FROM KNOTS TO NARRATIVES - RECONSTRUCTING THE ART OF HISTORICAL RECORD-KEEPING IN THE ANDES FROM SPANISH TRANSCRIPTIONS OF INKA KHIPUS

Based on a close examination of Spanish translations and transcription s of ''readings'' of Inka khipus (knotted-string recording devices) by native ''knot-keepers/makers'' during the sixteenth century, I make s uggestions about the types of information that appear to have been rec orded. While memory played an important role in the construction of fu ll narrative renderings of the khipus, the transcriptions nonetheless suggest that the khipu signifiers contained a high level of syntactic and semantic information. It is argued, therefore, that the khipu reco rding system may have more closely approximated a form of writing than has heretofore been supposed.