Abstract
Although the knotted cord texts known askhipushave been created in the Andes for over a millennium (ca. AD 950–1950), their historical philology has been little understood. This study, based on original archival and ethnographic research, analyzes hybrid khipu/alphabetic texts known as “khipu boards,” examining their development in colonial Peru, and their role in twentieth-century Andean rituals. Particular attention is paid to a previously unknown sacred manuscript, the Entablo, from the community of San Pedro de Casta, Peru, which describes how villagers used khipu boards in their annual religious ceremonies until the 1950s. This study reveals new insights into the social and symbolic nature of post-Inka khipus as texts, particularly with reference to gender, place, and knowledge.
Highlights
By the eighteenth century, as Adrien Delmas has noted, the European denigration of “any non-alphabetic manifestation of writing” had become pervasive, leading to a corresponding devaluation of the textual traditions of the Americas, Africa, and Asia (Delmas 2016, 193)
For over four hundred years after the Spanish defeat of the Inkas in 1532, Andeans continued to make khipus. This extended period of post-Inka khipu activity, which appears to have been especially prevalent in the Central Andes, testifies to the resilience and adaptability of these three-dimensional
This article explores the social and symbolic nature of khipus as expressed in the Entablo, augmented by interviews with contemporary villagers. It concludes with a consideration of how insights into the cultural meanings of these post-Inka khipus may apply to earlier periods
Summary
As Adrien Delmas has noted, the European denigration of “any non-alphabetic manifestation of writing” had become pervasive, leading to a corresponding devaluation of the textual traditions of the Americas, Africa, and Asia (Delmas 2016, 193). That takes globalization seriously as a form of knowledge” (Pollock 2016, 14; see Pollock, Elman, and Chang 2015; Dayeh 2016; Restall 2003; Van Doesburg and Swanton 2011) This renewed emphasis on the textual heritages of Asia, Africa, and Mesoamerica corresponds to a recent call to re-center anthropology’s engagement with the study of texts “as the philological record from which to document and explore language, culture, and intellectual life on their own terms” (Webster, Woodbury, and Epps 2017, 1). This article explores the social and symbolic nature of khipus as expressed in the Entablo, augmented by interviews with contemporary villagers It concludes with a consideration of how insights into the cultural meanings of these post-Inka khipus may apply to earlier periods
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