Guest Lecture by Sabine Holland
Khipu RN9027 from deerskin packet from the Casa del Kipu deposit at Pachacamac. Source: Gary Urton, Inka History in Knots. Reading Khipus as Primary Sources, University of Austin Press, 2017.
Khipus: Power and Meaning in the Andean World
This lecture explores how khipus – the knotted cords used as writing in the Andes – undergirded power and state administration in the Inka Empire. After describing what it’s like to carry out fieldwork in Andean communities with living khipu traditions, Hyland discusses how khipus were crucial to the Inka state. Khipus allowed the Inka bureaucracy to function efficiently; they also supported the power of the Inka emperor in a cosmological sense. As one of the most highly valued commodities in the ancient Andes, fine textilesexpressed authority in a wide range of contexts. Khipu, one of the most sophisticated formsof Andean textiles, served not only to encode administrative data, but also to legitimate governmental power by serving as tactile symbols of relations between humans and the divine.