Khipu Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Khipu, or quipa, or quipu were recording devices used used in the Inca empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region.The term khipu is an orthographic rendering of the Quechua word for "knot". A khipu usually consists of colored cotton cords with numeric values perhaps encoded by knots in the base-10 positional system. During the development of the system, there was no attempt to remaster, or recreate phonetic sounds as the script in European writings do. The khipu have yet to be deciphered, and there are a variety of theories as to how much information they contain. Some have argued that far more than numeric information is present and that the khipu are a primitive written language. This is especially important as there is no surviving record of a written Incan language, something which is extremely rare for such an advanced civilization.
Many uses that are known today for the khipu are: census counts, taxes, a count of items that should be bought or sold and basic numerical data. Inca administrators seemed to be the primary owners of the khipu, using it as a way to keep track of their resources like livestock and farming. These administrators would be in charge of certain districts that divided up the empire.
Members of the Incan tribes that were devoted to creating and deciphering the khipu knots were known as Quipucamayocs. Quipucamayocs were capable of performing simple mathematical calculations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing information for the indigenous people. This included keeping track of tribute, a form of taxation brought onto the indigenous people of the Andean world after the Spanish Invasion. Tribute was often paid out in labor, therefore much of the bookkeeping was based on keeping track of the amount of labor certain tribes were distributing. The Quipucamayocs were also capable of tracking the type of labor being performed. Inca authorities would also require maintained recordings of produce (ie: corn, potatoes) and other goods that had been cultivated and stored throughout the Incan Empire. Finally, the system recorded calendrical information which listed the total number of days and months in their lunar and solar cycles.
In early years of the Conquests, Spanish officials often relied on the khipu to settle disputes over local tribute payments or goods production. Also, Spanish chroniclers concluded that quipus were used basically as mnemonic devices to communicate and record information in the numerical format. Quipucamayocs were even summons to courts where their bookkeeping was considered legal documentation of past payments.
Use of the khipu was soon suppressed, once the Spanish conquistadors became wary of the devotion of the Quipucamayocs to the Crown. Many conquistadors realized the capabilities of the Quipucamayocs to lie left them vulnerable, and that they were not as powerful with their dependency upon the khipu.
The Conquistadors were also attempting to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism. Anything representing the Incan religion was considered idolatry and an attempt to disregard Catholic conversion. Many Conquistadors considered khipu to be idolatrous and therefore destroyed many of them.
Today only 600 Incan khipu survive. More primitive uses of the khipu have also continued in the Peruvian highlands. Some historians believe only the Quipucamayocs that made the specific khipu could read it. If this is true it cannot be considered a form of writing, but rather a mnemonic device. Many historians, however, have attempted to convert the khipu into a decipherable language because the Incan Empire was such a powerful Empire prior to the conquest of Spain; discovering the Incan's side of the story could possibly reveal an entire new link to the past.
The Quipu had a sort of a mathematical track, such as symbols. The Inca imparted some numerical information and some basic narrative ideas. The quipu communicated through color, texture, size, forms, and other characteristics that denoted some interaction with the reader*.
- Helpful source: Kenneth Adrien, Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture and Consciousness.
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