Testimony from knotted strings: An archival reconstruction of early colonial Andean khipu readings

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite ongoing efforts to document the use of khipus (Andean knotted-string recording devices) in the decades following the Spanish conquest, the scenes in which former Inka-era khipukamayuqs (cord keepers) rendered their cords for colonial observers remain unclear. This study confronts this historical blind spot, endeavouring to reconstruct early colonial khipu ‘readings’ by way of a heretofore unexplored occurrence: scribal modifications entered in transcriptions of khipu-based testimonies before the colonial high courts. Following an overview of evidentiary cord readings and previous treatments of scribal emendations, the prevalence of visible markings is assessed in the largest compilation of khipu transcriptions. Legal proceedings between 1558–1568 before the Audiencias of Lima and La Plata form two case studies. The documents are representative of other khipu transcriptions in lacking an exhaustive description of their own preparation; as such, the possibility that one or more is a secondary copy cannot be entirely excluded. Scribal modifications in three testimonies from the proceedings are deployed as heuristic devices to probe the presentation of ethnocategories and chronology by the cord keepers within this fraught documentary space. Despite the possibility of unattested documentary interference, the case studies attest to slippages in khipu reading that, in their sum, enable the proposal of punctuated narrative cadence, reversions to verbal shorthand, and relational discourse as recurring qualities of early colonial khipu readings. It is argued that this interpretive exercise enables closer study of the relationship between khipus and their written colonial references, serving other inquiries into ‘lost’ historical scenes.