Some other recent Books and Articles on Khipus

Some other recent books and articles on Khipus to consider:

L. Fossa, "Los khipu: El estado de la cuestión," El Peruano, 96, (7 noviembre 2005).
http://www.elperuano.com.pe/identidades/96/apuntes.asp

M. Pärssinen, J. Kiviharju with response by G. Urton, C. Brezine, "Letters: Inca accounting practices," Science, 310, pg 1903-4(2005)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5756/1903d?etoc

both refer to a book:

M. Pärssinen, J. Kiviharju, Textos andinos: corpus de textos khipu incaicos y coloniales. Tomo I, (Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia, Acta Ibero-Americana Fennica, Madrid: 2004).

Dennis
(moderator)

READING COLOR (as CATAGORY) example by Alejo Rojas

Hi folks,

Even the chronicler Garsilaso de la Vega noted that the Incas used COLOR TO DENOTE CATAGORY when recording (statistical) information on khipus.

An example of this practice is given by Dr. Alejo Rojas of the Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal, Peru (thanks Dr. Rojas!):

http://secgen.comunidadandina.org/ANDESTAD/quipus.htm

Dennis
(moderator)

PENDANT GROUP STUDY - My NEXT STEPS plus an Invitation to work on this as well

Hi folks,

In the coming months, I will seek to progressively peal away the layers of organization present in the pendant groups of the khipus of first the Ascher-Ascher database and then of the some of the series of khipus (Leylebamba) present in the harvard database or Urton and his co-workers.

In an article below, I presented the FIRST STEP in _my_ study of the matter, looking simply at the COLOR of the pendant cords making up the pendant groups listed in the Ascher-Ascher database. I'll be following this study up with a study of the simple presence and absence of KNOTS and SUBSIDIARY CORDS.

I'll be doing this, because a good number of the pendant groups present in the Ascher-Ascher database appear COMPLETELY EMPTY - without knots or subsidiary cords attached to them, and yet presumably even such "empty cords" could contain meaning. Further, at least one source that I read last year (Nelson D., Pimentel H., Amarrando Colores: La Produccion del Sentido en Khipus Aymaras[Bolivia: Latinas Editores, 2005] ISBN: 99905-78-43-5) suggests as much. The authors present the results of interviews with two indigenous experts on khipus in Bolivia. These two indigenous experts indicated that empty cords carry meaning in themselves, meaning that's modified by the presence of knots and junctions with other cords.

Also with each new step, new questions / avenues of investigation can arise...

HOWEVER, here I must note ... I'm doing this "part time," when I find the time do so.

SO IF YOU FIND THIS LINE OF STUDY INTERESTING ... PLEASE DON'T WAIT FOR ME. Do you're own work. If you wish, share it with me (or the whole net here).

But I WON'T BE OFFENDED if you take my work and move it along faster than I can. I'm just authentically interested in solving this great riddle, and would be just as fascinated to read somebody else's work later as to how they solved it, than to solve it myself. (I'm an amateur, I'm doing this "for the love of knowledge and history.")

And if those who are the professionals solve this great riddle before I'd ever get around to it (I actually have a full time "other job" :-) then no one would be happier than me!

Dennis
(moderator)

PENDANT CORD COLOR ORGANIZATION - FIRST PASS in my Pendant Group Analysis of the Khipus of the Ascher-Ascher Database - Pendant Cord Color

Hi folks,

This will be a many month project of looking to identify and catagorize the structures present within the Pendant Groups (PGs) of the Khipus recorded in the Ascher-Ascher database.

However, here is PASS 1 of the search for these structures:

In PASS 1, I simply considered the COLOR of the PENDANT CORDS making up the PGs of the khipus contained in the Ascher-Ascher Database. Note, I DID NOT CONSIDER the presence/absence of any knots on the cords or the presence/absence of SUBSIDIARY CORDS. I simply considered the COLORS of the PENDAND CORDS of the khipus of the database.

The complete results (in XLS tabular form) of this FIRST PASS can be found at:

http://us.share.geocities.com/denniskriz/khipu/analysis/MAAD-PG-ANALYSIS.xls

In doing so, I found 4 basic types of pendant cord color organization across the PGs of the Ascher-Ascher database:

(1) O - cases where there was only one pendant cord in the PG.
(2) U - cases where all the cords in the PG were of the same color scheme (note sometimes the cords would be of a composite color (mottled, barberpole or joined) but nevertheless every cord in the PG was of same color scheme.
(2a) UnE - cases where almost all of the cords were the same color scheme with 1 or 2 exceptions.
(3) G - cases where three or more consecutive pendant cords were of the same color scheme
(4) I - cases where no more than two consecutive pendant cords were of the same color.
(4a) IB - 2 cords of different color apparently unrelated to other PGs in the khipu in question (a binary equivalent to O above).

The existence of color formating across several pendant groups in individual khipus: While it was already apparent to me that individual (or groups) pendant cords within a pendant group are "color formated", that is that the same order of color of the pendant cords can often be observed in multiple pendant groups within a khipu, I was able, for the first time to identify and even quantify the frequency of such formating.

As such, whenever a pendant group within a khipu was found to be of "G" or "I" organization, I compared the pendant cord color sequence within that group with other PGs of "G" and "I" organization within the khipu in question. Often enough, the color sequences of such groups were almost identical across many PGs within the Khipu. Such PGs were labeled "GF" or "IF". If such color formating was less clear but still present, I labeled such PGs "GSF" or "ISF."

As a result the degree of pendant cord color formating within the pendant groups of the khipus of the Ascher-Ascher database could be quantified, and exceptional pendant groups identified.

Of the 2319 Pendant groups present present in the 205 khipus (AS010-AS215) of the Ascher-Ascher Database, the following pendant cord color structres are observed:

O type PGs = 346 (14.9%)
U (and UnE) type PGs = 960 (41.4%)
F (GF and IF) type PGs = 674 (21.1%)
SF (GSF and ISF) type PGs = 44 (1.9%)
IB (binary, apparently non-formated) = 104 (4.5%)
other (no clear format) = 191 (8.2%)

Within the "other" category there are also a small number of maincord "knots" and "junctions" that initially put into Pendant Group table (as these were present in the pendant group tables of the Ascher-Ascher Database itself).

The remaining, non trivial "other" PGs are the ones perhaps most likely to contain narrative expressed in part through use of pendant cord color.

The more formated PGs would appear to be tables of data.

To be sure a closer analysis of the unicolor PGs needs to be done, because in number of cases, all the pendants of a khipu (across PGs) were of the same color (usually "neutral" (W) or "light (yellowish) brown." Such trivial cases need to be identified in the future as well.

However, the above results already gives one a quantified sense of the color formating present in the khipus of the Ascher-Ascher database on the most basic level (that of the color of the PENDANT CORDS of the khipus given in the Ascher-Ascher database).

And this was the intention of this FIRST PASS or ITERATION in discerning structures existing within the pendant groups of the khipus available for study.


Dennis
moderator

New Project: Seeking to Catagorize/Classify the Pendant Groups present on the Khipus of the Asher-Asher Database

Folks,

Just to bring you up-to-date on my doings, I've embarked on the process of catagorizing the pendant groups present in the khipus of the Ascher-Ascher database.

I expect this to take me 1-2 months, and I'll report periodically on my progress.

I've decided to pursue this project because I've observed various forms of "color formatting" within the pendant groups of the khipus of this database.

That is, sometimes all the pendants of a particular pendant group are of the same color. At other times, the color sequence of the pendant chords within a pendant group is the same across several other pendant groups in a particular khipu. In both cases, color appears to have been used to "format" the information present.

As such, I'm seeking to catagorize the pendant groups present in the khipus of the Ascher-Ascher database, in order to better analysis of them in the future.

Dennis
(moderator)