The quipa (pronounced “Kee-poo”), which means simply “knot,” and which the ‘countries passed from hand to hand, was as close to writing as man got in South America; still no matter how much writers have strained their imagination, the quipu is not writing. It is simply a mnemonic device to aid the memory and its knotted strings are based on a decimal count.
All quipus had to be accompanied by a verbal comment , without which the meaning would have been unintelligible .The quipu was a simple and ingenious device; it consisted of a main cord (ranging from a foot to many feet in length) and from this cord smaller coloured strings dangled which had at intervals knots (quipus) tied into them. It has been shown conclusively by those who have studied them that the strings were used to record numbers in a decimal system and that there was a symbol for zero, that is, a string with an empty space”; this allowed them to count to over ten thousand. Knots were tied into the string to represent numbers; if a governor was visiting a newly conquered tribe and the Inca wanted to know how many able bodied Indians there were, these were counted and the number tied into the quipu.It maybe that there was a certain symbol or heraldic device for “man,” but if there was it is not known.
There was attached to the governor an official knot-string record interpreter known as a quipu – camayoc, whose duty it was to tie in the records. He then had to remember which quipu recorded what; i.e. numbers of men, women, llamas, etc., in the newly conquered lands when the governor had an audience with the Inca he could, with the knot-string record plus the ” rememberer,” recite the facts as gathered.
The different colours of the wool threads apparently had a meaning; the mode of intertwining the know or twisting the thread or the distance of the knots from each other gave nuance, With these quipus the Inca had the numbers of tribes, llamas, women and old people. Beyond mere numbers, the colours, the smaller threads, the green, blue, white black and red colours, could, it is believed, express meanings and even, it is asserted, abstract ideas.These knots counted from one to ten and ten to one hundred, and from one hundred to a thousand. Each ruler of a province was provided with accountants , and by these knots they kept accounts of what tribute was to be paid, with such accuracy not so much as a pair of sandals would be missing.
Like all pre-literate peoples, they had good memories. While the quipu itself could not be read without verbal comment to make all the entanglements understandable, it did (this much is certain) go beyond mere compilation of statistics; it was used as a supplement for the memory of historical events. The lack of writing in any form among the South Americans is a puzzle indeed. The Aztecs had a pictographic writing and were arriving at the stage of syllabic phonetics when the Spaniards arrived. Even the North American Plains Indians had a form of rebus writing which by positions, colour and crude drawings conveyed ideas. There was no such thing in South America; and unbelievably no writing among the Incas, who needed it most of all.
Inca man holding a Qeipu.
Sadly any further evidence of the Knot-String record was destroyed upon the arrival of the Spanish conquest.