03141cam a22003372 b4500 10671318 20141009145328.0 m d cr n 040415e20041008ncua s|||||||| 2|eng|d 9780822333791 0822333791 (Trade Cloth) USD 99.95 Retail Price (Publisher) 978-0822333791 (WaSeSS)ssj0000400998 00008251 LC F 3429.3 .Q6S35 2004 Salomon, Frank Author The Cord Keepers The Cord Keepers Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village Durham : Duke University Press Oct. 2004 331p ill 25cm Latin America Otherwise Ser. License restrictions may limit access. Annotation None of the world’s “lost writings” have proven more perplexing than the mysterious script in which the Inka Empire kept its records. Ancient Andean peoples encoded knowledge in knotted cords of cotton or wool calledkhipus. InThe Cord Keepers, the distinguished anthropologist Frank Salomon breaks new ground with a close ethnography of one Andean village where villagers, surprisingly, have conserved a set of these enigmatic cords to the present day. The “quipocamayos,” as the villagers call them, form a sacred patrimony. Keying his reading to the internal life of the ancient kin groups that own the khipus, Salomon suggests that the multicolored cords, with their knots and lavishly woven ornaments, did not mimic speech as most systems of writing do, but instead were anchored in nonverbal codes.The Cord Keepersmakes a compelling argument for a close intrinsic link between rituals and visual-sign systems. It indicates that, while Andean graphic representation may differ radically from familiar ideas of writing, it may not lie beyond the reach of scholarly interpretation.In 1994, Salomon witnessed the use of khipus as civic regalia on the heights of Tupicocha, in Peru’s central Huarochirí region. By observing the rich ritual surrounding them, studying the village’s written records from past centuries, and analyzing the khipus themselves, Salomon opens a fresh chapter in the quest for khipu decipherment. He draws on a decade’s field research, early colonial records, and radiocarbon and fiber analysis. Challenging the prevailing idea that the use of khipus ended under early Spanish colonial rule, Salomon reveals that these beautiful objects served, apparently as late as the early twentieth century, to document households’ contribution to their kin groups and these kin groups’ contribution to their village.The Cord Keepersis a major contribution to Andean history and, more broadly, to understandings of writing and literacy. Trade Duke University Press e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection Backlist http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio10671318 Full text available from e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection Backlist Bowker Global Books in Print record lcc BK 24988 24988 0 0 lcc 0 0 NFIC PUEA PUEA GEN 2014-10-09 Books For Africa 2100.00 0 F 3429.3 .Q6S35 2004 2014-3447 2014-10-09 00:00:00 C1 2014-10-09 BK