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Dead Media Working Notes 00.3
medium: the Inca Quipo aka Quipu
Source: Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society
David Crowley and Paul Heyer, eds.
Longman, New York and London, 1991
ISBN 0-8013-0598-5
From the article: "Civilization Without Writing -- The Inca and the Quipu"
by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher (also authors of "Code of the Quipu: A
Study in Media, Mathematics and Culture", publisher and date unknown)
"A quipu is a collection of cords with knots tied in them. The cords were
usually made of cotton, and they were often dyed one or more colors.
When held in the hands, a quipu is unimpressive; surely, in our culture, it
might be mistaken for a tangled old mop. (...)
"Quipus probably predate the coming to power of the Incas. But under
the Incas, they became part of statecraft. (....)
"There are several extremely important properties of quipus.... First of
all, quipus can be assigned horizontal direction. (...) Quipumakers knew
which end was which; we will assume that they start at the looped aends
and proceed to the knotted ends. Quipus can also be assigned vertical
direction. Pendant cords and top cords are vertically opposite to each
other with pendant cords considered to go downward and top cords upward.
(...) Quipus have levels. Cords attached to the main cord are on one level;
theur subsidiaries form a second level. Subsidiaries to these subsidiaries
form a third level, and so on. Quipus are made of cords and spaces
between cords. (...) Larger or smaller spaces between cords are an
intentional part of the overall construction. (...)
"As well as having a particular placement, each cord has a color. Color
is fundamental to the symbolic system of the quipu. (...) Basically, the
quipumaker designed each quipu using color coding to relate some cords
together and to distinguish them from other cords. (...) Additional cord
colors were created by spinning the colored yarns together. Two solid
colors twisted together gives a candy cane effect, two of these twisted
together using the opposite twist direction gives a mottled effect, and the
two solid colors can be joined so that part of the cord is one color and the
rest of it is another color. (...)
"For the most part, cords had knots tied along them and the knots
represented numbers. But we are certain that before knots were tied in
the cords, the entire blank quipu was prepared. The overall planning and
construction of the quipu was done first, including the types of cord
connections, the relative placement of cords, the selection of cord colors,
and even individual decorative finishings. (...) The quipumaker's recording
was nonlinear. (...) A group of strings occupy a space that has no definite
orientation; as the quipumaker conmnected strongs to each other, the
space became defined by the points where the strings were attached. (...)
Essentially then, the quipumaker had to have the ability to conceive and
execute a recording in three dimensions with color."
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |