some allegedly "Inka" khipus date to the colonial period (Curatola and de La Puente 2013). Ethnographic Khipus Several native villages in the Andes have retained their own khipus into the modern era, either as an active technology or as a treasured relict of the past. These "ethnographic khipus", as they are called, provide researchers with insights into khipus' ritual roles and how they fit into community life. Ethnographic khipus fall into one of four types: (1) patrimonial, (2) khipu boards, (3) funerary, and (4) herding. "Patrimonial khipus" refers to khipus that are guarded by the descendants of their creators, but that can no longer be read (Salomon 2004). Such rare khipus exist throughout the Central Andes in Collata (Hyland 2017), Rapaz (Salomon 2013), Tupicocha (Salomon 2004), and Anchucaya (Hyland 2016), and in at least one site in Bolivia (Pimentel 2005), spanning the period from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. The earliest patrimonial khipus are those of Collata (Figure 2), which are preserved as khipu missives written during the local indigenous uprising of 1783. These animal fibre khipus are logosyllabic; however, it is unclear whether their logosyllabism is a colonial invention in this region, or whether pre-Columbian animal fibre khipus from the Inka or Wari eras may be fully or partially logosyllabic (Hyland 2017). 4 Figure 2. Collata khipu pendant cords. Photo by author. Catholic missionaries developed "khipu boards" in the 16th century to keep track of native participation in catechesis and church festivals. They consist of a rectangular wooden board covered with paper upon which are written villagers' names. Next to each name is a hole from whence hangs a multicoloured khipu cord indicating the nature of the associated person's contributions and necessary ritual items for a particular ceremony. The use of khipu boards survived until the 5 Figure 3. Late 19th century Mangas khipu board. Photo by author. 1950s in some villages in the Central Andes, including Mangas, Pari, and Casta (Hyland, Ware and Clark 2014). Khipu boards have also been found in Ayacucho and Arica, Chile, although the cords in these boards lack the colour complexity of those from the Central Andes. The community of Cuspón in the Central Andes preserves the tradition of funerary khipus: special knotted cords wrapped around the waist of the deceased. The knots represent events in the person's life. The cords are prepared by the village "Mama Licuna" -- "She who sees" -- whose role is passed from mother to daughter. It is unknown how widespread this custom was in the past, and whether it has pre-Hispanic precedents (Tun and Zubieta Núñez 2016). Finally, herders throughout the Andes maintained knotted cord records of their flocks, including numerical information on animal type (eg sheep vs cows), 6 gender, age, grazing lands, milking status, etc. First documented by ethnographers in the 19th century, modern woollen herding khipus have simpler structures than Inka cotton khipus (Mackey 2002). Nonetheless, in addition to cord thickness, knot placement, and occasionally colour, ply and knot direction appear to be significant elements on herding cords (Hyland 2014). It is likely that modern herding khipus descend from Inka herding khipu predecessors (Brokaw 2010). How can khipus inform us about Inka history? Inca narrative khipus served as the basis for numerous histories of the Inka Empire written during the first two decades of Spanish colonial rule in the Andes. In 1572, for example, the official viceregal chronicler, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, assembled the khipu keepers of Cusco for a recitation of Inka history upon which he would base his subsequent history of the Inkas. Other chroniclers attributed aspects of their histories to khipu accounts, including Juan de Betanzos, Miguel Cabello Balboa, Blas Valera, Anello Oliva, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Fernando de Montesinos, and the "Account of the Khipu Keepers" of 1542. The references to khipus are often vague, making it difficult to determine which part of the historical narrative was derived from khipus, and which came from other sources. Blas Valera, however, is one of the few colonial writers who provided more precise citations to material from khipus. In his "Account of the Ancient Customs", he referred to khipus belonging to two specific individuals, Yutu Inca and Huallpa Inca, which, he wrote, contained information about the worship of the Sun, Moon and Stars. Elsewhere he cited quipus from archives in specific cities (Cusco, Cajamarca, Quito, Tarma, Huamanchuco) and from archives attached to particular shrines (Pacari Tampu, Pachacamac, Sacsahuaman). In general, the urban khipus 7 he cited dispensed information about sacrifices offered, and about the laws of the land. The temple khipus mentioned by Valera recount sacrifices, regulations about proper worship and, in the case of Pacari Tampu, the legend of the first emperor, Manco Capac. An attempt to sift through the chroniclers to assess materials that go back to Inca khipu sources can be found in anthropologist Catherine Julien's Reading Inca History (Julien 2000). She is able to trace two Inka narrative genres: genealogies and life histories, arguing that each of them was created and transmitted in its own right and for distinct purposes. However, she relies only upon a relatively small corpus of selected chroniclers, rather than on the corpus as a whole, which limits her insights into khipu historiography. Anthropologist Gary Urton has pioneered analysis of the Harvard khipu database (Urton's detailed information on over 400 khipus around the world, the most comprehensive khipu database in existence) for arriving at an understanding of how khipu accounting records were central to Inka power and state control (Urton 2017). Although existing Inka khipus cannot be "read" per se, Urton offers a grand overview of the kinds of quantitative information encoded on the corded texts. Urton has demonstrated how khipus can be utilised as primary sources for a history of the Inka Empire that focuses on demography, statistics and longstanding social processes. His research emphasises how Inka khipu keepers played a key role in the organisation and control of subject populations, underscoring the centrality of khipu records and accounting in Inka historiography (Urton 2017). How do modern khipus serve as sites of memory and identity? Ethnographic khipus are embued with deep significance about the past and about the community, even if they can no longer be "read". This is true for all the 8 instances of patrimonial khipus, whether they hail from the Central Andes or from Bolivia. Tupicocha, in Huarochiri province, owns 10 older khipus and one recently made simulacrum to replace a lost one. The villagers revere these khipus, referring to them as "Our Magna Carta", and viewing them as powerful symbols of political and spiritual legitimacy. At the annual town meeting, where authorities settle accounts for money and labour, newly elected officials garb themselves in the khipus as a sign of office. The Tupicocha khipus are similar in structure to classic Inka khipus, although they are made out of animal fibres, not cotton (Salomon 2004). In Collata, also located in Huarochiri Province, authorities carefully guard two epistolary animal fibre khipus in a colonial chest filled with 100+ colonial and early Republican manuscripts, the earliest dating to 1645. When a male community member accepts an important office, such as being in charge of a major Marian feast, he is shown the contents of the box. Senior men inform neophytes that local leaders created the khipus as epistles ("cartas") about their wars on behalf of the Inka in the eighteenth century They say that the khipus were made around the time of the legendary local chief Pedro Cajayauri, whose signed handwritten letter to colonial authorities, dated 1757, is preserved with the other manuscripts in the archive. The khipus are considered an indelible sign of the power of the native authorities, and remain a tangible link to the ancestors who are thought to own the land and water (Hyland 2017). To the north, in the community of Rapaz, lies the only known case where the khipus persist in the original architectural complex where they were meant to serve. The Rapaz khipus -- spoken of as one khipu by the local villagers -- stand in a place of honour in the Kaha Wayi, the house of ritual and traditional governance. A village ritual specialist told the author that the khipu serves as a messenger to 9 carry their prayers and offerings to the sacred earth beings in the mountain peaks, the lakes and other natural shrines. He explained that the khipu controlled everything that happens in the community, and perhaps even the world. The Rapaz khipus, which consist of 263 discrete cord objects, do not conform to the more common Inka style of khipu with top cords, pendants and subsidiaries. Instead, Rapaz khipus share a unilinear design in which the signs (knots, tufts of wool, and miniature figurines) are tied directly to a single, sometimes very long, cord of camelid or sheep wool. Anthropologist Frank Salomon has carried out a remarkable project to study and conserve the Rapaz khipus in situ, so they are still available for local ritual activities in the Kaha Wayi (Salomon 2013). In southwestern Bolivia the ethnographer Nelson Pimentel has studied patrimonial 'memory khipus'. Although the original khipus no longer exist, Pimentel solicited elderly interlocutors to replicate four modern yarn khipus from memory. These four community khipus apparently served as accounts of sacrifices, genealogy, harvests, and herds. Some features of these khipus recall the canonical Inka cords, such as an Inka pendant tied around an adjacent pendant; this was explained as an indication that the former cord annuls the latter. Other signifying elements include cord thickness, pendant length, and minor variations in colour (Pimentel 2005). In some cases, khipus represent histories that must be erased, symbols of shame and humiliation. Herders on haciendas in the Cusco region, where they used woollen cords to keep track of the hacendados' flocks, abandoned the use of khipus once land reform broke up the latifundias. Younger generations of pastoralists rejected the cords as icons of their fathers' hated peonage, adopting notebooks and pens as emblems of their liberated status. In the Huarochiri village of Casta, the president of the community told the author that their grandfathers 10 used khipu boards, but hid them from the younger generation. He, in fact, had never seen one, and was eager to examine my copy of anthropologist Julio C. Tello's 1921 drawing of a Casta khipu board. According to the Entablo, Casta's secret ritual manuscript which I was allowed to photograph, khipu boards were used until the 1950s to account for each person's participation in the 8 day irrigation canal cleaning festival every year. The information on the khipu cords indicated if a slacker merited punishment (whipping or cutting off one's hair) for sloppy or unfinished work; the khipu boards hung in public to shame the lazy all year long. It is not surprising that now, when village discipline is enforced in other ways, the khipu boards have been hidden as symbols of disrespect. A three dimensional system of twisted and coloured fibres, khipus have challenged the popular and scholarly imagination for centuries. As anthropologists gain greater insights into these enigmatic texts, our understanding of khipu historiography will continue to grow, opening up to us the inner life of these mysterious strings. Bibliography --Boone, Elizabeth. 2011. The cultural category of scripts, signs, and pictographies. In Their Way of Writing. Elizabeth Boone and Gary Urton, eds. Pp. 379-390. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks. -- Brokaw, Galen. 2010. A History of the Khipu. New York: Cambridge University Press. --Curatola Petrocchi, Marco and José de la Puente Luna, eds. 2013. El quipu colonial. Lima, Peru: PUCP. --Hyland, Sabine. 2014. Ply, Markedness, and Redundancy. American Anthropologist 116(3):643-648. 11 -- --------. 2016. How khipus indicated labour contributions in an Andean village. Journal of Material Culture 21(4):490-509. -- --------. 2017. Writing with twisted cords: the inscriptive capacity of Andean Khipus. Current Anthropology 58(3). --Hyland, Sabine, Gene A. Ware, and Madison Clark. 2014. Knot Direction in a khipu/alphabetic text from the Central Andes. Latin American Antiquity 25 (2): 189197. -- Julien, Catherine. 2002. Reading Inca History. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. -- Mackey, Carol. 2002. The continuing khipu tradition. In Narrative Threads. Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton, eds. Pp.321-347. Austin: University of Texas Press. -- Pärssinen, Martti and Jukka Kiviharju. 2004. Textos andinos: Corpus de textos khipu incaicos y coloniales. Vol. 1. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid. -- Pimentel, Nelson. 2005. Amarrando colores: la producción del sentido en khipus aymaras. La Paz, Bolivia: CEPA, Latinas Editores. -- Salomon, Frank. 2004. The Cord Keepers. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. -- --------. 2013. The twisting paths of recall: khipu (Andean cord notation) as artifact. In: Piquette, K. E. and Whitehouse, R. D., eds. Writing as Material Practice: Substance, Surface, and Medium. Pp. 15-43. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bai.b --Tun, Molly, and Filomeno Zubieta Núñez, 2016. Quipus funerarios y tributarios de Cuspón y Chiquián. Arqueología y Sociedad 31: 403-421. -- Urton, Gary. 2003. Signs of the Inka Khipu. Austin: University of Texas Press. -- --------. 2017. Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources. Austin: University of Texas Press. 12