T H EI R WAY OF W R I T I NG

Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America

Dumbarton Oaks Pr e- Columbia n Symposia a nd Colloqu ia

Series Editor
Joanne Pillsbury

Editorial Board
Elizabeth Hill Boone
Tom Cummins
Gary Urton
David Webster
 T H EI R WAY OF W R I T I NG
Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies
in Pre-Columbian America

ELIZABETH HILL BOONE and GARY URTON

Editors

DUMBARTON OAKS R ESEARCH LIBR ARY AND COLLECTION

WASHINGTON, D.C.
© 2011 Dumbarton Oaks
Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America

15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Their way of writing : scripts, signs, and pictographies in Pre-Columbian

America / Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton, editors.
p. cm.—(Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian symposia and colloquia)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-88402-368-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Indians of Mexico—Languages—Writing. 2. Indians of Central America—Languages—Writing.
3. Indians of South America—Peru—Languages—Writing. 4. Picture writing—Mexico.
5. Picture writing—Central America. 6. Picture writing—Peru.
7. Mayan languages—Writing. 8. Nahuatl language—Writing.
9. Quechua language—Writing.
I. Boone, Elizabeth Hill. II. Urton, Gary. III. Dumbarton Oaks.
f1435.3.w75t74 2011
497—dc22
010050788

General Editor: Joanne Pillsbury

Art Director: Kathleen Sparkes
Text Design and Composition: Melissa Tandysh
Jacket Design: Kathleen Sparkes
Managing Editor: Sara Taylor

Volume based on papers presented at the Pre-Columbian Studies symposium “Scripts, Signs, and Notational
Systems in Pre-Columbian America,” organized with Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton and held at
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., on October 11–12, 2008.

Cover illustrations: Inka khipukamayuq, drawing 137 of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica y
buen gobierno, 1615, photograph courtesy of he Royal Library, Copenhagen. Mixtec scribe, detail, folio 48v
of the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus.

www.doaks.org/publications
hese books were written in symbols and pictures. his is their way of writing,
supplying their lack of an alphabet by the use of symbols.
—f r i a r mo t ol i n i a, 15 4 1,
History of the Indians of New Spain

Before the Spaniards came the Indians of Peru had no knowledge of writing at
all . . . , but this did not prevent them from preserving the memory of ancient times,
nor did they fail to keep a reckoning for all their afairs whether of peace, war,
or government. . . . [T]hey compensated in part for the lack of writing and let-
ters . . . principally, with quipus. . . . What they achieved in this way is incredible,
for whatever books can tell of histories and laws and ceremonies and accounts of
business all is supplied by the quipus so accurately that the result is astonishing.
—jo sé de ac o sta, 159 0,
Natural and Moral History of the Indies
 con t en t s

for e wor d | ix
Joanne Pillsbury

1 i n t roduc t ion
heir Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies
in Pre-Columbian America | 1
Gary Urton

2 he Cold War and the Maya Decipherment | 9

Michael D. Coe

3 All hings Must Change: Maya Writing over Time and Space | 21
Stephen D. Houston

4 he Flowering Glyphs: Animation in Cotzumalhuapa Writing | 43

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

5 Teotihuacan and the Development of Writing in Early Classic Central Mexico | 77

Karl Taube

6 he Written Surface as a Cultural Code: A Comparative Perspective

of Scribal Traditions from Southwestern Mesoamerica | 111
Javier Urcid

7 Elaboration and Abbreviation in Mexican Pictorial Manuscripts:

heir Use in Literary hemes | 149
Michel R. Oudijk

8 Writing, Images, and Time-Space in Aztec Monuments and Books | 175

Federico Navarrete

9 Ruptures and Unions: Graphic Complexity and Hybridity

in Sixteenth-Century Mexico | 197
Elizabeth Hill Boone

10 Moche as Visual Notation: Semasiographic Elements

in Moche Ceramic Imagery | 227
Margaret A. Jackson

vii
 11 Chuquibamba Textiles and heir Interacting Systems of Notation:
he Case of Multiple Exact Calendars | 251
R. Tom Zuidema

12 Tocapu: What Is It, What Does It Do, and Why Is It Not a Knot? | 277
homas B. F. Cummins

13 Khipu Typologies | 319

Gary Urton and Carrie J. Brezine

14 Khipu from Colony to Republic: he Rapaz Patrimony | 353

Frank Salomon, Carrie J. Brezine, Reymundo Chapa, and Víctor Falcón Huayta

15 he Cultural Category of Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies | 379

Elizabeth Hill Boone

c on t r i bu t or s | 391
i n de x | 397

viii c ontents
 fore word
T he irst authors to write about the systems of
recording information used by the Aztec and
Inka, the dominant empires in the Americas in
the early sixteenth century, stressed the complex-
ity and eicacy of the scripts, signs, and notational
systems used to register dynastic histories, tax and
tribute lists, and other matters crucial to the opera-
tion of any large and complex state. he types of
systems used to record information in the ancient
Americas varied dramatically, from the glyphic
writing in Mesoamerica to the knotted cord
records, or khipus, that facilitated the expansion of
the Inka empire in South America. As Elizabeth
Boone and Gary Urton have noted, these early
modern authors distinguished such systems from
writing as they knew it, preferring, like Motolinia,
to use the phrase “their way of writing” or, as was
oten the case in the Andes, simply “accounts.” Yet
there was no doubt in the minds of these sixteenth-
century authors that such systems were extremely
efective in conveying information.
he European fascination with Pre-Columbian
systems of recording information continued or
even increased in later centuries. he eighteenth-
century Neapolitan intellectual Raimondo di
Sangro, principe of Sansevero, was obsessed with
khipus and felt that they could replace European
writing systems, as he considered them a richer and
more eicient form of communication. Sansevero
saw them as the future, not just the past. Indeed, he
said he would spread the word about this great sys-
tem himself, were it not for all of his friends in the
printing business who would be put out of work.
he study of ancient American writing and
other systems of recording information did not
wane in the nineteenth century. Mesoamerican
systems, in particular, were the focus of many
studies. We should remember, however, how little
was known about ancient American writing at this
time. he U.S. writer John Lloyd Stephens, travel-
ing in the 1840s, described the spectacular monu-
ments at the Maya site of Copan. He recognized
that hieroglyphs had the potential to reveal rich
histories, but that they remained unintelligible and
functionally mute. By the late nineteenth century,
however, essential features of Maya writing, par-
ticularly numeration, had been worked out, setting
the stage for the spectacular decipherments of the
twentieth century.
With over a century of serious, sustained re-
search on Pre-Columbian systems of recording
information, it is perhaps a good time to consider
our current state of knowledge. he present vol-
ume is based on papers presented at the sympo-
sium “Scripts, Signs, and Notational Systems in
Pre-Columbian America,” held at Dumbarton
Oaks on October 11–12, 2008. Organized with
Elizabeth Boone and Gary Urton, this conference
was a particularly celebratory one, as it marked the
return of the annual Pre-Columbian symposium
ix
 to Washington, D.C., ater four years of being
held of-site while renovations were completed on
the Main House at Dumbarton Oaks. Two papers
presented at this symposium, by David Stuart and
Alfonso Lacadena, were not available for publi-
cation in the present volume. Dumbarton Oaks
remains indebted to Elizabeth and Gary for their
vision in the scholarly organization of the sympo-
sium and for their expertise and tireless eforts in
editing the resulting volume. heir own work on
the subject of recording information in the ancient
Americas has set a high standard, and we are for-
tunate to have their consideration of the broader
framework for the study of writing and other nota-
tional systems.
I am grateful to Jan Ziolkowski, director of
Dumbarton Oaks; William Fash, of the Adminis-
trative Committee of Dumbarton Oaks; and the
senior fellows in Pre-Columbian Studies for their
counsel and support in the organization of the
symposium and the creation of the present vol-
ume. he staf at Dumbarton Oaks was unfailingly
accommodating, from the symposium planning
stages to the preparation of this publication. No one
was more helpful than Emily Gulick, the program
assistant in Pre-Columbian Studies, whose creativ-
ity and hard work were behind every stage of this
project. Bridget Gazzo, Pre-Columbian librarian;
x foreword
Miriam Doutriaux, exhibition associate; and Juan
Antonio Murro, assistant curator, organized two
stimulating exhibitions on the history of decipher-
ment designed to coincide with the symposium.
he present volume was prepared by the pub-
lications department of Dumbarton Oaks, under
the directorship of Kathleen Sparkes. I am grateful
to Sara Taylor, art and archaeology editor, for her
thoughtful work on editorial and production mat-
ters. Outside of Dumbarton Oaks, I would like to
thank the two anonymous reviewers for their help-
ful advice.
he success of any scholarly gathering and
publication depends upon the free exchange of data
and ideas and the rigorous analyses and discussion
surrounding their presentation. I would like to
close by thanking the authors in this volume for
their willingness to share their research. We are
indebted, as well, to the many distinguished schol-
ars who attended the symposium; their good ques-
tions and comments contributed to the stimulating
discussion at the symposium itself and to the ongo-
ing dialogue about the nature of recording infor-
mation in the ancient Americas.
Joanne Pillsbury
Director of Studies, Pre-Columbian Program
Dumbarton Oaks

Khipu from Colony to Republic
reymundo chapa, and víctor falcón huayta1
W e might be su r pr ised to lea r n,
given the midcolonial ascendancy of the
“lettered city” (Rama 1996), that some Peruvian
villages maintained into the twentieth century
khipus of governance as part of a plan resembling
the regime designed by the Toledan-era viceroyalty
(1569–1581). Yet such is the case. Roberto Levillier’s
selection of Toledo’s administrative papers show
that when he mandated the “Indian cabildo,” he
intended it to include “a set of local oicials mod-
eled on Spanish municipal ones. Just like Spanish
oicials, these men are to gather on New Year’s Day
each year to elect their replacements for the follow-
ing year. Toledo speciies that there should be ‘two
mayors (alcaldes) and four councilmen (regidores)
and one constable (alguacil) and a notary or qui-
pocamayo, and the latter shall serve for life as long
as he is capable of doing so.’2 (Note that only one
of them is supposed to serve for more than a year:
the notary/quipocamayo)” (Burns 2004:6–7). his
chapter will show that in a much later era, when
“Indian” villages came to be part of an independent
14
The Rapaz Patrimony
frank salomon, carrie j. brezine,
republic, cord keeping still carried on the Toledan
vision of the cord master as “a kind of moral
policeman” (Burns 2004:11). What changed is that
khipus came to be made in the service of agropas-
toral reciprocity among free peasants rather than
in service to ancien régime supervision by crown
governors, accountants, and priests.
Khipus, Governance, and Patrimony
ca. 1800–2000
he central evidence consists of collections of
khipus formerly used in the internal governance of
villages and still conserved by them as sacred pat-
rimony. he processes by which the khipu passed
from being an interface between native and colo-
nial information systems to being a culturally pri-
vate medium of intra-“Indian” communication is
relatively obscure (Pärssinen and Kiviharju 2004;
Sempat 2002). It appears to have begun toward 1600
as the “lettered city” lost interest in this diicult (for
353
 Spaniards) medium. By the era of the eighteenth-
century revolts, khipus validated speciically intra-
ethnic messages (Salomon and Spalding 2002). A
khipulike device was also said to have conveyed
conspiratorial messages in a rebellion far beyond
the old Inka heartland in Araucanian Chile in 1792
(Stevenson 1825:1:50–51).
In the early nineteenth century, villages gained
a margin of autonomy as creoles fought of the
Spanish empire while creating only a spotty repub-
lican administration to replace it (Méndez 2004;
homson 2002:269–280). he new states depended
on a modus vivendi with self-governing peasantries
igure 14.1
Investiture of new presidents of
ayllus in Tupicocha, Huarochirí
province, 2005. (Photograph by
Frank Salomon.)
354 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
(Platt 1982). his gave communities in some prov-
inces a chance to renew and perhaps elaborate old
resources of self-administration. In other prov-
inces, as the nineteenth century advanced, lati-
fundia engulfed communities whole. In the latter
case, the new estate-bound context of the old art
gave rise to the kind of herders’ khipus that Mackey
(1970) was still able to observe in the 1960s.
he most fully published case concerning pat-
rimonial khipus of governance is that of Tupicocha
in Huarochirí, Peru. Tupicocha owns ten khipus
(Salomon 2004). In 2006, one ayllu that lacked a
khipu made an eleventh, termed a simulacrum,
for ritual purposes. Nobody in the years from 1994
to 2007 claimed competence in reading khipus.
Tupicochan khipus are of medium size and in
overall design resemble the canonical Inka type.
hey show little if any of the “reduction” or “defec-
tiveness” characteristic of moribund scripts.
Like many Andean villages, Tupicocha is a
confederation of corporate kin groups (ayllu). In
such a system, the core social contract is equita-
ble contribution. he political practice formerly
involving khipus is known in central Peru by a tell-
ing Hispano-Quechua name: huatancha (Guillén
de Boluarte 1958:92–93). his term appears to
derive from a lengua general Quechua term
*watanchay, meaning “making its year” (i.e., the
community’s). Huatancha gatherings “make the
year” by holding outgoing oicers to account and
renewing the political hierarchy. hey climax in
an annual town meeting (huayrona). At this meet-
ing, khipus of internal accounting were presented.
In Tupicocha, they still are, albeit only as regalia.
When the khipus were fully functional, each ayllu
owned a pair of presentation khipus that it used
to document the ayllu’s collective contribution to
the federation. he accounting of reciprocal duties,
whether by khipus or (today) by ledgers, guaran-
tees equity of contribution. Villagers, therefore,
esteem accounting as the very core of the social
contract (Mayer 2002:129). Today, the ceremony of
draping a khipu upon the chest of each incoming
ayllu president (camachico) climactically drama-
tizes this belief (see Figure 14.1).
Tupicochan khipus yield ambiguous radio-
carbon dates, with nineteenth-century dates being
most prevalent as dates of manufacture. Ayllu books
from within the community give clues about when
cords ceased to be oicial media. One from 1898
mentions the quipocamayos as artifacts “de ante-
rior” (of former [times]). If khipus were still made
in the nineteenth century but obsolescent by 1898,
then the people trained ater the end of the War
of the Paciic (1883) are likely to be the ones who
relinquished khipu practice. In the 1920s, the time
when people born around 1880 were reaching peak
power, khipu sets were broken up by ayllu ission,
suggesting that their functionality was no longer
important. Also at this time, the ayllus responded
to the national state’s “indigenist” campaign to
include traditional governments within govern-
ment structures by writing themselves modernist
constitutions. hese were understood as replace-
ments for “customs” like the khipu. Oicial recog-
nition of the community in 1935 probably sealed an
already advanced transition from cords to paper.
Yet from 1958 to 1974, one ayllu’s secretaries still
described, as opposed to merely inventorying, its
khipus. his registry shows change over time, sug-
gesting some residue of “remembered” competence
and perhaps a inal round of knotting activity.
The Rapaz Khipu House (Kaha Wayi) and
Its Ritual Surround
Tupicocha was not the irst case of patrimonial
khipu to be published. he irst of all reports on
patrimonial khipus was the work of Arturo Ruíz
Estrada (1982), who began visiting the village of
Rapaz in the province of Oyón, Peru, in 1976. he
khipu patrimony of Rapaz is of singular interest
because it is the only known case where khipus
endure in the buildings they were made to serve.
hese same buildings still house the ongoing work
of ceremony and production management, for
whose sake khipus are held sacred.
Since 2003, the irst author, in collaboration
with specialists (including the coauthors), has been
conducting detailed research on the Rapaz cords
themselves, as well as on their historical archae-
ology, their architecture, and their ethnographic-
linguistic surround. he research was undertaken
by agreement with the Comunidad Campesina San
Cristóbal de Rapaz, which owns the site. Rapaz has
the largest single deposit of patrimonial khipus as
well as the most richly contextualized. he remain-
der of this chapter is devoted to indings of our
2005–2008 researches there.
he village of San Cristóbal de Rapaz, with its
comunidad campesina (corporation of the com-
mons) of the same name, is located on the west
slope of the Sierra de Raura in the upper Huaura
River drainage (Province of Oyón, Department
Khipu from Colony to Republic 355
 of Lima). Its nucleated center stands 4,000–4,050
m high on a spur over the uppermost reach of
the Checras River (IGN 2000). he densely built
“reduction”-style village stands a little below the
boundary between spacious high-altitude pasture-
lands and restricted farmlands. he latter includes
a band of dry-farmed terraced ields under an eight-
zone sectoral fallowing regimen (Guillet 1981) and
an irrigated lower band near the river. Rapaz lost
its former valley-bottom lands in the 1920s. he
1993 census registered 707 inhabitants (INEI 1993).
A variety of Quechua I of the Yaru dialect group
coexists, though it is in decline, with Spanish.
he ritual-administrative precinct of tradi-
tional governance (Figure 14.2) occupies an area of
346.17 m2 close to the eastern edge of the village.
One side of it lies along the boundary between the
two traditional moieties, Allauca and Lamash. he
precinct is surrounded on two sides by a recently
rebuilt ieldstone wall with one large gate and
a small lateral entrance, later illed in. he other
two sides have rammed-earth walls backing onto

0.50
4.66
3.40
4.51
Pasa Qullqa
pro

0.50
jec
iont
of

0.69
th
atc
he
dg
abl
er
oo

7.07
f

17.82

Kaha Wayi
area = 346.1697 m approx.
perimeter = 77.9386 m approx.
projection of gable roof

10.40

igure 14.2
he ritual precinct of laboratory
Rapaz. he structure (temporary)
at bottom, a temporary
site laboratory, has been
removed. (Drawing by
13.61
Frank Salomon.) 3.60

356 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón

private residences. It contains two buildings: Kaha
Wayi, the “Khipu House” (upper let in Figure 14.2),
and the storehouse Pasa Qullqa or Misia Qullqa
(upper right in Figure 14.2). he two are roughly
aligned, facing each other along a northeast-
southwest axis that forms an angle with the street
grid. he walled plaza as of 2003 was unpaved and
empty save for two electric utility posts, but exca-
vation showed signs of heavy use in recent and his-
toric times.
he name Kaha Wayi consists of an appar-
ently Spanish root, caja, “treasury,” and a Quechua
one, wayi, cognate to wasi in southern Quechua,
meaning “house.” As for Pasa Qullqa, qullqa (with
q representing the central Peruvian voiced postve-
lar occlusive) is cognate to the southern qullka,
“storehouse.” he adjective pasa, cognate to pacha,
means “time, season, weather.” Villagers also speak
of the walled compound as a whole as Qullqa.
igure 14.3
Kaha Wayi, the Khipu House, 2004. (Photograph by Frank Salomon.)
Kaha Wayi, the Khipu House (Figure 14.3), is the
more frequently used part of the patrimony. It func-
tions as the meeting place of the traditional authori-
ties, particularly for the important New Year’s
meeting, which we will describe, and for the mesas
calzadas, in which the designated ritualist (awkin,
vendelhombre) communicates with the owners of
rain. It is rectangular with walls of irregular stone
and earth mortar and adobe gables. Stone benches
run around the interior walls. A single northwest-
facing door gives access to the main chamber, while
a smaller opening in the southwestern gable, 2.8 m
over the inside loor level, opens into the now-empty
attic. he end walls project past the main facade to
form two buttresses. A low stone bench of a type
common in regional pre-Hispanic architecture
runs along the base of the facade. It aforded seat-
ing for oicers whose low rank allowed hearing but
precluded seeing the rituals within Kaha Wayi. he
Khipu from Colony to Republic 35 7
 igure 14.4
he khipu collection with 2004 vice president (kamatsikuq) Toribio Gallardo. (Photograph by Frank Salomon.)
main entry, a Dutch door, allowed sound and the rit-
ually valued smoke of incense to reach these novices.
Long eaves sheltered them.
In 2003 and 2004, the collection of khipus was
draped in seeming disorder over a stick that hung
from the woodwork of the upper loor (Figure
14.4). his hanging rack lay parallel to the south-
east or rear wall. Underneath it, along the built-in
bench, lay a considerable scattering of broken cord
fragments. No khipu remains were found in any
other place.
Although this study will concentrate on the
khipus, it is vital to understand that the khipus
exist as part of a suite of artifacts that formed the
basic control structures of an agropastoral system.
Kaha Wayi still does control the agricultural sector,
allowing ethnographic study of khipus’ context.
358 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
Before describing the khipus, then, we must review
three matters: Kaha Wayi’s standing as a temple
and administrative center, the storehouse it con-
trolled, and the agropastoral system governed from
this complex.
Kaha Wayi is the only functioning Andean
temple of which we are aware. Although it stands
just a few steps from the village’s famous painted
church (Macera et al. 1995), its visible contents
include no icons of Christianity,3 nor do the
roles performed in it govern any of the village’s
Catholic festivals. In the eyes of Rapacinos, Kaha
Wayi’s ongoing power to obtain rain for crops
and herds, and its mandate to enforce ritual and
economic order in agriculture, matter even more
than its standing as the repository of an “Inka”
khipu collection.
igure 14.5
Altar and ritual in Kaha Wayi, January 2, 2004.
(Photograph by Frank Salomon.)

To villagers, Kaha Wayi’s most important fea-

ture is an altar or ofering table that stands in the
westerly part of the chamber. Covered with a dou-
ble cloth, it permanently holds three small gourds
for liquid oferings (jurka), a coca bag (walqi), and a
small lime gourd for consuming coca (Figure 14.5).
A large pile of coca leaves deposited in the course of
rites obscures most of the surface. From the ceiling
hang twenty-six diverse objects dedicated as past
oferings. (In 2008, a new one, a decorated ear of
corn, was added.) A large broken pot on the loor
serves as a censer for the solemn act of burning
llama fat with the incense plant kunuk. Dry plant
remains under the altar attest to the raywan cer-
emony to be described.
he associated storehouse, Pasa Qullqa (Figure
14.6), is out of use. his robust building was made
to sustain great weights, and although it resembles
Kaha Wayi in its overall shape and size, it was con-
structed diferently. It contains no furnishings now
considered sacred, nor does it function any longer
for storage. It is, however, still used for nighttime
animal sacriice. he upper story was the storage
area for seed potatoes under communal control,
while its middle loor was the storage area for con-
sumables from the common ields (used for festi-
vals, but also for the relief of hunger, the support of
outgoing or incoming delegations, and the raising
of funds). he lowest, semisubterranean loor shel-
tered animal products and sacriices.
he present regime of communal control over
production includes the usual “constitutional”
hierarchy of oicers and practices nationally nor-
mative bookkeeping, taxpaying, and legal regis-
try. At the same time, it maintains within its own
bosom a traditionalist inner government that con-
tinues to enforce the aforementioned regime of igure 14.6
usufruct rights. his inner government is oicially Pasa Qullqa, the old community storehouse, ater
called the Comité Agropecuario (Agropastoral its architectural conservation, 2005. (Photograph
Committee); the community vice president, in by Frank Salomon.)

Khipu from Colony to Republic 359

 his capacity as kamatsikuq, functions as its head.
he vice president–kamatsikuq thus forms the
hinge between state-deined law and a traditional
varayo-style hierarchy. (Varayo, a Peruvianism
from Quechua varayuq, “staf holder,” means an
oicer in the customary-law hierarchy. In Rapaz,
these oicers are known as balternos.)
he oicers of this inner government don
Andean formal clothes (brown poncho, coca bag,
hat with loral ornament) to meet in Kaha Wayi or to
attend assemblies where they represent Kaha Wayi.
While they no longer administer a sector of com-
munal ields to ill Pasa Qullqa, they do still admin-
ister both rituals and rules for agriculture. hey are
responsible for making sure comuneros receive their
usufruct parcels in due order, for patrolling the
anqi (sectors) to monitor correct use, for impound-
ing stray animals, for supervising the harvest, for
hosting various NGO visitors, and for supporting
the ritualist in his communications with the dei-
ied mountains. hey also monitored the present
research to prevent interruptions or desecrations of
the ritual regimen (Salomon and Peters 2009).
Kaha Wayi and Pasa Qullqa are not thought of
as cultural artifacts within a “natural” landscape.
Rather, they igure in a single hierarchy of sacred
places that includes both natural and cultural ones.
When asked about the sacred places one must
invoke, the Rapacinos mention at least the mighty
peaks called Yara Wayna, Qumpir Wayna, Saqsar
Wanka, Waqrunchu, and Pilaw Qayán. But in the
same series they also mention as places requiring
veneration the spring of Tukapia, located on a hill
right over the village, and both Kaha Wayi and Pasa
Qullqa within the center of the village, as if the last
three represented their own neighborhood within
the society of powerful beings. he nearby ritual
points are nexuses or points of communication
with great powers. Tukapia and the remembered
“well” of Pasa Qullqa are seen as oracles convey-
ing the “answers” of the greater beings. he ritual
precinct is one’s own proximate and approachable
superior amid the wider and more awesome kin-
dred of the jirka (sacred mountains).
he same tendency is notable in terminol-
ogy. he ritualist contracted to act in Kaha Wayi
36 0 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
is called “awkin” (male elder) or “vendelhombre”
(human welfare) by his human constituency. But
he himself says “awkin” or “vendelhombre” when
speaking of still greater beings. No dichotomy of
natural and supernatural is in play, but rather a sin-
gle human-superhuman society within which rain,
the harvest, and life itself are transactions. When
transactions go poorly (i.e., in times of drought,
epidemic, etc.), the ritualist makes heroic fasts
within the precinct and journeys to the glaciated
heights to demand Rapaz’s due.
Because Pasa Qullqa has passed out of use,
the present regimen in the precinct is incomplete
in regard to gender. he abundant testimony of
elders and a corpus of sacred songs (tinya) devoted
to the precinct attest to Pasa Qullqa’s female iden-
tity. Ritual address to her is in terms of mother-
hood, and the wife of the kamatsikuq presided,
with well-remembered pomp, over the storage and
disbursing of Pasa Qullqa’s contents. Her title was
ispinsira, “steward” with feminine inlection.
The Khipus of Rapaz
When removed from its supporting ropes in 2005,
the khipu collection on its hanging rack weighed
almost exactly 10 kg. Once it was laid on its study
“bed” in the temporary laboratory, conservators
Rosa and Rosalía Choque mechanically cleaned
its cords and reinforced damaged ones using local
wool and crepeline. he cords were individually
described by Carrie Brezine. Cords were studied
in their original positions, including entangle-
ments in the areas close to the hanging rod. his
was done both to conserve data possibly inherent
in their relative positions and to obey the commu-
nity’s injunction that their array not be disturbed.
he collection consists of 263 discrete cord
objects and not, as oten misreported, a single
“giant khipu.” Villagers do, however, speak of it in
both Spanish and Quechua in the singular. Perhaps
the ensemble of cord objects was understood to be a
uniied record and in this sense one khipu—albeit
one whose parts could be handled separately. he
263 objects are not tantamount to 263 integral
artifacts because many consist of disparate frag-
ments stitched together by unknown hands at
unknown times in an apparent attempt at conser-
vation. Others are fragments of single cord objects.
Rapaz khipus, unlike those of Tupicocha, de-
viate widely from the basic norms of Inka khipu
construction. Whereas Inka specimens have a sin-
gle main cord from which multiple knot-bearing
pendants hang, all Rapaz khipus share a unilin-
ear design in which all apparent signs are attached
directly to a single, sometimes very long, cord.
Some exceed 15 m, but it remains to be seen how
much of the length is due to composite mending.
hey are made entirely of animal iber, with cam-
elid wool predominant but sheep wool present in at
least one group of cords. Rapaz cords do not resem-
ble Inka ones even at irst glance, and they are con-
sistently about three times as thick as Inka cords,
typically about 3 mm in diameter.
About seventy-ive percent of the cord objects
are grouped in fourteen apparent groupings. In
most groupings, one member of the set functions as
a “belt” to join the rest together. here are diferences
among the groups: for example, one consists almost
wholly of sheep wool. hese groupings seem to have
been disturbed at some point, and some “belts” are
igure 14.7
Dyed wool ply in the main cord of Rapaz khipu kr040. (Photograph by Frank Salomon.)
slack (perhaps because part of the group has fallen
away). he ends of some khipu objects extend lat-
erally and end in tangles with other groups. hese
facts suggest that the cords were at one point draped
over the hanging stick in bundles, perhaps in an
attempt to conserve meaningful order, but that this
order was later partially confused.
he unilinear Rapaz design is more suggestive
of seriated emblems (such as a Siouan winter count
or a Panamanian Kuna pictographic manuscript)
than of data arrayed on the dual (horizontal/ver-
tical) axes of Inka design. But Rapaz emblems,
unlike signs on blank hide or paper, rest upon a
linear substrate that is signiicantly complex in its
own right. Following the Harvard Khipu Database
usage, we called these main cords (MC). Both S-
and Z-twists in the inal plying of main cords are
common. A few cords are braided rather than plied.
Polychrome main cords are almost always of spiral
barber pole design, unlike the mottled bichrome
common in khipus of Tupicocha and in the pre-
Hispanic khipus of Pachacamac. Main cords range
very widely in design, from being monochrome
to having elaborate multiple plying (Figure 14.7).
Almost all colors are natural iber hues, but in a
few cases plies of dyed wool extend through mostly
Khipu from Colony to Republic 361
 natural cords. Dye colors are greenish blue or mus-
tard yellow. One might suspect that in their span
of use main cords were diferentiated to make indi-
vidual specimens easier to ind. Modern herders in
central Peru twist identifying dyed plies into ropes
for tying animals.
At irst glance, some Rapaz khipus seem to
have pendants or branches (Figure 14.8), but this
is an illusion. Rapaz khipu makers, like modern
Rapacinos, tended to ply wool tighter than indus-
trial spinners do, and tightly plied yarn has a ten-
dency to double back on itself in a spiral. Many
main cords are made this way. What seem to be
pendants or branches are actually stretches that
have doubled back in the direction opposite to
their inal plying. his tendency may have been
used intentionally to condense very long cords and
igure 14.8
Rapaz khipu kr025 appears to have pendants, but they are actually doubled-back stretches of main cord.
(Photograph by Frank Salomon.)
362 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
to make them manageable; thus, one might be able
to ind a particular reference point without fully
extending a long cord.
he features attached to the main cord are
not pendants in the Inka sense (Figure 14.9). Only
one pendantlike structure in the whole collection
is attached with the conventional Inka half hitch.
Rather, attached signs are typically knotted onto
the main cord. Attached signs commonly consist of
either a short piece of tied-on cord or a short tie-on
holding some small object. Most such attachments
are knotted around the whole main cord over-
hand, while some run between plies of the main
cord. he objects they bear at their distal ends are
tuts of wool in various natural colors, tags of raw-
hide, tags of hide with wool still on it, pom-poms
(frequently bicolored), and, in ten cases, igurines.
 kr025
Group: 4
Total Length: 126.8 cm
Fibers: camelid
920 880
960
1000 1040
igure 14.9
Part of khipu kr025 diagrammed and visually
straightened. (Drawing by Carrie Brezine.)
Reportedly, attached objects formerly included a
starish and additional igurines. While individual
types of emblems occasionally repeat, nothing on
the cords is numerically iterative in the sense that
multiple-turn knots or repeated simple knots are.
An arithmetical interpretation, therefore, inds no
easier a toehold than any other.
Villagers today disclaim any ability to decipher
cords. hey do, however, ofer three ideas about
what might be encoded on these cords. Kaha Wayi’s
ritualist, and a few other elders strongly attached to
Kaha Wayi’s sacred regimen, see them as the trace
of interactions with the jirka, or divine mountains,
perhaps records of sacriices or encounters. One
identiied them name by name with the jirka. Other
villagers see them as records of communal herds,
mentioning that they are made of animal matter.
he making of herding cords lasted until a half
century ago at the household level, although they
were not in the same format as the Kaha Wayi spec-
imens. Still other Rapacinos, typically those who
Cord Notes
720
840 800 760
1080 1120 1160
1200
1260 1240
10 cm
have held high community oice, think cords may
represent careers of individual comuneros. his
idea is plausible because one of the most important
parts of modern (alphabetic) administration is the
record book showing in which positions (cargos)
each comunero has served, thereby documenting
his political standing and his eventual eligibility
for semiretired status. Each comunero’s career is
today docu mented on one page, and each could
have been documented on one main cord.
he Rapaz specimens fall so far from the design
proile of Middle Horizon through Late Horizon
khipus that one may reasonably ask whether they
belong to the same technology or deserve the same
name. When Ruíz Estrada (personal communi-
cation 2008) irst talked to Rapacinos about their
patrimony, the word khipu was their only term for
the objects in either language. Rapacinos give their
cords no other and believe them to be of “Inka”
antiquity. Others are more skeptical. Federico
Kaufman Doig (2005:81), following a short visit,
Khipu from Colony to Republic 363
 wrote that one must study “whether [the maker]
had in mind only to imitate [khipu] morphology
and apply it [a khipu-simulacrum] to purposes that
were outside the instrument’s original role as a reg-
istry of quantities.” He estimates that “it was made
in the colonial era, around the year 1700,” with the
purpose of evoking “an ancient cultural element,
which, by its intricate morphology and exaggerated
length might instill respect and veneration. hat
is, by accrediting it only with a certain magico-
religious function” (Kaufman Doig 2005:81–82).4
Since we have just seen that the Rapaz khipus
do not, in fact, resemble Inka models even slightly,
it seems unlikely that they were made to “imitate
morphology” of the Inka medium. he hypothesis
becomes even less likely when one considers that
villagers did know and do still remember an Inka-
like method of using knots to record numbers of
animals, yet refrained from using it in the Kaha
Wayi cords. But a post-Inka origin as suggested by
both Ruíz Estrada and Kaufman Doig does remain
a deinite possibility. How old, then, are the khipus
of Rapaz?
Rapaz Khipu Chronology: Radiocarbon,
Iconography, and Military History
In 2005, as part of the present project, the archae-
ologist Víctor Falcón Huayta undertook a lim-
ited archaeological inquiry into the antecedents
of the Kaha Wayi–Pasa Qullqa complex, which
included excavations to deine occupations visible
in loors or earlier structural remains and to esti-
mate the era of the two buildings’ construction.
Radiocarbon samples were taken from excavated
material and from other parts of the complex. he
results indicate that the chronology of the two
sacred buildings is much longer than that of the
khipus themselves. For the purposes of this chap-
ter, however, we will limit ourselves to the inter-
pretation of radiocarbon results from khipus and
igurine wool.
The community directorate allowed us to
remove bits of already damaged cord ply, each lit-
erally hanging by a thread from its khipu. Ten
364 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
samples from ten diferent khipus in various parts
of the array and one from Figurine 10 were tested by
the University of Arizona Radiocarbon Laboratory
(aa68896–aa68906). One of the khipu cord sam-
ples, aa68899, yielded an aberrant uncalibrated date
of 373 ± 34 bp, a separation of 6σ from the remaining
ten samples. T-tests indicated that the remaining ten
were statistically equivalent at the ninety-ive per-
cent level. he ten pooled samples gave an uncali-
brated date of 125 ± 12 bp. McCormac and others’
(2004) southern hemisphere calibration yielded a
total range of 1700–1952 at 2σ. As is usual for dates
ater 1600, the results showed multiple intervals as
possible datings. he three most signiicant ones
were 1700–1722 with a relative area of .110, 1809–1834
with a relative area of .278, and 1878–1932 with a rela-
tive area of .519.
Faced with this kind of ambiguity, historical
archaeologists recommend using nonradiocar-
bon evidence such as documents, iconography,
or known sequences in material culture to evalu-
ate the relative credibility of 14C intervals. At this
point, the attached figurines become critical.
Figurines contain datable, and sometimes inter-
pretable, iconic elements. hey are relevant with
one caveat: one must take them to be parts of the
original khipu construction and not extraneous
objects added ex post facto. Although that possi-
bility is hard to eliminate, it is less likely than the
hypothesis of integrity because no evidence or tes-
timony from Rapaz suggests that igurines of this
sort existed independent of khipus within the span
of inherited memory.
At least three of the ten Rapaz khipu igurines
(Figurines 4, 5, and 9) contain industrially woven
textiles (plaid cloth, rickrack, ribbon) that are likely
to have reached Peru in the nineteenth century
or ater. Figurine 5 (Figure 14.10) bears a bit of red
industrial rickrack of a type (“waved braid”) interna-
tionally marketed from Britain as early as the 1850s
(Anonymous 1861:217–218; New Zealander 1852).
Visitors sometimes notice a resemblance
between the clothing of Figurine 6 (on the Rapaz
khipu, kr175; Figure 14.11) and old military uni-
forms. his resemblance can be conirmed quite
speciically by reference to the Peruvian army’s
 igure 14.10
Figurine 5 shows red
industrial rickrack of
a type internationally
marketed by the 1850s.
(Photograph by Frank
Salomon.)

igure 14.11
Rapaz Figurine 6.
(Photograph by Frank
Salomon.)

history of its own uniforms (Comisión Permanente

de la Historia del Ejército del Perú 2005:64–65;
Figure 14.12). he army publication identiies a
matching design as the uniform of an “Oicer of
Line Infantry Battalion No. 3 in 1822,” citing oi-
cial speciications. his battalion was organized at
the end of 1821, authorized to wear the gala uni-
form on May 23, 1822, and was until that date called
the Ica Battalion. Its name makes reference to the
irst area where San Martín’s independence troops
camped upon landing in 1821, thus commemorat-
ing the unit’s origin in the earliest phase of the war.
his unit took part in all the main campaigns of
the independence war. he overall color scheme
may hark back to a gala costume in which some
eighteenth-century dignitaries were portrayed, but
the cut is distinctive. A similar though less fully
matching design was used by at least one royalist
corps, the Grenadiers of the Arequipa Regiment of
Infantry as of 1818.

Khipu from Colony to Republic 365

 igure 14.12
Oicer of 3rd Infantry Battalion
of the Line in 1822. (Reprinted
from Comisión Permanente de
la Historia del Ejército del Perú
2005:65.)
Figurine 7 (Figure 14.13) wears red trousers,
a blue poncho, and perhaps a light-colored shirt.
Red trousers were worn by some military units in
the era of independence but remained in fashion
through the era of the War of the Paciic (1879–1883),
so the igure is harder to date. It bears a likeness
to an undated watercolor titled Montonero by the
Peruvian costumbrista Pancho Fierro (Figure 14.14).
Pancho Fierro’s lifetime (1807?–1879) spanned this
whole interval, so it is hard to guess whether his
red-trousered guerrilla represents a memory from
his adolescence or a more mature experience. Even
36 6 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
without knowing whether the two military igures,
which are adjacent in the array of the khipus, rep-
resent brothers in arms, we can take Figurine 7 to
be another nineteenth-century icon.
But is there any reason to suppose that the
Rapaz igurines are related to local experiences
in nineteenth-century wars as opposed to long-
lasting awareness of common nineteenth-century
iconography? Gala uniforms like the one on
Figurine 6 abound in the iconography of Peruvian
nationalism, including in numerous images of
Simón Bolívar (whose “Grancolombian” battalions
igure 14.13
Rapaz Figurine 7. (Photograph by Frank Salomon.)

secured Peruvian independence by invading the

viceroyalty from the north ater the politically disap-
pointed General San Martín retired southward to his
Argentinean base in 1822; Figure 14.15). Indeed, new
icons with the 1822 uniform are still being produced,
and old ones popularized, via patriotic web sites.
Many nineteenth-century Peruvians likely knew
these icons without necessarily having any connec-
tion to the military.
So the mere presence of gala or guerrilla mili-
tary styles on the igurines of the Rapaz khipus does
not by itself ailiate the cord to the independence
era. Up to this point, we have only eliminated the
earliest of the three 14C ranges, namely 1700–1722.
he second range, 1809–1834, includes the indepen-
dence war and would be the most believable aili-
ation if it could be shown that Rapacinos were in
actual contact with oicers who used the uniform
during the war. he third range, 1878–1932, would

igure 14.14
Pancho Fierro, Montonero,
undated (nineteenth century),
watercolor. (Photograph
courtesy of the Museo Banco
Central de Reserva del Perú.)

Khipu from Colony to Republic 367

 igure 14.15
Arturo Michelena, Portrait of Simon
Bolivar, 1859. Bolivar Museum,
Caracas, Venezuela. (Bridgeman-
Giraudon / Art Resource, New York.)
become the most believable in the absence of evi-
dence dating the khipus to range two because icons
of the Liberator and other soldier-patriots in gala
dress spread throughout the “national” territory
as the nineteenth century advanced. herefore, we
must know whether military movements by troops
with hird Battalion–type uniforms in fact took
place during 1809–1834 in the District of Oyón, to
which Rapaz belongs.
The War of Independence in the
Rapaz Area
Fortunately, the movement of troops is a well-
documented matter. Both primary and secondary
sources record considerable military movement
in the District of Oyón, of which Rapaz forms
36 8 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
part, during four moments of the Peruvian War
of Independence. he District of Oyón is not to be
confused with the larger modern province of the
same name. he district is a small territory, all of
which Rapacinos know well, and the largest share
of which belongs to their comunidad.
he irst moment follows shortly on the forma-
tion of the Ica Battalion at the start of the insurrec-
tion in 1820. he District of Oyón igured in the later
part of General Juan Antonio Alvarez de Arenales’s
irst sierran campaign, which Carlos Contreras and
Marcos Cueto (2000:49) characterize as the only
militarily signiicant event in the early phase of
the independence war. Having disembarked near
Pisco, on the south-central coast, General José de
San Martín dispatched the young Argentinean
Alvarez on October 4 to climb the sierra through
Huancavelica and to march northward through the
Andean corridor against Viceroy La Serna’s chosen
highland strongholds.
While San Martín moved up the Paciic coast
to form his provisional government at Huaura
and Huacho, near the mouth of the Huaura River,
Alvarez de Arenales advanced in parallel along an
inland mountain route. On December 6, Alvarez
de Arenales’s troops trounced the royal garrison
at Cerro de Pasco. At this point, the patriot army
stood close to the headwaters of the Huaura River
drainage, just over the rugged Cordillera de Raura.
As Alvarez de Arenales fought along the puna, San
Martín’s Horse Grenadiers climbed up the Huaura
Valley to ind and meet them. From this moment
on, Rapaz lay in the path of warfare. (he nearby
Pativilica and Chillón valleys also served as paral-
lel military routes.) hroughout the higher parts
of this terrain, Quechua-speaking peasantries
came into direct contact with patriot creoles (Roca
1866:64–66; Vergara 1984:496).
Although Oyón was mentioned in dispatches
of this campaign, Alvarez de Arenales did not
take the body of his army through it. he irst of
his campaigns, therefore, made only glancing con-
tact with the Rapaz area. he second moment, on
the other hand, marked a decisive contact. Alvarez
de Arenales’s second highland campaign was an
ofensive in the reverse, or north–south direction,
beginning in April 1821 (Vargas Ugarte 1966:140).
Having marched up the Huaura corridor, on May
6 he met up with the Quechua-speaking mestizo
caudillo Agustín Gamarra at Oyón town (Figure
14.16). Oyón served as a base for training regular
troops while acclimating them to the heights and
for recruiting guerrillas. From Oyón, forty-three
hundred insurgents scrambled up the icy heights of
Raura with light provisions. he troops then headed
southward through the highland corridor to attack
royalist concentrations (Paz Soldán 1868:152–158;
Vigil 1998:146). Alvarez de Arenales coordinated
his formal troops with the montonera, or Andean
guerrilla forces, then forming under Gamarra’s
guidance in various places, including Oyón. Ater
several victories, Alvarez de Arenales received San
Martín’s unwelcome July 20 command to bring the
troops down to Lima.
igure 14.16
Detail from Alvarez
de Arenales’s 1832
map of his second
campaign of 1821.
he red line (in
original) marks the
course of the army;
the right-angle kink
in the route from
the Checras River to
Oyón marks Rapaz.
(Reprinted from
Arenales 1832.)
Khipu from Colony to Republic 369
 Cultural and political relations between cre-
ole patriot armies and Quechua-speaking peas-
ants remain a little-researched area. Contreras
and Cueto (2000:47) mention that in most places
the people called indios showed little enthusiasm
for independence. But it may not have been so in
Arenales’s terrain. On April 18, 1821, according to
a memoir published by his son, the high-altitude
villagers of San Pedro de Cacás (near Cerro de
Pasco) met insurgents with “shouts of viva and
songs with instruments of ancient style, pecu-
liar to Peruvians. . . . hey [campesinos] had built
altars on some parts of the way, elegantly decorated
with patriotic lags, and had placed on them saints’
images, taken from the nearest churches (so they
would cast blessings on the patrianos [fatherland-
ers] as they said.) . . . [S]uch was the deluge of low-
ers, that although the road was covered with them
already, some did not cease to fall weightlessly onto
shirtfronts, caps and even weapons” (Arenales
1832:21).5
Another veteran’s memoir states even more
clearly that the villagers who feted Alvarez de
Arenales’s troops were not valley-dwelling creoles
but Quechua speakers on the puna: “[Local peas-
ants came] from very long distances greeting our
soldiers with the words patrianos, patriarcas, which
they doubtless thought to be synonyms of ‘patriots.’
And when we approached big towns, situated on
high elevations from which our route was not easy
to reach, they contented themselves with greeting us
on the ly from the peaks of their loty hills, with
their traditional songs in quichua, sung in chorus by
hundreds of voices, to the sound of their lutes and
small drums, which we answered for our part whip-
ping our handkerchiefs in the air” (Roca 1866:28).6
“Small drum” (tamboril) refers to the single-skinned
Andean tinya. In Rapaz it is characteristically used
in ritual or sacred song. Because Alvarez de Arenales
(1832:18) wanted his troops to move quickly with light
provisions, he let behind in Oyón the army’s hospi-
tal, commissary, heavy equipment, and accompa-
nying family members. In this way, Oyón became
something of an independentista township.
The third moment of contact between
Rapacinos and patriot forces took place in 1822.
370 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
his year marked an ebbing of the independence
cause. he collapse of San Martín’s proposed alli-
ance with Bolívar, the withdrawal of Chilean and
Argentinean allies, the bankruptcy in the provi-
sional government, and the civil disorder in Lima
brought the movement close to collapse from late
1822 through 1823. Nonetheless, a regional histo-
rian of the Checras Valley (that is, the part of the
Huaura basin to which Rapaz belongs) has exam-
ined documents that testify to continued local
activity in support of the “Protector” San Martín.
In April 1822, grandiose festivals with donations to
the insurgents took place in Checras villages. Local
militias organized surveillance of royalist move-
ments. Two local commanders organized “guard”
troops to control movements in the sierra (Medina
Susano 1989:81–115). Viceroy La Serna took such
movements seriously. His general in command,
Canterac, took the trouble to publish Quechua-
language lyers warning against rebellion in mul-
tiple dialects. One, from August 1822, is written
in the dialect of Cerro de Pasco and would have
been quite clear to Rapacinos (Rivet and Créqui-
Montfort 1951:284).7
For a fourth and last time, independence
mobilization took place in the Rapaz countryside
during the irst half of 1824. hese months cor-
responded to the run-up to the fateful Battle of
Junín on August 6. When Simón Bolívar marched
his Grancolombian army southward into Peru
and joined forces with creole battalions to form
the Uniied Army of Liberation, his coastal-based
insurgency faced viceregal forces still concentrated
in the Andes. As in 1820, the logistical corridor
extending up the Huaura River to Oyón and Cerro
de Pasco served the cause well. his time far greater
numbers moved through it.
In the immense body of correspondence be-
tween the Liberator and his leading ield com-
mander, José Antonio de Sucre, two themes
repeatedly come up when Oyón is mentioned. One
is the objective of emptying livestock and horses out
of the intra-Andean lands, especially Huánuco and
Cerro de Pasco, so as to cause the royalists prob-
lems of transport and diet. Sucre wrote Bolívar over
and over about sequestering “the cattle of Cerro [de
Pasco].” he plan was to herd them out of the rich,
level altiplano immediately east of Oyón and to
secure them in several hidden redoubts fenced of
from royalist forces by the formidable Raura and
Huayhuash cordilleras. Oyón and Cajatambo were
two such strongholds (O’Leary 1883:109, 125, 423,
439). Timothy Anna (2000:272) estimates seques-
tered cattle at over ten thousand head, and Sucre
mentioned huge numbers of sheep as well (nine
thousand in a single shipment; O’Leary 1879:125).
Sucre wrote twice from Oyón in February 1824
(O’Leary 1883:543, 548), mindful of the social stress
involved. He informed Bolívar that “the livestock of
Cerro [de Pasco] were moved toward Oyón . . . and
it took no small number of orders and no small
efort to get them herded onward to that area.
I don’t even know whether they arrived as far as
Oyón; but I will try to have them kept there so the
enemy can never take them. . . . Your Excellency
knows how hard it is to wrench the countrymen’s
cattle away from them all at once. hey contrib-
ute little by little to feed the troops, but to take all
at once is just not possible” (O’Leary 1883:397).8
He repeatedly wrote warning Bolívar that herders
hate having their animals held in distant pastures
(O’Leary 1879:129).
Since khipus were the characteristic rural way
to keep track of herds, both those who yielded cat-
tle to the patrianos and those who were charged
with caring for sequestered cattle plausibly would
have kept cord records. A lapse in record keeping
would have been a bad situation because the very
real possibility that the patriots might not pay for
the animals they consumed, or that the care of
the sequestered animals might not be paid, was a
threat to all parties. Caring for such huge numbers
of guest cattle would have involved the services of
many villages and would have demanded strict
coordination between “Indian” village oicers and
patriot oicers.
he other theme that repeatedly comes up in
connection with Oyón is the training and con-
trol of montoneros and guerrillas. Sucre wrote his
commander to say that “in order to train the guer-
rillas . . . it is necessary to send good oicers, and
especially, brave ones. he ones the montoneras
have are worthless. . . . Without bold oicers the
guerrillas do nothing. It seems the montoneras
use up a lot of food, and to little efect, because
they don’t have good chiefs or very bold oicers
to lead them. hey will be useful if they are given
very strong oicers who are not just here to rob the
towns” (O’Leary 1879:110).9 he word translated as
“bold” in the previous quote is guapo. In the nine-
teenth century, the term guapo combined the idea
of valor with that of handsomeness: courage made
visible. he urge to dramatize military merit and
thereby to encourage it in others loomed large in
military thinking. What seems to a modern reader
like mad vanity in the patriots’ copious orders for
gala uniforms may be better be understood as the
means to impress on rural society aspirations to an
aristocracy of valor, although there is plenty of room
for doubt about whether the oicers of 1820–1824
thought “Indians” could join it. Certainly Bolívar
and many others found the notion of “Indians” as
patriots laughable (Favre 1986). Nonetheless, the
gala uniform of Figurine 6 may express Rapacinos’
perception of this idea: some individual—conceiv-
ably one of the people just mentioned—is repre-
sented as an oicial guapo.
Montoneros and guerrillas were to become
important in the inal weeks of the war. On June 15,
1824, Bolívar ordered his troops to begin marching
up to the highlands by three separate routes. Along
the Oyón route, Medina Susano (1989) shows, the
Checras Valley villagers gave both copious supplies
and military support to such famous battalions
as the Vargas, Pichincha, and Voltigeros, already
renowned for victories in the northern republics.
While the United Army of Liberation reassembled
in the cordilleras, “guerrilla parties took posses-
sion of strategic passes connecting coast and sierra,
keeping up espionage and vigilance to prevent the
royalists from surprising the army in its training
camps. his role was illed by the guerrilla parties
operating on the heights of Oyón, among others”
(Vergara 1984:644).10 Perhaps Figurine 7, the pon-
cho-clad man in red pants, is their memento. he
same military historian (Vergara 1984) has tracked
the general headquarters, troops, and guerrillas as
they maneuvered in the weeks leading up to the
Khipu from Colony to Republic 37 1
 igure 14.17
Itinerary of the march of the “Uniied Liberation Army,” indicating the successive locations of general headquarters
before the Battle of Junín. (Reprinted from Vergara 1984:1086.) he southernmost location of headquarters (“CG”)
matches Oyón. he map erroneously identiies the Río Huaura as the Río Huanta.

372 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón

climactic Battle of Junín. For July 29, 1824, barely
a week before the ight, he puts the general head-
quarters at an unlabeled location that appears to
be Oyón (Figure 14.17).
Conclusion
he nineteenth century is the darkest in the history
of the khipu. But at least some Rapaz khipus belong
to this era and continue to be used in a context of
governance. Figurine 6 makes an iconic allusion to
the years of the War of Independence (1820–1824),
and ample evidence of pro-independence mili-
tary activity in Oyón, of which Rapaz forms part,
indicates that the allusion could well be based on
actual contact with creole oicers, as opposed to
their memory as enshrined in later patriotic imag-
ery. Two veins of independent evidence thus sup-
port the second of three intervals that radiocarbon
tests indicate as possible origin dates for the Rapaz
khipu-igurine wool sample, namely 1809–1834.
he exact encounters that the iconography
relects are likely to have taken place either at the
start of the wars, during Juan Antonio Alvarez de
Arenales’s second sierran campaign (April–July
1821), or else at the end of it, in January–July 1824,
when José Antonio de Sucre was maneuvering the
Uniied Army of Liberation into the sierra and
training its guerrilla allies for the fateful Battle
of Junín.
As for the nature of the information that khipu
kr175 may contain, these veins of evidence are at
best suggestive. he speciic military concerns
that commanders discussed with regard to Oyón
include three themes: logistics along the Huaura
River corridor from coast to highlands, train-
ing and acclimatization of troops and guerrillas,
and control of livestock, including large herds of
sequestered animals. Of these three, the third is the
most likely to have required systematic interaction
with Quechua-speaking villagers. Maintaining
herds for the army must have demanded work by
villagers who were not themselves combatants but
who were familiar with local resources and subject
to native political authority. Economic relations
concerning animals and labor to care for them
are today among the most closely documented of
village transactions. Caring for animals belong-
ing to others (hacienda herds in the past, commu-
nity herds today, or in this case military herds) is
especially sensitive (as Marshal Sucre observed).
Modern Rapacinos associate private khipus with
past herding. But the cords of Kaha Wayi dif-
fer in important formal ways from ethnographi-
cally known herding khipus. hey are unlikely
to encode herd enumerations. Rather, they may
record seriated actions that disposed of animals
or transferred them, as by sale, consumption, sac-
riice, or transportation. Alternatively their signs
may refer to services or cargos—in this case ser-
vices rendered to military authorities. Other than
its military iconography, kr175 shows no striking
diference from other Rapaz khipus, so it likely
represents activities comparable to those recorded
in the other khipus of Kaha Wayi.
he fact that igurines and khipus have sur-
vived as part of a ritual surround is no argument
against their having worked in administration and
governance. In modernity, Kaha Wayi fuses these
orbits. he same gatherings that govern land use
by comuneros also govern the common relation-
ship with the weather-controlling mountain dei-
ties, and the sanctity of the Kaha Wayi altar—its
temple function—guarantees political authority.
One can legitimately ask, however, whether this
present constellation resembles one in force 180-
odd years ago. Archaeological evidence to be dis-
cussed in a future essay indicates that Kaha Wayi
as a structure assumed its present form at a mid- to
late colonial date, so at least the physical supports
for the ritual-political order would have been avail-
able around 1820.
Cecilia Méndez (2004) argues that “an eth-
nohistory for the Peruvian nineteenth century”
is now coming into view, and that within it rela-
tions between peasants and the military stand out
as a central theme. he data from Kaha Wayi give
us a tiny but precious component of that relation-
ship: a glimpse of the creole leaders then creating
the would-be-national state, as seen by “indios.”
Are we looking at forced extraction, or realpolitik
Khipu from Colony to Republic 37 3
 dealings with a caudillo, or an attempt at self-
assertion in the emerging “patriano” state? All
three remain possible.
Rapaz ofers some clues about the place of
khipus in the overall informational order at a late
date in the history of the medium. By this date, the
media structure of rural society (not to be confused
with its linguistic structure, which still included
inter-ethnic use of Quechua) was sharply segre-
gated. Alphabetic writing was familiar to “Indians,”
but few “Indians” themselves were expert in pro-
ducing it, and those few used it primarily for
conducting relations with overarching colonial
institutions. he alphabet had yet to emerge as
an internal medium for the conduct of horizon-
tal relations among “Indian” commoners. Rapaz’s
khipus, like those of Tupicocha, seem to have been
a medium for intracommunal business, illing the
niche of peer-to-peer documentations in a space
of cultural privacy. As the khipu changed from a
medium for wide imperial data low to a medium
of private and local use, it diversiied somewhat,
as the Quechua lengua del inca did when deprived
of its imperial role. he standardizing tendency of
the lingua franca yielded to local redevelopment of
multiple vernaculars, as relected in the nonstan-
dardized codes of ethnographic khipus.
In Rapaz, unlike Tupicocha, a vernacular ver-
sion diverged drastically from Inka style—whether
by way of post-Inka deviance or reassertion of an
older tradition, we do not know. he relation of
form to content difers from Inka precedent insofar
as it abounds in iconic, and perhaps metonymic,
modes of reference. he array of signs in space also
difers drastically. he Rapaz array is much more
374 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón
unilinear, much less segmented than the Inka for-
mat. he Rapaz format seems to emphasize the
sequencing of single items rather than an array of
data in mutually comparable packets.
In the 1820s, Rapaz’s khipu-based informa-
tion seemingly included internal data on deal-
ings with outside creole military oicers. he
reason for recording probably included the need
for independent records about services and ani-
mals given and taken at a moment when national
political authority was fragile, insolvent, and cul-
turally distant. he creole oicers who were rep-
resented in khipus probably never understood or
even heard of cords referring to themselves. Khipu
knowledge had become a function of the inner-
most peasant councils, perhaps never again vis-
ible to the people called “patrianos.” Yet by that
very token, it may already have acquired its unique
prestige among Rapacinos—a prestige that hov-
ers in the air of Kaha Wayi even now, long ater
republican pressures have caused khipu knowl-
edge itself to be lost.
Acknowledgments
The authors cordially thank the Comunidad
Campesina San Cristóbal de Rapaz, the Fulbright-
Hayes Commission of Peru, the NSF Archaeology
Program under grant 0453965, the Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research, the
University of Wisconsin Institute for Research
in the Humanities, Centro Mallqui, Fundación
Telefónica, Instituto Nacional de Cultura, and the
Scurrah-Mayer family.
 notes
1 With the additional collaboration of Luís Andrade
Ciudad, Edgar Centeno Farfán, Rosa and Rosalía
Choque G., Gino de las Casas, and Renata Peters.
2 “dos alcaldes y cuatro rejidores y un alguacil y un
escribano ó quipocamayo, que este ha de estar per-
pétuo en tanto que tuviere habilidad suiciente para
ello” (Levillier 1925:305–306).
3 During 2004, a large wooden cross lay inclined
inside Kaha Wayi, but this was only for temporary
storage following the demolition of its original site.
he community removed it in 2005.
4 “Si tuvo en mente el imitar únicamente su
morfología y destinarlo a propósitos ajenos al
primigenio de instrumento de registro de canti-
dades . . . fue confeccionado durante la época colo-
nial, alrededor del año 1700, con función distinta
a la que regía en el contexto de los quipus propi-
amente dichos o incaicos” . . . “un elemento cul-
tural antiguo, que por su morfología intrincada
y su envergdura exagerada pudiera infundir res-
peto y veneración. Esto es, adjudicándole sólo una
función mágico-religiosa dada” (Kaufman Doig
2005:81–82). All translations by the author.
5 A fuller extract: “Durante la marcha de este dia, la
división encontró casi todo el camino acordonado
de gentes del país, que la aguardaban para verla
y obsequiarla: al mismo tiempo, muchas otras se
desprendian con precipitacion por las empinadas y
vistosas faldas de la quebrada, esforzándose á hacer
oir desde lejos sus gritos de vivas y felicitaciones. No
obstante que muchos de estos habitantes residen en
las heladas llanuras de arriba, donde crian sus reba-
ños y cosechan las papas, la quinoa, la cebada, &c.,
o se entretienen con los trabajos de la minería; la
mayor parte de los que pueblan los valles de abajo,
se había retirado a aquellas alturas, buscando los
sitios mas apartados y escondidos, para substraerse
á las depredaciones y violencias de las tropas real-
istas. Habian igualmente alejado consigo sus gana-
dos, animales de silla, y carga, víveres, &c. Este
solo expediente, tan general y simultáneamente
egecutado por los indígenas en tales casos, valió
siempre por una fuerte hostilidad contra los espa-
ñoles, que cada vez los indignó mas. Los grupos de
gente situados en el camino ponian sucesivamente
á disposición de las tropas libertadoras multitud
de canastos y lotes (diremos así) de lores, panes,
iambres, frutas y otros varios obgetos, que brinda-
ban indistintamente á oiciales y soldados con las
mas obligantes insinuaciones. Esta larga escena
tenía todo el carácter de una gran iesta cívica; y era
continuamente animada y sostenida por repetidos
vivas y cánticos con instrumentos al uso antiguo
y peculiar de los Peruanos. Para mayor solemni-
dad y aparato, habian formado altares en algunas
partes del tránsito, elegantemente decorados con
banderas patrióticas, y colocado en ellos imágenes
de santos, sacadas de las iglesias inmediatas (para
que echáran la bendicion á los patrianos, decian
ellos.) Algunas veces el transporte de entusiasmo
los hacia interrumpir el órden de la marcha, lan-
zándose sobre las hileras á abrazar a los patriotas.
Pero tal fue el diluvio de lores, que apesar de que-
dar el camino cubierto de ellas, no dejaron de apa-
recer insensiblemente algunas sobre los pechos, las
gorras, y aun sobre las armas. Al anotar qui estos
pormenores, que á caso parecerán inconducen-
tes ó supericiales, se ha tenido el doble obgeto de
estampar un testimonio mas justo recuerdo por tan
elocuentes y generosos egemplos del patriotismo; y
de poner al lector en estado de graduar el temple de
la opinion popular en las provincias de la Sierra.”
6 “Las traian á cuestas habitantes de muy largas dis-
tancias, saludando á nuestros soldados con las pal-
abras de patrianos, patriarcas, que sin duda creian
sinónimos de patriotas: y cuando nos acercábamos
á pueblos grandes, situados en eminencias elevadas,
que no era facil llegar a nuestro camino, se conten-
taban con saludarnos al paso desde la cumbre de sus
elevados cerros, con sus canciones tradicionales en
quichua, cantadas en coro por centenares de voces al
son de sus lautas y tamboriles, que eran contestadas
de nuestra parte patiendo al aire nuestros pañuelos.”
7 For this citation, thanks go to Alan Durston.
8 “Los ganados del Cerro se cargaron hácia Oyon en
esta invasion del enemigo y no costó pocas órdenes
y poco trabajo para hacerlos conducir á aquella
parte. Ni sé si llegaron hasta Oyon; pero trataré de
que se conserven por allí para que nunca los tome el
enemigo, como ahora que por haberlos retirado no
llevó una sola res. S.E. sabe qué difícil es arrancarle
á los paisanos todos sus ganados de un golpe; poco
á poco contribuyen para sostener las tropas, pero
tomárselos en una vez no se consigue.”
Khipu from Colony to Republic 37 5
 9 “Para formar las guerrillas que se me previenen, es
menester que se manden buenos oiciales, y sobre
todo, valientes; los que tienen las montoneras no
valen nada. . . . Sin oiciales guapos nada hacen
las guerrillas. . . . Las montoneras parece que con-
sumen muchos víveres, y con poco provecho por
no tener buenos Jefes, y muy valientes oiciales que
las conduzcan; ellas serán útiles si se les ponen
muy guapos oiciales y que no vengan a robar
los pueblos.”
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37 8 sa l omon, brez ine, cha pa , a nd fa l c ón

 con t ribu tor s
Elizabeth Hill Boone
Elizabeth Hill Boone, a professor of art history,
holds the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair
in Latin American Art at Tulane University. She
is a specialist in the painted manuscripts of Pre-
Columbian and early colonial Mexico. Formerly
director of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton
Oaks (1983–1995), she has edited or coedited
eleven books, including he Aztec Templo Mayor
(1987), Collecting the Pre-Columbian Past (1993),
Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies in
Mesoamerica and the Andes (1994, with Walter
Mignolo), Native Traditions in the Postconquest
World (1998, with Tom Cummins), and Painted
Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica
(2005). Among her own books are he Codex
Magliabechiano (1983), he Aztec World (1994),
Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the
Aztecs and Mixtecs (2000; winner of the Arvey
Prize of the Association for Latin American Art),
and Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican
Books of Fate (2007). She has held research fel-
lowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton and the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C. She was awarded the Order of
the Aztec Eagle by Mexico (1990) and was named
the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center
for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts by the
National Gallery of Art (2006–2008). Her current
project examines changes in the indigenous tradi-
tion of pictography and manuscript painting ater
the conquest.
Carrie J. Brezine
Carrie J. Brezine is a weaver and spinner with expe-
rience in both European and Andean textile con-
struction. Her undergraduate work in mathematics
at Reed College continues to inspire her research in
fabric structure and ethnographic weaving. From
2002–2005, she was the database administrator
for the Harvard Khipu Database Project, which
catalogued and deciphered the knotted-cord com-
munication devices of the Inka Empire. In the
summer of 2005, she described and analyzed the
patrimonial khipu of Rapaz, Peru. She is presently
a PhD candidate in the Archaeology Program
391
 of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard
University. Her dissertation research focuses on
changes in weaving technology and dress in colo-
nial Peru.
Reymundo Chapa
Reymundo Chapa earned his MA in anthropol-
ogy in 2009 from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, where he studied with Frank Salomon
and Jason Yaeger. He has worked throughout the
Americas, focusing on the archaeology of the south-
ern Andes, particularly on ceremonial architecture
and its development during the rise of social com-
plexity in the Lake Titicaca basin. He has been an
active contributor to the research of several promi-
nent Pre-Columbian ceremonial centers, including
Tiwanaku, Chavin de Huántar, and Chankillo, and
he has contributed papers, such as “Transforming
One Hundred Years of Archaeological Research
into Models of Evolving Ceremonial Form at
Tiwanaku, Bolivia” and “Aptapis and Archaeology:
How Aymara Celebrations at Kasa Achuta, Bolivia,
Give Meaning to the Past,” at professional confer-
ences. He is currently a cultural resources project
manager at a small environmental consulting irm
in Austin, Texas.
Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos
Oswaldo Chinchilla graduated from the Universi-
dad de San Carlos de Guatemala in 1990 and
earned his PhD from Vanderbilt University in 1996.
He is currently curator at the Museo Popol Vuh,
Universidad Francisco Marroquín, and professor
at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
His research focuses on the archaeology of the
Paciic coast of Guatemala, Classic Maya writing
and iconography, and the history of archaeology
in Guatemala. He has carried out extensive ield
research in the Cotzumalhuapa region of the Paciic
piedmont of Guatemala, including recording and
analysis of the sculptural corpus, studies of settle-
ment patterns and urbanism, and documentary
research on the Pre-Columbian peoples of the area.
His recent papers concentrate on the mythological
interpretation of Classic imagery from the Paciic
392 c ontribu tors
coast and the Maya Lowlands. He is the author
of Guatemala, corazón del mundo maya (1999),
Kakaw: Chocolate in Guatemalan Culture (2005),
and Imágenes de la mitología maya (2010). He is
also the coeditor of he Decipherment of Ancient
Maya Writing (2001, with Stephen D. Houston and
David Stuart).
Michael D. Coe
Michael D. Coe is Charles J. McCurdy Professor
of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Yale University. His
research interests focus on the pre-Hispanic civi-
lizations of Mesoamerica (especially the Olmec
and Maya) and on the Khmer civilization of
Cambodia. He has also conducted archaeological
excavations on forts of the French and Indian War
in Massachusetts. Among his eighteen published
books are Mexico (1962, with four subsequent edi-
tions, two coauthored with Rex Koontz); he Maya
(1966, with seven subsequent editions); he Maya
Scribe and His World (1973); Lords of the Underworld:
Masterpieces of Classic Maya Ceramics (1978); In the
Land of the Olmec (1980, with Richard A. Diehl);
Breaking the Maya Code (1992); he True History of
Chocolate (1996, with Sophie D. Coe); he Art of the
Maya Scribe (1997, with Justin Kerr); Reading the
Maya Glyphs (2001, with Mark Van Stone); Angkor
and the Khmer Civilization (2003); Final Report: An
Archaeologist Excavates His Past (2006); and he
Line of Forts: Historical Archaeology on the Colonial
Frontier of Massachusetts (2006). He has been a
Member of the National Academy of Sciences since
1986. He has been given the Tatiana Proskouriakof
Award by Harvard University (1989); the James D.
Burke Prize in Fine Arts by the Saint Louis Art
Museum (2001); the Order of the Quetzal by the
Government of Guatemala (2004); the Orden del
Pop by the Museo Popol Vuh (2006); and the Linda
Schele Award by the University of Texas (2008). He
is currently coauthoring a book on Maya cities with
the photographer Barry Brukof.
Thomas B. F. Cummins
Tom Cummins is the Dumbarton Oaks Professor
of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art
and the chair of the Department of the History of
Art and Architecture at Harvard University. He
received his MA and PhD in art history from the
University of California, Los Angeles, and has pub-
lished essays and books on early Pre-Columbian
Ecuadorian ceramics and on colonial art and archi-
tecture in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico.
He is the author of Toasts with the Inca: Andean
Abstraction and Colonial Images on Kero Vessels
(2002) and the coeditor of he Getty Murúa: Essays
on the Making of Martín de Murúa’s “Historia gen-
eral del Piru,” J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig
XIII 16 (2008, with Barbara Anderson).
Víctor Falcón Huayta
Víctor Falcón Huayta holds a Licenciado degree
in archaeology from the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos, and is a candidate for a
master’s degree in Andean studies at the Pon-
tiicia Universidad Católica del Perú. He was a staf
archaeologist of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura
from 1991 to 2009. As a museum researcher, he
relates collected objects to current ield indings.
His publications include “La Huayllaquepa de
Punkurí: Costa Nor-Central del Perú” (Anales,
Museo de América, Madrid, 2005); “Reconstruc-
tion of the Burial Ofering at Punkurí in the
Nepeña Valley of Peru’s North-Central Coast”
(Andean Past, 2009); and “Un tambor de cuero
pintado del Museo Nacional de Arqueología,
Antropología e Historia del Perú” (Anales, Museo
de América, Madrid, 2008). His research on the
Lima cultura is published in “Playa Grande: Entre
la aldea y el santuario; ¿Un caso de interpre-
tación arqueológica ambigua?” (Arqueológicas,
Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e
Historia del Perú, 2000); “El motivo interlocking a
través del ídolo de Playa Grande” (Arqueológicas,
2003); and “Morir en Playa Grande: El rescate de
un entierro de la cultura Lima” (Actas del Primer
Congreso Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales y
Humanidades, 2004). He also conducts research on
the rock art of the central Andes, including current
work on Inka pictography in the Yucay Valley at
Inkapintay (Ollantaytambo).
Stephen D. Houston
Stephen D. Houston holds the Dupee Family Pro-
fessorship of Social Science at Brown University,
where he has taught since 2004. His previous posi-
tion was as Jesse Knight University Professor at
Brigham Young University. He took his BA at the
University of Pennsylvania and his MPhil and PhD
at Yale University. He is the author, coauthor, and
editor of several books, including he Memory
of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the
Classic Maya (2006, with David Stuart and Karl
Taube), Veiled Brightness: A History of Ancient
Maya Color (2009, with various colleagues), he
Classic Maya (2009, with Takeshi Inomata), as well
as he First Writing: Script Invention as History and
Process (2004), Classic Maya Place Names (1994,
with David Stuart), and Function and Meaning in
Classic Maya Architecture (1998). he recipient of fel-
lowships from Dumbarton Oaks, the Guggenheim
Foundation, the School of American Research, and
the National Endowment for the Humanities, he
has also directed archaeological projects at Piedras
Negras and, more recently, at El Zotz in Guatemala.
With Dan Finamore, he curated the exhibition and
edited the exhibition catalogue for Fiery Pool: he
Maya and the Mythic Sea (2010).
Margaret A. Jackson
Margaret A. Jackson is currently assistant pro-
fessor of art history at the University of New
Mexico. As an art historian, her research focuses
on the ancient cultures of the Andes, with particu-
lar emphasis on the imagery and iconography of
the Moche of Peru. Additional research interests
include the visual cultures of ancient Mesoamerica
and systems of visual communication. She com-
pleted her PhD in Pre-Columbian art history at
the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the
president of the Association for Latin American
Art and an active member of the College Art
Association. Most recently, she was coeditor of
Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Images of the Conquest of Mexico
(2008, with Rebecca Brienen). Her book Moche Art
and Visual Culture in Ancient Peru (2008) was the
c ontribu tors 393
 recipient of the Association for Latin American Art
book award in 2010.
Federico Navarrete
Federico Navarrete is a historian and anthropolo-
gist at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas
of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
His work centers on the nature and workings of the
historical traditions of Mesoamerican, and more
generally Amerindian, societies. He is the author
of La migración de los mexicas (1998) and editor
of Indios, mestizos y españoles: Interculturalidad e
historiografía en la Nueva España (2007, in collab-
oration with Danna Levin). His latest book, Los orí-
genes de los pueblos del Valle de México, is in press.
He has also published articles in Estudios de cul-
tura náhuatl and Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics.
Another line of his research concerns the history of
Amerindian societies ater European colonization,
their cultural transformations, and their relation-
ship with colonial empires and the independent
nation-states of the Americas. In this area, he has
published the books La conquista de México (2000),
Las relaciones interétnicas en México (2004), and La
invención de los caníbales (2006). He has also writ-
ten the historical novel Huesos de Lagartija (1998).
Michel R. Oudijk
Michel Oudijk received his PhD from the Uni-
versiteit Leiden in the Netherlands. Ater com-
pleting his degree, he worked for three years as
associate professor at the Københavns Universitet
in Denmark. Since 2004, he has been a researcher
at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas at
the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
in Mexico City, where he is currently working on
the translation and analysis of Zapotec colonial
texts. He has published extensively on Zapotec his-
tory and Mesoamerican pictographic documents,
including Historiography of the Bènizàa (2000) and
Los lienzos pictográicos de Santa Cruz Papalutla,
Oaxaca (2010, with Sebastián van Doesburg). His
recent research concerns the interaction between
indigenous and Spanish colonial societies. He is the
coeditor of Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies
in the Conquest of Mesoamerica (2007, with Laura
394 c ontribu tors
Matthew) and coauthor of La conquista indígena
de Mesoamérica: El caso de don Gonzalo Mazatzin
Moctezuma (2008, with Matthew Restall).
Frank Salomon
Frank Loewen Salomon is the John V. Murra
Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin. Born in New York in 1946, he took
his BA from Columbia University in 1968 and his
MA and PhD from Cornell University in 1974 and
1978. He joined the Department of Anthropology
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1982.
A historical ethnographer of the Andean peoples,
he has discovered and analyzed unsuspected
sources on the northern reaches of the Inka
Empire, which are treated in Native Lords of Quito
(1986). In 1991, he published, with George Urioste,
the irst English version of the Quechua-language
Huarochirí manuscript (1608?), the only known
book presenting an Andean sacred tradition
in an Andean language. He coedited the South
American volumes of the Cambridge History of
the Native Peoples of the Americas (1999, with
Stuart Schwartz). Since 1994, he has been engaged
in ield study of Peruvian communities that pre-
serve as sacred patrimony khipus (knotted-cord
records, a perennially enigmatic “lost script”). A
resulting book, he Cord Keepers, was published
in 2004.
Karl Taube
Karl Taube received his PhD from Yale University
in 1988 and is currently a professor of anthropol-
ogy at the University of California, Riverside.
He has conducted ieldwork in Honduras, Gua-
temala, Mexico, Ecuador, and Peru. He is cur-
rently the project iconographer for the San Bartolo
Project in the Peten of Guatemala. His primary
research concerns the archaeology and ethnol-
ogy of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest,
including the development of agricultural symbol-
ism and the relationship between Teotihuacan and
the Classic Maya. Among his publications are he
Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan (1992), Gods and
Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (1993,
with Mary Ellen Miller), Aztec and Maya Myths
(1993), he View from Yalahau: 1993 Archaeological
Investigations in Northern Quintana Roo, Mexico
(1995, with Scott Fedick), he Writing System of
Ancient Teotihuacan (2000), Olmec Art at Dumbar-
ton Oaks (2004), he Murals of San Bartolo, El
Peten, Guatemala, Part 1: he North Wall (2005,
with William Saturno and David Stuart), and
he Murals of San Bartolo, Part 2: he West Wall
(2010, with William Saturno, David Stuart, and
Heather Hurst).
Javier Urcid
Javier Urcid is an anthropological archaeologist
interested in the role of ancient literacy in the
formation and maintenance of social complex-
ity, in the origins and alternative developments
of writing systems, and in the semantic and pho-
netic decipherment of extinct scripts. His other
interests center on archaeological approaches to
ancient political economies and on bioarchaeol-
ogy, particularly the social dimensions of mortu-
ary practices and cultural/ritual modiications
of human remains. His main research focuses on
Mesoamerican scribal traditions. He is the author
of Zapotec Hieroglyphic Writing (2001) and the
coauthor of he Lords of Lambityeco: Political
Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Xoo
Phase (2010, with Michael D. Lind). He has also
written articles on Ñuiñe, Central Mexican, and
Mixteca-Puebla scripts.
Gary Urton
Gary Urton is the Dumbarton Oaks Professor
of Pre-Columbian Studies in the Department of
Anthropology at Harvard University. His research
focuses on a variety of topics in pre-Hispanic and
early colonial intellectual history in the Andes,
drawing on materials and methods in archaeology,
ethnohistory, and ethnology. His research on Inka
khipus has resulted in the description of two hun-
dred and ity samples from museums in Europe,
the United States, and South America. He is the
author of numerous articles, books, and edited
volumes on Andean/Quechua cultures and Inka
civilization. His books include At the Crossroads of
the Earth and the Sky (1981), he History of a Myth:
Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Incas (1990),
he Social Life of Numbers: A Quechua Ontology of
Numbers and Philosophy of Arithmetic (1997), Inca
Myths (1999), Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding
in the Andean Knotted-String Records (2003), and
Los khipus de la Laguna de los Cóndores  (2007).
He is director of the Khipu Database Project at
Harvard University.
R. Tom Zuidema
R. Tom Zuidema’s initial academic studies were at
the Universiteit Leiden on the languages, laws, and
anthropology of the former Netherlands Indies.
Since he could not go to Indonesia, he turned his
interests to the Andes, irst studying in Spain and
defending a PhD at the University of Madrid (1953)
and then completing ieldwork in Peru and defend-
ing a second thesis at the University of Leiden (1962)
on the ceque system of Cuzco. From 1956 to 1964,
he was curator of the Americas and Siberia at the
State Museum of Anthropology, Leiden, and from
1964 to 1967, he was professor at the Universidad
Nacional de San Cristóbal de Huamanga in
Ayacucho, Peru. From 1967 until 1993, he taught
at the University of Illinois, with interruptions to
teach elsewhere. His principal interests in Peruvian
anthropology have been kinship, social and ritual
organization, iconography, and Andean astron-
omy and calendars, in particular the Inka calendar
as it functioned in Cuzco.
c ontribu tors 395
 inde x
Page numbers in italics indicate illustrative material.
abbreviation. See elaboration and abbreviation
abstract or conventional versus iconic systems, 386
Acatempo Stela, 93, 94, 104
Acosta, José de, v, 168n5–6, 306n3, 309n15, 387
acsus (female dresses) in Chuquibamba textiles, 252–253
Aguna, Cotzumalhuapa inscriptions at, 50
Ahuitzotl, 188, 190, 191, 192
ajaw signs, 24, 31
Ajaxa: inventory of Cotzumalhuapa inscriptions at, 50;
Monument 1, 56
alabaster carved vessels, 134–139, 136
alphabetic writing: hybridity of graphic systems ater
Spanish conquest, 201, 204–210, 205–210; quilca
and, 278
Alvarado, Pedro de (Tonatiuh), 211, 212
Alvarez de Arenales, Juan Antonio, 368–370, 369, 373
anabil, 23
Anahuac, Late Postclassic concept of, 103
Anales de Chimalpahin, 158
Anales de Tlatelolco, 158, 168–169n5–6
Angulo, Jorge, 84
animal bones, carved, 135, 137, 139
animation of Cotzumalhuapa writings, 44–46, 46, 59–65,
59–66
Anna, Timothy, 371
anthropology in Stalin’s USSR, 11–12
Antigua Guatemala Valley, Cotzumalhuapa writing
from, 50, 60, 60–61
Codex Añute (Codex Selden), 114, 115, 150, 151, 167, 169n8
Apoala, 158, 163, 165, 167
Armstrong, W. E., 17–18
Arroyo de Piedra, identiication of scribes producing
Maya glyphs in, 23
Ascher, Marcia and Robert, 320, 339
Atahuallpa, 259
Atetelco, White Patio mural at, 96
atl tlachinolli, “water, burned ield,” couplet in Aztec
writing, 62, 186
Atlee, Clement, 9
Atonaltzin, 165
Atzompa, ceramic vessels from, 134, 135
Codex Aubin, 168n5, 178, 179, 180, 181, 186, 215
Axayacatl, 188, 192
Axtapalulca Plaque, 81, 82, 100
ayllu, 288, 306n5, 354–355
Codex Azcatitlan, 168–169n5–7, 178, 179, 180, 181, 188, 215,
216, 217
Aztec writing, 175–195; atl tlachinolli, “water, burned
ield,” couplet in, 62, 186; chronotopes (time-space
representations) and régime d’historicité (historical
sensibility) in, 176–178, 181, 184, 188, 190, 191;
conquests of Mexica rulers, depiction of, 178, 181,
184, 186; Dumbarton Oaks conferences on codices, 2;
genres or classes of documents in, 190–191; in Mexica
codices, 178, 178–184, 179, 180, 182, 183; on Mexica
397
 stone monuments, 184–190, 185, 187, 189; Moche calendrical notations: calendar khipus, 345; in
ceramic imagery compared, 238; New Fire ceremony, Chuquibamba textiles (See Chuquibamba textile
186, 192; oral and performative literary traditions, notation systems); Cotzumalhuapa writings, largely
relationship to, 175–176, 191–192; places of origin in, calendrical system suggested by, 65; Monte Albán
157–158; social and cultural meaning, importance objects marked with calendrical names of owners,
of, 190–192; Spanish conquests, adaptation to, 191; 134, 135; in Ñuiñe scribal tradition, 78; Tovar
succession of year signs and tlatoque (rulers) in, 178– calendar, 206
181, 184, 186; Templo Mayor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, canuto khipus, 322–323, 323, 350n3
depictions of, 177, 178, 179–181, 184–186; Teotihuacan Caracol, absolute size and relative proportion of Maya
writing and, 48, 66, 77, 87 glyphs at, 24
Aztlan, 157–158, 162 Cartilla (Pedro de Gante, 1569), 205
cartillas de enseñar a leer, 205
Caso, Alfonso, 48, 78, 82, 83, 85, 140, 190
Baird, Ellen, 202 catechisms, pictorial, 205–206, 205–210
Bakhtin, Mikhail, 176 Catholicism: foundation/migration stories involving,
Balancan Stela, 27 166; glyph representing change from indigenous
Codex Baranda, 170n22 religion to, 162; images, inluence on viewing and
Barthel, homas S., 16, 307–308n8 reading of, 278; indigenous pictography as vehicle for
Bateson, Gregory, 18 ideology of, 198; khipus and, 290, 358; uncu for Christ
Bayer, Herman, 30 Child statue with tocapu, 290, 291
Beazley, John, 23 Cave Seven, Oaxaca, 158
Benedict, Ruth, 12 celts and celtiform stelae, 99, 100
Beria, Lavrenty, 16 census khipus, 344, 345
ceque systems: at Cuzco, 259, 259–260, 266, 267, 272, 344;
Berlo, Janet, 77
khipus recording, 345
Bertonio, Ludovico, 287–288
Cerro Bernal inscriptions, 144n2
Beyer, Hermann, 81
Cerro de la Caja and environs, carved stones from,
Bilbao: architectural compound at, 43, 45; Monument
117–122, 120, 121
1, 54; Monuments 2–9, 48; Monument 4, 61, 62;
Cerro de la Campagna, Santiago Suchilquitongo, Tomb
Monument 10, 53; Monument 11, 61; Monument 13,
5, 125, 126–127, 128
54, 55, 61; Monument 14, 54, 55, 61; Monument 18, 57;
Cerro de las Mesas Stela 15, 80
Monument 20, 61, 62, 64; Monument 21, 64–65, 65;
Cerro de los Tepalcates, Chacahua, Oaxaca, 123, 124
Monument 29, 56; Monument 33, 58–59; Monument
Cerro del Rey, Río Grande, Stela 1, 133, 134
42, 47; Monuments 84a–c, 58, 58–59; possible ancestor
Cerro Nuyoo, Tomb 5, 130, 132
cult at, 48–49
Cerro Yucuniza mortuary slab, 130, 132
Codex Bodley, 152–153, 153, 157, 167, 168n3, 169n8 Cerron Palomino, Rodolfo, 286, 288
Bolívar, Simón, 367–368, 368, 370–371 Champollion, Jean-François, 18
Boltz, William, 29–30 Chapa, Reymundo, 353, 392
Boone, Elizabeth Hill, ix, x, 2, 3, 156, 179, 191, 197, 232, 379, Chiapanec scribal tradition, 112, 113
391–392 Chiapas, Teotihuacan writing at, 78
Bonampak murals, 34 Chicanel pottery, Late Preclassic, 77–78
Codex Borgia, 103, 198, 382 Chichen Itza: size of glyphs on jades from, 25;
Borgia Group codices, 2, 103, 153 Teotihuacan glyphs and, 82, 84; Yukatekan terms in
Codex Boturini, 199, 215. See also Tira de la script at, 27
Peregrinación Chichimecateuctli, don Pedro, 213, 214
boustrophedon sequence, 114–115, 215 Chicomoztoc, 158, 159, 160, 162
Bove, Frederick, 48 Chimalpahin, 168–169n5–6
Brasseur de Bourbourg, Abbé, 15 chinampas at Tenochtitlan, El Plano del Papel de
Brezine, Carrie J., 319, 353, 360, 391 Maguey showing, 88, 89
Browder, Jennifer, 84 Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo, 43, 387, 392
Burkitt, Robert, 54 Ch’olti’an hypothesis for Maya glyphs, 27, 36n6
Cholula: lack of writing tradition at, 77; Relación
geográica of, 152–153, 160; Tlachihualtepec or Great
Cacaxtla script: inventory of inscriptions compared to Pyramid of, 160, 161
Cotzumalhuapa, 49; lack of study of, 77; Teotihuacan Choque, Rosa and Rosalía, 360
writing and, 48, 66, 82, 96 chronotopes (time-space representations) in Aztec
Cádiz, Cotzumalhuapa inscription at, 50 writing, 176–178, 181, 184, 190, 191
Calakmul dynasty and Maya glyph changes, 32 chullpas, tocapu-like designs on, 290, 292

398 index
Chuquibamba textile notation systems, 251–275; in
archaeological, ethnohistorical, and art historical
contexts, 269–272, 270, 271; and ceque system,
Cuzco, 259, 259–260, 266, 267; diferent calendars
represented in, 256–257, 257; eight-pointed star
motif and, 269, 271, 271–272; feathered ponchos and,
269–272, 271; felines, llamas, and toads, symbolic
use of, 261–262; female dresses (acsus) and large
shawls, 252–253; forty-one, forty, and forty-two,
textiles referring to, 259, 259–260, 263, 263–264,
264; historical and geographic origins, 256, 269;
Kosok shawl’s standardized sidereal calendar within
solar year, 256, 267–269, 268; male tunics (uncus),
loincloths, and ponchos, 252, 252–253; Merrin Gallery
shawl, 263, 263–264; Museo Banco Central de Reserva
del Perú loincloth, 264; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
shawl with sidereal lunar calendar, 254, 255, 258–263,
259, 265–266, 267, 268; Ohara shawl with modules
of three diferent calendars, 261, 265, 265–267, 269;
Peabody Museum uncu with solar calendar, 252, 253,
257–258, 258, 266, 268, 269; Pleiades constellation
and, 259, 267; types of intentional orders used in,
251–253, 252–255
classes or genres of documents: in Aztec writing, 190–
191; ethnoiconological context provided by, 150–151
“closed” versus “open” writing systems, 66, 384
coastal writing tradition: deined and described, 112, 113;
mortuary contexts, 130–134, 133; Teotihuacan and
Citzumalhuapa writings in context of, 47–48, 66
Coatepec, 161, 162, 165, 166
Coatlinchan, uninished monumental igure from, 100
Cobo, Bernabé, 308n9
codices: Aubin, 168n5, 178, 179, 180, 181, 186, 215;
Azcatitlan, 168–169n5–7, 178, 179, 180, 181, 188, 215,
216, 217; Baranda, 170n22; Bodley, 152–153, 153, 157,
167, 168n3, 169n8; Borgia, 103, 198, 382; Borgia Group,
2, 103, 153; Boturini, 199, 215; Colombino, 152, 168n3;
Dehesa, 170n22; Dresden, 5, 15, 35n2; Egerton, 170n22;
Fejérváry-Mayer, 103, 153, 155, 198, 200; Florentine,
168–169n5–6, 169n10, 202–204, 203, 204; Gómez
de Orozco, 158; Kingsborough, 88, 89; Madrid, 15,
35n2, 80, 81; Magliabechiano, 202, 206; in Mayan
imagery, 35n2; Mendoza, 85, 178, 179, 181, 182, 184,
185, 188, 217, 218, 219, 279, 309n17; Mexica codices, 2,
177–184, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 198, 199; Mexicanus,
168–169n5–6, 178, 179, 181, 185, 186, 212, 213–215, 215;
Mexicayotl, 168n5; Osuna, 212; Paris, 35n2, 80, 81; de
Santa María Asunción, 85; Selden (Añute), 114, 115,
150, 151, 167, 169n8; Telleriano-Remensis, 178, 179, 180,
181, 183, 188, 202, 206, 212; Tudela, 202, 206; Tulane,
170n22; Vaticanus A/Ríos, 178, 180, 206; Vaticanus
B, 103; Vienna, 385; Vindobonensis, 159, 164–165, 165;
Zouche-Nuttall (Tonindeye), 115, 152, 158, 167, 169n8.
See also Mixtec codices
Coe, Michael D., 9, 24, 392
Coixtlahuaca valley through-cave inscriptions, 144n6
Cola de Palma, near El Ciruelo, Stela 3, 130–134, 133
Cold War and Maya decipherment. See Knorosov, Yuri
Valentinovich, decipherment of Maya glyphs by
Colhuacatepec, 158, 159, 160
Codex Colombino, 152, 168n3
comparative dialogue, importance of, 3–6, 18
Condesuyu: Inka province of, 251, 256, 269, 272, 298;
references to dress in, 269–272, 271
Conklin, William, 2, 321–322, 325
conquests of Mexica rulers, Aztec writings depicting,
178, 181, 184, 186
Contreras, Carlos, 368
conventional or abstract versus iconic systems, 386
Copan: absolute size and relative proportion of glyphs
at, 24; Structure 10L-16, Stairway Block 2, 100–101;
Structure 26, 91; vowel notations at, 32
Copan Hieroglyphic Stairway: consonant sensitivity in
glyphs from, 33; heterography at, 34; production of,
23–24
Cortés, Hernán, 166
costume and performance in Moche culture, 228, 229
Cotzumalhuapa writings, 43–75; animation of, 44–46, 46,
59–65, 59–66; architectural compounds at El Baúl, El
Castillo, and Bilbao, 43, 45; cartouches, 50; in context
of coastal writing tradition, 46–49, 47, 66; distribution
and inventory of inscriptions, 49–50; head signs in
frontal or proile view, 50; human sacriice in, 65;
iconographic depictions, comparison of signs with,
52; largely calendrical system suggested by, 65; in Late
Classic period, 48–49; Late Preclassic system, 46–47;
media, variety of, 50; Mixtec codices compared, 66;
name tags, use of, 57, 57–59, 58; numerals, 51, 51–52,
52; orientation of signs, 50; oversized signs in, 56,
56–57; sign combinations, rarity of, 54–55, 55, 66; sign
inventory, 52–54, 67–71; 6 Star collocations with maw
of reptilian monster, 57–59, 58; Star glyph, use of, 50,
57–59, 58; Teotihuacan writing and, 48–49, 95
Couch, Christopher, 202
counted oferings in ritual petitions, 153, 155
Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de, 287, 300–301
Coyolxauhqui circular monument, Templo Mayor of
Mexico-Tenochtitlan, 122–123
Crónica mexicáyotl (Tezozómoc), 181
Cross Panels of Palenque, 190
cross-reading, use of, 15
Cruz, Juan de la, 201, 205
cryptography and decipherment, lack of connection
between, 16
Cueto, Marcos, 368
cuicatl, 175, 191
Cuicuilco, lack of writing tradition at, 77
Cuilapan, Oaxaca cloister stone with Zapotec
inscriptions, 117, 118
cultural category, writing systems as, 379–390; access to/
interpretation of message, 382–383; commonalities
of, 380–384; glottographic versus semasiographic
systems, 384–385; hieroglyphic script versus
pictographic systems, 386–387; historical signiicance
of surviving documents, 383–384; iconic versus
index 399
 conventional or abstract systems, 386; Mesoamerican
and Andean terms for, 380; pictures versus glyphs,
385–386; recording process, 381; scripts, signs, and
pictographies covered by, 379–380; speech and
performance compared, 380–381; typology of, 384–
388; vehicle for message, 381–382; writing as term,
problem of, 379–380, 387–388
cultural code, written surface as, 111–148; in Aztec writing,
190–192; performance and place-making, relationship
of writing to, 114–116, 114–123, 118–121, 123, 124;
personhood and human body in mortuary contexts,
notions of, 125–139, 126–129, 131–133, 135–138; scribal
error, semiology of, 139–143, 141, 142; semiological
theory of writing behind, 111–112; in six scribal
traditions in southwestern Mesoamerica, 112, 112–113
cultural encyclopedias, 206
cultural superiority associated with possession of
writing system, 306n3
Cummins, homas B. F., 277, 386, 392–393
Cunil, Jacinto, 18
Cuzco: ceque system, 259, 259–260, 266, 267, 272,
344; Condesuyu, references to dress in, 269–272,
271; guinea pig sacriices, 262; khipus from, 328;
napa or puca llama, 262; painted tablas at, 300;
Tawantinsuyu, concept of, 298–299, 299
dart-thrower carved with owner’s name, 134, 135
Dávila, Francisco, 309n11
Davletshin, Albert, 30
de Young stela, 22, 22–23
dedication stone, Templo Mayor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan,
188–190, 189, 191–192
Codex Dehesa, 170n22
diagramming tradition, 221n2
Dibble, Charles, 385
difrasismo, 161, 169n14, 170n20–21
diglossia in Maya glyphs, 28, 37n10
“direct historical approach,” 151
disjunction, 151
Doctrina (Pedro de Gante, 1553), 205
Doctrina christiana (1548), 205
Doctrina christiana en la lengua guasteca con la lengua
castellana (Juan de la Cruz, 1571), 201, 205
Doctrina Xpiana en lengua misteca (Hernández), 161,
161–162
Donnan, Christopher, 239
Dos Pilas, identiication of scribes producing Maya
glyphs in, 23
Dresden Codex, 5, 15, 35n2
Dubois, Cora, 12
Dumbarton Oaks conferences on Pre-Columbian
writing systems, ix–x, 1–3
Durán, Diego, 190, 202, 206
eagles devouring hearts in Teotihuacan art, 103, 105n6
eigy igure, skin as writing surface on, 138, 139
400 index
eigy vessels, 125–130, 127, 129, 132, 139
Codex Egerton, 170n22
eight-pointed star motif and Chuquibamba textile
notation systems, 269, 271, 271–272
El Baúl: acropolis at, 43, 45; Monument 1, 43, 44, 47, 49;
Monument 6, 54, 55; Monument 18, 56; Monument
27, 59; Monument 30, 61, 64; Monument 34, 56;
Monument 56, 51, 52; Monument 59, 43–46, 46, 65;
Monuments 67 and 68, 56
El Castillo: architectural compound at, 43, 45; causeway
connecting Golón with, 50; Monument 1, 51, 55, 58, 61;
Monument 16, 56
El Fraile, 289
El Mundo Perdido, Tikal: marcador from, 83, 90, 101;
stucco-painted vessel from, 95, 96
El Palmillo, genealogical slab probably from, 125, 128
El Tajin, inventory of inscriptions at, 49
El Zotz, identiication of scribes producing Maya glyphs
in, 23
elaboration and abbreviation, 149–174; analogies between
ethnographic present and historical past, 153–154,
155; ethnoiconological methodology of approach to,
150–154, 151, 153, 154, 155; foundation/toma de posesión/
taking hold of the bundle theme, 150, 166; genre of
document, context provided by, 150–151; historical
sources for, 156–157; migration theme, 156, 162–168,
163, 165; minimal pictographic elements, identifying,
150; nose-piercing theme, 152–153, 153; origin theme
and places of origin, 156, 157–162, 159, 160; sacred birth
theme, 167; thematic focus, determining, 151–153, 152,
154, 155; thematic units commonly found in historical
sources, 156
Elkins, James, 233, 380
Eloxochitlan de Flores Magón burial, Sierra Mazateca,
carved human mandible from, 134, 136
emblematic glyphs (toponyms, titles, and personal
names), 84–88, 85, 86, 87, 385
encyclopedias, cultural, 206
Engels, Friedrich, 11, 12, 17
errors in writing, semiology of, 139–143, 141, 142
Escalante, Pablo, 191, 202
Escuintla: Early Classic pottery and Cotzumalhuapa
writing, 47–48; Teotihuacan glyphs and, 84
Estela Lisa, Monte Albán, 91, 93
Estrada-Belli, Francisco, 88
ethnoiconological approach to elaboration and
abbreviation, 150–154, 151, 153, 154, 155
Etla district mausoleum facade and eigy vessel, 125, 127
Ex-Arzobispado Stone, 187, 188
Falcón Huayta, Victor, 353, 364, 393
feather paintings, 202–203, 203
feathered ponchos and Chuquibamba textile notation
systems, 269–272, 271
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, 103, 153, 155, 198, 200
felines, llamas, and toads, Chuquibamba textiles’
symbolic use of, 261–262
Fierro, Pancho, 366, 368
Finca San Cristóbal: inventory of Cotzumalhuapa
inscriptions at, 50; Monument 1, 63, 64, 65
Florentine Codex, 168–169n5–6, 169n10, 202–204, 203, 204
Flower World, Cotzumalhuapa version of, 58, 64–65
Fonds mexicain 399 manuscript, 209, 209–210, 210
foundation/toma de posesión/taking hold of the bundle
theme, 150, 166
four steps on the road to God, 161, 161–162
Fracción Mujular: inscriptions, 144n2; Stela 3, 79, 80
Frame, Mary, 256, 267, 269, 284
funerary contexts. See mortuary contexts
Galvin manuscript, 301, 302, 303
Gamarra, Agustín, 369
Gante, Pedro de, 205
Gante I manuscript, 206, 206–209, 207, 208
García-Des Lauriers, Claudia, 87
genealogical records, inscriptions of, 125, 126–128
genres or classes of documents: in Aztec writing, 190–
191; ethnoiconological context provided by, 150–151
Gerson, Juan, 202
Gisbert, Teresa, 290
glottochronology applied to Maya glyphs, 27
glottographic versus semasiographic systems, 201,
232–233, 384–387
glyphs versus pictures, 385–386
Golón: Monuments 2 and 3, 49, 49–50, 61–62, 63;
Monuments 4 and 5, 57
Gómez Chávez, Sergio, 82, 88
Codex Gómez de Orozco, 158
González Holguín, Diego, 287
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 10, 11, 16
Graulich, Michel, 188
grids, central Mexican examples of writing in, 87,
88–90, 89
Grube, Nikolai, 30
Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe: Chuquibamba textile
notations and, 262, 269–272, 270; Nueva corónica y
buen gobierno, authorship of, 310n24; tocapus and,
279–280, 280, 281, 283, 286, 288, 297, 298, 299,
301–305, 304
Guchte, Maarten van de, 290
Guerrero: Lienzo de Petlacala, 150; Ruino Tamayo stela,
possibly from, 79, 94; Teotihuacan writing at, 78, 79,
93–97, 93–98, 94, 104
guinea pig sacriices, Cuzco, 262
Guzmán, Manuel de, 214
Habel, Simeon, 53
Haddon, Alfred, 17
Hamilton, Andrew, 338
Harris, Roy, 111
Hartog, François, 176, 177
head signs: Cotzumalhuapa writings, frontal or proile
view in, 50; Teotihuacan writing, frontal view in, 104
Heggarty, Paul, 345
Hellmuth, Nicholas, 47
helmets as icons for Warrior theme in Moche ceramic
imagery, 234–238, 236, 237
herders’ use of khipus, 354, 371, 373
Hernández, Benito, 161, 161–162
Heyerdahl, hor, 16
hieroglyphic script: Mayan identiied as type of, 15,
386–387; pictographic systems versus, 386–387
Historia del origen y genealogía real del los reyes ingas del
Perú (Martín de Murúa, 1590), 298, 299, 302
Historia general del Perú (Martín de Murúa, ca. 1615), 303
Historia tolteca-chichimeca, 152, 158–162, 159, 160, 169n6,
175, 176
historical sensibility: Aztec writing, régime d’historicité
in, 176–178, 184, 188, 190, 191; in Moche ceramic
imagery, 245
El Hombre de Tikal, 90, 90–91
Houston, Stephen D., 21, 61, 66, 382, 384, 386, 393
Huaca de la Luna, 227, 294, 294–297, 295, 296
Huajuapan de León, Ñuiñe mortuary material from area
of, 130, 132
Huamelulpan, carved stones from, 122
huatancha, 355
huehuetlatolli, 175, 191
Huitzilopochtli, 123, 157, 177, 181, 187
human body and personhood, writing conveying
notions of, 125–139, 126–129, 131–133, 135–138
human bones, carved, 134, 136
human sacriice: in Cotzumalhuapa writings, 65; in
Moche culture, 227; San José Mogote, Monument 3,
and 122–123, 123; Stone of Tizoc and, 188, 191–192;
Templo Mayor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, foundation/
renovations of, 180, 181; in Teotihuacan writings,
102, 103
human skin, as writing surface, 138, 139
Humboldt Fragment 1, 85
Hun Nal Ye cave, stone cofer from, 27
hybridity of graphic systems ater Spanish conquest,
197–225; alphabetic writing, 201, 204–210, 205–210;
changes to graphic systems following conquest,
202, 219–220; comparison of Mesoamerican and
European graphic expression, 197–198; diagramming,
221n2; diferent graphic systems in sixteenth-century
Mexico, 197–201; mimetic iguration, 201, 202–204,
203, 204; pictography, 198–200, 199, 200, 210–219,
211–219; pictorial catechisms, 205–210; semasiography
and, 198, 233
hyperdifusionism, 18
iconic versus conventional or abstract systems, 386
Icxicouatl, 158
ideograms (logograms) and Knorosov’s decipherment of
Maya script, 15–16
Ilhuicatepec, 162
Inka: caves of origin at Pacaritambo, 297, 298; lost writing
system, eforts to unveil, 278, 306n6, 307–308n8;
index 401
 supposed lost paintings of, 306–307n7; writing system,
lack of, 281–283, 308n9. See also Chuquibamba textile
notation systems; Cuzco; khipu; tocapu
Inka-type khipus, 323–325, 326
Inti Raymi, feast of, 262
inverted signs, semiology of, 140–143, 142
Isthmian script: as “closed” system, 66; decipherment
proposals, 35n1; glottographic nature of, 384; length
of use of, 21
Ixcaquixtla, Tomb 1, 130, 132
Jackson, Margaret A., 227, 380, 385, 393
jaguars devouring hearts in Teotihuacan art, 102, 103
Jama-Coaque vessels with tocapus, 296, 297, 305
Jansen, Maarten, 150, 385
Japanese script and Maya glyphs, 16
Jara, Victoria de la, 283–284, 297, 310n28, 312n42
Kaha Wayi (khipu house) and Pasa Qullqa (storehouse),
Rapaz, 355–360, 356, 357, 358, 359, 373
kanji writing, 16, 19n3
Kaqchikel and Cotzumalhuapa writings, 53, 54
Kaufman Doig, Federico, 363–364
KCCS (Khipu Color Code System), 339
KDB (Khipu Database), 320, 325, 326, 329, 334, 338,
350n5, 361
Keber, Eloise Quiñones, 179
Kelley, David, 1, 16
“key-type” Wari khipus, 321, 322
khipu: ancestral mummies, entrusted to, 5;
Chuquibamba textile notation systems and, 256;
in colonial and Catholic contexts, 290, 353–355;
deined, 320–321; distinguished from other cord
constructions, 320; Dumbarton Oaks conferences on,
2; herders’ use of, 354, 371, 373; metacategory of khipu,
representing, 306n3; Pachacamac archive, 328, 335,
344, 345, 348, 361; Paracas cords, possible origins in,
350n1; study of, 277–278; tocapus and, 279–284, 288,
289–290, 300–301; Toledan-era viceroyalty, khipus
of governance under, 353; in Tupicocha, 354, 354–355,
374; as writing systems, 387. See also khipu typologies;
patrimonial khipus in Rapaz
khipu typologies, 319–352; archival images or icons, 342–
343, 342–344; archival similarities and diferences,
328–329, 342–344; archives of Inka-type khipus based
on provenience, construction of, 325–327, 326, 327;
canuto khipus, 322–323, 323, 350n3; ceque system
khipus, 345; color values and patterns, 338–339, 340,
341, 342–343; comparing and distinguishing types,
325; cord attachment methods, 331–332, 332; iber type
and cord construction, 329–331, 330, 331; functional
types, 344–345; Inka-type khipus, 323–325, 326;
KCCS (Khipu Color Code System), 339; KDB (Khipu
Database), 320, 325, 326, 329, 334, 338, 350n5, 361;
“key-type” Wari khipus, 321, 322; knot construction
and directionality, 332–338, 333, 334–337; measuring
402 index
signiicance of diferences using SplitsTree4 and
NeighborNet algorithm, 345–348, 346, 347; Middle
Horizon/Wari khipus, 321, 321–322, 322, 325, 350;
patrimonial khipus of Rapaz not itting, 363–364, 374;
sizes of archives and khipu samples, 328; subsidiaries,
presence/absence and number of, 328–329, 329
King, Mark, 175
King, Timothy, 82, 88
Codex Kingsborough, 88, 89
K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, Teotihuacan cultural ties of,
100–101
Kirchhof, Paul, 157
Kirov, Sergei, 10
Knorosov, Yuri Valentinovich, decipherment of Maya
glyphs by, 9–20; and anthropology in Stalin’s USSR,
11–12; background, education, and career, 12–14;
death of Stalin, dissemination of Knorosov’s work
following, 16–17; Great Purge/Great Terror in USSR
(1936), efect on intellectual life, 10–11; language
of glyphs importance of, 16, 18; methodology of,
14–16; photograph of, 10; publication of article on
decipherment by, 14; reasons for success of, 17, 18;
recognition of achievements of, 18; and hompson,
John Eric Sidney, 10, 14–18
Kosok, Paul, 256, 267
Kroeber, Alfred L., 269
Kubler, George, 1, 151, 219, 284
Kuna-Lacanha, Chiapas, Early Classic stela from, 99, 100
La Ciénega, Zimatlan, genealogical slab from, 125, 128
La Gloria, Monument 1, 56
La Herredura, Tlaxcala, temple sign from, 86
La Mojarra stela, 144n4
La Nueva, concentration of Cotzumalhuapa-style
sculptures at, 50
La Serna, Viceroy, 369, 370
La Sufricaya, Early Classic painted grids from, 87, 88
La Ventilla, Teotihuacan: corpus of glyphs from, 84;
marcador from, 82, 83; Plaza de los Glifos (See Plaza
de los Glifos, Teotihuacan); shields depicted at, 103;
zoomorphic vehicles at, 92, 93
Lacadena, Alfonso, x, 30, 48, 52, 77, 177, 385
Lagoon of Primordial Blood (Quelatinizoo), 158–162, 166
Lake Titicaca and ruins of Tiwanaku, association of
tocapus with, 288
Lambityeco: Tomb 6, Mound 195, 125, 127, 128; Tomb 11,
Mound 195, carved baton or spatula made of deer
tibia from, 134, 135
Landa, Diego de, 13, 14–15, 16, 18, 278, 386
Langley, James, 48, 102, 103
language. See speech and language
Lápida de Bazan, Monte Albán, 91, 92
Larco Hoyle, Rafael, 229–231, 246n1
Las Colinas, Tlaxcala, Teotihuacan-style ceramic bowl
from, 84
Later Oaxacan scribal tradition, 113, 134, 139, 143
Leakey, L. S. B., 18
Lehmann, Walter, 43, 239 Maya glyphs, 21–30; absolute size and relative proportion
Leibsohn, Dana, 2, 176 of, 24–26, 25; Ch’olti’an hypothesis, 27, 36n6; content
León, Cieza de, 308–309n11 used for, 26; diglossia in, 28, 37n10; Dumbarton Oaks
Lettera apologetica (Raimondo di Sangro Sansevero, conferences on, 1–2; glottochronology applied to, 26,
1750), 284 28; heterography (variation at any one time), 34; as
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 139, 145n16 hieroglyphic script, 15, 386–387; Japanese script and,
Levillier, Roberto, 353 16; living essence attributed to, 26; morphosyllables,
Lienzo de Amoltepec, 162–164, 163, 169n16 28–30, 29; non-Maya glyphs with, 26, 27; phonic and
Lienzo de Chiepetlan, 162 linguistic characteristics, 26–30; polycode nature
Lienzo de Cuauhquechollan, 162 of, 24; production of, 22, 22–24; somatic framework
Lienzo de Guevea, 153, 154 for, 26; supernatural resonances of, 24; surviving
Lienzo de Jicalan or Jucutacato, 162 examples and media, 21–22; Teotihuacan writing
Lienzo de Petlacala, 150, 162 and, 77–78, 90, 90–93, 91, 92. See also Knorosov, Yuri
Lienzo de Tequixtepec I, 158 Valentinovich, decipherment of Maya glyphs by;
Lienzo de Tira de Xalatzala, 162 variations in Maya glyphs over space and time
Lienzo de Tlapiltepec, 158, 165 McClelland, Donna, 239
Lienzo de Tlaxcala, 88, 102 McCormac, F. G., 364
liminal places, migration from, 162, 166 Medina Susano, R. Clorinda, 371
literacy, 23, 190 Medrano, Sonia, 48
literary themes, elaboration and abbreviation of. See Memoria de Juquila (Memoria probanza de Yetzegoa),
elaboration and abbreviation 166
llamas, Chuquibamba textiles’ symbolic use of, 261–262 Memoria de Yacuini (Memoria probanza de Yacuini), 166
llutu k’uychi (mourning/dark rainbow) textile colors, 339 Memorial de Sololá, 53
Locke, Leland, 278 Méndez, Cecilia, 373
Lockhart, James, 219 Codex Mendoza, 85, 178, 179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 188, 217,
logograms, and Knorosov’s decipherment of Maya 218, 219, 279, 309n17
script, 15–16 Mendoza, Antonio de, 212
logographic functions in Moche ceramic imagery, Mendoza y Velasco, don Juan de, 166
238–239 Mexica codices, 2, 177–184, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 198, 199.
Loo, Peter van der, 150, 151, 153 See also speciic codices
Los Cerritos Norte, Cotzumalhuapa inscription at, 50 Mexica stone monuments, 184–190, 185, 187, 189
Los Horcones: Stela 2, 79, 80; Teotihuacan writing at, 78 Codex Mexicanus, 168–169n5–6, 178, 179, 181, 185, 186,
Lounsbury, Floyd, 1, 16 212, 213–215, 215
Lowland Maya writing, as “closed” system, 66 Códice Mexicayotl, 168n5
Lysenko, Troim, 11, 16 Mexico-Tenochtitlan: Aztec writing at, 177–181, 182,
184–187, 192, 192n1; elaboration and abbreviation of
literary themes at, 157, 166; founding of, 217, 220;
machæc, 239 El Plano del Papel de Maguey showing chinampas at,
Mackey, Carol J., 354 88, 89. See also Templo Mayor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan
Macuilxochitl, carved human mandible from, 134, 136 Mexico-Tlatelolco, 180, 181, 192n1
Madrid Codex, 15, 35n2, 80, 81 Middle Horizon/Wari khipus, 321, 321–322, 322, 325, 350
Codex Magliabechiano, 202, 206 migration theme, 156, 162–168, 163, 165
Maksimov, A. N., 12 Millon, Clara, 84, 103
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 11 miniaturized items, 139, 145n16
Manco Capac, 297, 301–305, 302, 303, 304 mistakes in writing, semiology of, 139–143, 141, 142
Mapa de Cuauhtlanzinco, 162 Mixtec codices: Cotzumalhuapa writing and, 66; darts,
Mapa de Teozacualco, 157, 158 use of, 95; decipherment eforts, 2; Dumbarton Oaks
marcadors: El Mundo Perdido, Tikal, 83, 90, 101; La conferences on, 2; emblematic play in, 385; events and
Ventilla, Teotihuacan, 82, 83 places, manuscripts organized around, 177; jewels
Marcus, Joyce, 91, 385 in feminine names in, 150; Later Oaxacan scribal
marked beans (pallares) in Moche ceramic imagery, 229, tradition and, 113; migration theme and, 162–165;
230 Moche ceramic imagery compared, 238; places of
Marr, Nikolai Y., 11 origin, 158, 161; sacred birth theme and, 167; thematic
marriage alliances and genealogical slabs, 144n9 units in, 156
Marx, Karl, 11, 12 Moche ceramic imagery, 227–249; compounded signs,
Matatlan, genealogical slab probably from El Palmillo 239–240, 240; iconic signs with logographic functions,
embedded in wall of house in, 125, 128 239; machæc, 239; marked beans (pallares), 229, 230;
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, 52 Mixtec and Aztec traditions compared, 238; molds,

index 403
 manufacture and use of, 233–234, 234, 235; mortuary
contexts of, 229; notational elements, Larco Hoyle’s
theories regarding, 228, 229, 229–231, 230; oral literary
tradition and, 245; phases in, 246n1; porras (conical
mace heads), 235, 236, 239; preadaptation toward visual
signing in, 233; rebus devices, 239; relationship to
monumental and performance art, 228, 229; Revolt of
the Objects scene, semasiographic nature of, 241–244,
241–245; semasiography deined and described,
231–233; speech or language, not reducible to, 240–
241; stepped pyramid motif, logographic aspects of,
238, 238–239; Warrior theme demonstrating use of
conventionalized signs, 234–238, 235, 236, 237, 240
Moche costume and performance, 228, 229
Moche murals, tocapu-like igures in, 293–297, 294, 295,
296, 305
Moche pyramid complexes and monumental art, 228,
229
Moctezuma, in Codex Mendoza, 218, 219
Molina el Cuzqueño, Cristóbal de, 288, 289, 297, 300,
307n7
Monaghan, John, 175
Montana site: Cotzumalhuapa writings and decline of,
48; Teotihuacan cultural traits at, 48
Monte Albán: Building J, 140, 142; Building L-sub, 114,
114–117, 116, 138, 139, 140, 145n17; calendrical names of
owners, objects marked with, 134, 135; Estela Lisa, 91,
93; Fragments S11 and S16, South Platform, 140, 142;
Lápida de Bazan, 91, 92; Middle Formative danzante
sculptures at, 100; miniature items from, 137, 139;
Monument SP2, South Platform, 140, 141; Monument
SP8a, South Platform, 140, 142; Monument SP9, South
Platform, 140, 142; Mound II slab, 117, 119; scribal
error at, 140–143, 141, 142; Stela 1, 92, 93; Stela 7, 91;
Teotihuacan writing at, 83, 91, 91–93, 94; Terrace
79 house, ceramic plaque from, 134, 135; Tomb 7,
miniature weaving baton from, 137, 139; Tomb 104, 125,
126–127, 134, 135, 140; Tomb 158, Terrace 27, carved lintel
from, 130, 131; Tombs 139–141, Terrace 21, 140, 142
Morgan, Lewis Henry, 11, 12, 17
Morley, Sylvanus, 14, 18, 30
morphosyllables in Maya glyphs, 28–30, 29
mortuary contexts: of coastal writing tradition, 130–134,
133; of Moche ceramic imagery, 229; of Ñuiñe scribal
tradition, 130, 132; personhood and human body,
notions of, 125–139, 126–129, 131–133, 135–138; of
Zapotec writing, 125–130
Moteuhczoma Ilhuicamina, 186, 188
Moteuhczoma Xocoyotzin, 186, 192
Motolinia [Toribio de Benavente], ix, 202
Muchic or Yunga language, 239
mummiied remains, writing on skin of, 138, 139
Murúa, Martín de: on khipus, 326; on tocapus, 281, 287,
298, 301–305, 302, 303, 310n22, 310n24
Nahua and Nahuatl: Cotzumalhuapa writings and
Nahua day names, 53; migration theme and, 162, 164;
404 index
non-Maya glyphs, use of, 26; places of origin and,
157–162; Teotihuacan writing and, 77, 78, 84, 85, 88,
89; thematic units in, 156
napa or puca llama, 262
Naples documents and the khipu, 284, 306n6, 310n24,
312n42
Naranjo, identiication of scribes producing Maya glyphs
in, 23
Navarrete, Federico, 175, 383, 385, 393–394
NeighborNet, 345–348, 346, 347
New Fire ceremony, 117, 158, 186, 192
Nicholson, H. B., 1, 2, 151, 190
Noriega, Mound 4, genealogical slab from cist in, 125, 128
Nowotny, Karl Anton, 2, 153
Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (Guaman Poma, 1615),
279–280, 280, 283, 301, 304, 310n24
Ñuiñe scribal tradition: alabaster carved vessels, 134;
calendric notation in, 78; deined and described, 112,
113; mortuary contexts, 130, 132
Nun Yax Ayiin, Tikal Stelae 31 and 32, 99, 100
Ocelotzin, 213, 214
Okladnikov, A. P., 16
Olderogge, Dmitri Alexeyevich, 14, 16
Olivier, Guilhem, 186, 187
“open” versus “closed” writing systems, 66, 384
oral literary tradition: Aztec writing and, 175–176,
191–192; ethnoiconological analogies drawn from, 156;
khipus and tocapus in, 279; Moche ceramic imagery
and, 245; written transmission versus, 4–5
origin theme and places of origin, 156, 157–162, 159, 160
orthographical issues, 6
orthostats: human skin as writing surface on, 138, 139;
preservation of performance and place-making in,
114–116, 114–123, 118–121, 123, 124; scribal error on, 140
Codex Osuna, 212
Oudijk, Michel R., 149, 385, 394
Pacaritambo, Inka caves of origin at, 297, 298, 308n11
Pachacamac khipus, 328, 335, 344, 345, 348, 361
Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, Santa Cruz, 279, 297,
298, 299, 311n38
Palacios, Enrique, 185
pallares (marked beans) in Moche ceramic imagery, 229,
230
Palo Gordo: inventory of Cotzumalhuapa inscriptions
at, 50; Monument 10, 60; Monument 24, 63, 64;
Monument 25, 62–63, 63
Palo Verde: inventory of Cotzumalhuapa inscriptions at,
50; Monument 1, 59
Panofsky, Erwin, 150, 151
Paris Codex, 35n2, 80, 81
Parry, Milman, 149
pars pro toto convention in Teotihuacan writing, 95, 98,
98–100
Pasa Qullqa (storehouse) and Kaha Wayi (khipu house),
Rapaz, 355–360, 356, 357, 358, 359, 373
Pasión, absolute size and relative proportion of Maya
glyphs at, 24
patrimonial khipus in Rapaz, 353–377; Catholicism,
no association with, 358; dating of, 364–368, 373;
igurines, 362, 363, 364, 365, 367, 371, 373; historical
context, 353–354; Kaha Wayi (khipu house) and Pasa
Qullqa (storehouse), 355–360, 356, 357, 358, 359, 373;
khipu collection, 358, 360–364, 361, 362, 363; meaning
attributed to, 363; military history and Peruvian War
of Independence in Rapaz area, 364–373, 366–369, 372;
Pre-Columbian khipus, not resembling, 363–364, 374;
scholarly study of, 355; Tupicocha khipus and, 354,
354–355, 374; village, description of, 355–356
Peirce, Charles S., 111, 233
performance: in Aztec writing tradition, 175–176,
191–192; elaboration and abbreviation of literary
themes and, 114–116, 114–123, 118–121, 123, 124; in
Moche culture, 228, 229; writing as cultural category
compared to, 380–381
personhood and human body, writing conveying
notions of, 125–139, 126–129, 131–133, 135–138
Peten, San Diego wall carving at, 25
Peterson, Jeanette, 202
Philip II (king of Spain), death inventory of, 300
pictographic systems versus hieroglyphic script, 386–387
pictures versus glyphs, 385–386
Piedra Labrada: Stela 1, 81, 82; Stela 3, 133, 134; Stela 11,
130, 133; stela with Teotihuacan water sign, 83, 84;
Teotihuacan writing at, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84
Piedras Negras: identiication of scribes producing Maya
glyphs in, 23; Panel 2, 87
Pillsbury, Joanne, x, 3
Pintura de la Peregrinación de los Culhuaque-Mexitin
(Mapa Sigüenza), 162, 168–169n5–6
Pipil and Cotzumalhuapa writings, 53
Pizarro, Pedro, 259
place-making and performance, relationship of writing
to, 114–116, 114–123, 118–121, 123, 124
places of origin and origin theme, 156, 157–162, 159, 160
El Plano del Papel de Maguey, 88, 89
Plaza de los Glifos, Teotihuacan: day signs, 80, 81, 82;
Early Classic painted grids at, 87, 88; emblematic
glyphs (toponyms, titles, and personal names), 84, 85;
jaguars devouring hearts, 102; Tlaloc and quincunx
sign, 102, 103
Pleiades constellation and Chuquibamba textile notation
systems, 259, 267
polychrome mural fragment with Teotihuacan day sign,
83, 83–84
polycode nature of Maya glyphs, 24
Ponce Monolith, Tiwanaku, 289
Popol Vuh, 164
Porras, Bartolomé de, 300
porras (conical mace heads) in Moche ceramic imagery,
235, 236, 239
Porter, James, 100
Post-Monte Albán scribal tradition, 112, 113
Prem, Hans, 385
Primeros memoriales (Sahagún), 102, 202
Probanza de Yetzelalag (seventeenth century), 166
processualism, 4
propagative syllables in Maya glyphs, 32–34, 33
Proskouriakof, Tatiana, 1, 104
puca or napa llama, 262
puka k’uychi (red rainbow) textile colors, 339
pyramid complexes, Moche, 228, 229
pyramid motif, stepped, in Moche ceramic imagery,
logographic aspects of, 238, 238–239
Pyramid of the Moon, Burial 2, ive Tlaloc water jars
from, 103
Pyramid of the Plumed Serpents, Xochicalco, 93
Pyramid of the Sun, Late Preclassic Chicanel pottery in
interior ill of, 78
Quelatinizoo (Lagoon of Primordial Blood), 158–162, 166
queros with tocapus, 285, 286, 287, 297, 305
Quetzalcoatl, 152, 164
Quetzalteueyac, 158
Quicopecua, Tomb 1, Mound 1, 125, 126–127
quilca, 278, 308n9
Quilter, Jefrey, 2
quincunx motif: Tlaloc head with quincunx in mouth,
Teotihuacan, 81, 90, 96, 98, 101, 101–103, 102; tocapus
and, 297, 299
quipu. See khipu
Radclife-Brown, A. R., 11
Rapaz. See patrimonial khipus in Rapaz
Rawlinson, Henry, 18
rebus writing and rebus devices, 77, 210, 222n16, 234, 238,
239, 384, 387
régime d’historicité (historical sensibility) in Aztec
writing, 176–178, 184, 188, 190, 191
Relación de la provincia de los Collaguas (Juan de Ulloa
Mogollón, 1583), 272
Relación de las antigüedades del Pirú (Santa Cruz
Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, ca. 1613), 279, 297, 298
Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Diego de Landa), 13,
14–15, 16, 278
Relación de las fábulas y los ritos de los incas (Molina el
Cuzqueño, ca. 1575), 288, 307n7
Relación de Macuilxochtil, 52
Relación geográica of Cholula, 152–153, 160
Reptile’s Eye glyph in Teotihuacan writing, 81, 81–82
Revolt of the Objects scene in Moche ceramic imagery,
241–244, 241–245
Río Grande 2, coastal Oaxaca, carved stones from, 122
ritual petitions, counted oferings in, 153, 155
River of Jade and Quetzal Feathers, 158, 162
Rivers, W. H. R., 17
Robertson, Donald, 177
Roman Catholicism. See Catholicism
index 405
 Roman y Zamora, Jerónimo, 281
Rosny, Léon de, 15
Rowe, Ann, 256
Rowe, John, 284
Roys, Ralph, 18
Ruino Tamayo stela, possibly from Guerrero, 79, 94,
94–95
Ruíz Estrada, Arturo, 355, 363, 364
Rulers 13 and 15, Copan, 23, 24
Russia. See Knorosov, Yuri Valentinovich, decipherment
of Maya glyphs by
sacred birth theme, 167
Sahagún, Bernardino de, 168–169n5–6, 169n10, 202–204,
206
Salomon, Frank, 353, 394
San Baltazar Chichicapan, genealogical slab attributed
to, 125, 128
San Bartolo: origins of Maya glyphs and, 31; size of Maya
glyphs used at, 25, 26
San Bartolome Lachixova, title of, 166
San Jose de Moro, 227, 228
San José Mogote, Monument 3, 122–123, 123
San Juan Tabaa, title of, 166
San Martín, José de, 368–370
San Pedro Añañe, alabaster vessel from, 134–139, 136
San Pedro Quiatoni, stone miniature replica of tomb
facade, 125, 127
Sangro Sansevero, Raimondo di, ix, 284
Códice de Santa María Asunción, 85
Santa María Camotlan, writing on skin of mummiied
remains from, 138, 139
Santa Rosa site, Cotzumalhuapa inscription at, 50
Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro, 281, 288, 300, 307n7
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 111, 232
Schele, Linda, 1
Schellhas, Paul, 13
Schultze-Jena, Leonhard, 153
scribal error, semiology of, 139–143, 141, 142
seated character with Cotzumalhuapa Star glyph,
portable sculpture, 50
Codex Selden (Codex Añute), 114, 115, 150, 151, 167, 169n8
Selden Roll, 164
Seler, Eduard, 57, 59
self-sacriice rituals, 188–190
semasiography, 231–233; dialectic model of, 232–233;
glottography versus, 384–385; hybrid graphic systems
as semasiographic, 198, 233; mathematical notation
as semasiographic, 231–232; Mexican pictography as
semasiographic system, 198; in Moche Revolt of the
Objects scene, 241–244, 241–245; musical notation as
semasiographic, 231; origins and meaning of term,
221n3; road signs as semasiographic, 232; triadic
model of, 233
semiological theory of writing, 111–112
serpents devouring hearts in Teotihuacan art, 102, 103
shawls. See Chuquibamba textile notation systems
40 6 index
shields, Teotihuacan monumental rendering of, 99,
100–103
singing canine heads and weapon bundles, Teotihuacan-
style, 95, 96
Sipan, 227, 228
size of signs: Cotzumalhuapa writings, oversized signs
in, 56, 56–57; Maya glyphs, absolute size and relative
proportion of, 24–26, 25
skull birds in Cotzumalhuapa writing, 53, 53–54, 54
Smith, Mary Elizabeth, 1, 191
social and cultural meaning. See cultural category,
writing systems as; cultural code, written surface as
somatic framework: for Maya glyphs, 26; for Maya stelae,
36n5
Soviet Union. See Knorosov, Yuri Valentinovich,
decipherment of Maya glyphs by
space. See time and space
Spanish conquest: Aztec writing and, 191;
ethnoiconological approach to representations
of, 166; khipus in colonial and Catholic contexts,
290, 353–355; Moteuhczoma Xocoyotzin’s failure to
build sacriicial stone and, 192; tocapus, colonial
understanding of, 278–283, 287–288, 305. See also
hybridity of graphic systems ater Spanish conquest;
patrimonial khipus in Rapaz
Spear-hrower Owl, 90, 101
speech and language: Moche ceramic imagery not
reducible to, 240–241; writing as cultural category
compared to, 380–381; writing, relationship to, 111–112
SplitsTree4, 345–348
Spranz, Bodo, 1
Squier, E. G., 290
Stalin, Joseph, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16
Star glyph, Cotzumalhuapa writings, 50, 57–59, 58
Stephens, John Lloyd, ix
stepped pyramid motif in Moche ceramic imagery,
logographic aspects of, 238, 238–239
Stone of Tizoc, 181, 184, 186–188, 187, 191–192
Stuart, David, x, 1, 24, 28, 32, 34, 88, 104
Sucre, José Antonio de, 370–371, 373
syllabary, identiication of Maya script as, 15
synharmony, principle of, 15
syntagmic relationships in spoken and written language,
111–112
Tak’alik Ab’aj: Classic period, as important center
through, 48; Late Preclassic writings from, 46–47
Talum carved vessels, 133, 134
Tamarindito, identiication of scribes producing Maya
glyphs in, 23
tattooed mummiied remains from Santa María
Camotlan, 138, 139
Taube, Karl, 47–48, 61, 77, 134, 385, 394–395
Tawantinsuyu, 298–299, 299
tecalli bowl carved with Reptile’s Eye glyph, 81, 82
tecalli plumed serpent with Teotihuacan day names, 78, 79
tecalli sculpture with Tlaloc and quincunx sign, 101
Techinantitla, Teotihuacan writing at, 84
Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 188,
202, 206, 212
Temple of the Sun, Cuzco, 259
Temple-Plaza-Altar complexes, 117, 118, 125
temple signs, Teotihuacan, 86, 86–87
Templo Mayor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan: Aztec writing
depicting, 177–181, 184–186; Coatepec, representing,
161; Coyolxauhqui monument at base of staircase,
122–123; dedication stone, 188–190, 189, 191–192;
deposition on cult images removed from, 212–213,
213, 219
Tenoch, enthronement of, Codex Azcatitlan, 216, 216–217
Tenochtitlan. See Mexico-Tenochtitlan
Tenosique Bowl, non-Maya glyphs in Maya inscriptions
on, 27
Teocalli de la Guerra Sagrada, 181, 184–186, 185, 187,
190, 192
(Teo)Colhuacan, 158, 162
Teohuaonohualli, 213, 214
Teotenango script: inventory of inscriptions compared
to Cotzumalhuapa, 49; lack of study of, 77
Teotihuacan: grid plan of metropolis, 88. See also
La Ventilla, Teotihuacan; Plaza de los Glifos,
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan-style statuette with day sign, 79, 80
Teotihuacan writing, 77–109; in context of coastal writing
tradition, 47–48, 66; Cotzumalhuapa writings and,
48–49, 95; day signs in, 78–84, 79–83; development
of Early Classic central Mexican writing and, 77–78;
emblematic glyphs (toponyms, titles, and personal
names), 84–88, 85, 86, 87, 385; grids, central Mexican
examples of writing in, 87, 88–90, 89; Guerrero,
monumental texts from, 78, 79, 93–97, 93–98, 94,
104; head signs in frontal view, 104; human sacriice,
depictions of, 102, 103; Maya inluence, 77–78, 90,
90–93, 91, 92; “open” systems, trend toward, 66;
pars pro toto convention, 95, 98, 98–100; shields,
monumental rendering of, 99, 100–103; speech scrolls
in, 61; symmetry as characteristic of, 100; Tlaloc head
with quincunx in mouth, 81, 90, 96, 98, 101, 101–103,
102; Zapotec writing and, 48, 77–78, 83, 90, 90–93, 91,
92, 100, 104; zoomorphic vehicles, 92, 93
Tepantitla, Teotihuacan writings from, 84, 85, 96, 102,
103
Tepecuacuilco: Stela 1, 95–96, 96; Stela 2, 96, 97, 98;
Teotihuacan writing at, 78
Tepelmeme de Morelos, Oaxaca, Protoclassic murals,
80, 81
Tepeyollotl-Tezcatlipoca, 186
Testerian manuscripts, 206–209, 206–210
Tetitla, Teotihuacan emblematic glyphs from, 86
Texcocan manuscripts, organization of, 177
textiles: color system for, 339; costume and performance
in Moche culture, 228, 229; tocapus and, 278, 287, 289.
See also Chuquibamba textile notation systems; khipu
Tezcatlipoca, 103, 186, 187
Tezozómoc, Fernando Alvarado, 181
homas, Cyrus, 15
hompson, John Eric Sidney: Cold War decipherment of
Maya glyphs and, 10, 14–18; Cotzumalhuapa writings
and, 43, 51–52, 54
Tikal: Burial 116, incised bone from, 90, 90–91;
identiication of scribes producing Maya glyphs in,
23; somatic framework of stelae at, 36n5; Stela 1, 90;
Stela 31, 99, 100, 105n6; Stela 32, 99, 100, 104; Temple
of the Inscriptions, 24, 25; Teotihuacan arrival at, 88,
104; Teotihuacan writing at, 78, 83, 90, 90–91
Tikal dynasty: Maya glyph changes and, 32; probable
usurpation by Teotihuacan, 88, 104
Tilantongo, 157, 167
time and space: Aztec writing, chronotopes in, 176–178,
181, 184, 190, 191; tocapus used to represent signiicant
spaces, 297–300, 298, 299. See also variations in Maya
glyphs over space and time
Tiquisate bowl, Cotzumalhuapa writing and, 53
Tira de la Peregrinación, 168–169n5–6. See also Codex
Boturini
Tira de Tepechpan, 192n2, 199, 211, 215
Tiwanaku monoliths and tocapus, 288–289, 289
Tizoc: dedication stone, Templo Mayor, Mexica-
Tenochtitlan, 188, 190; Stone of Tizoc, 181, 184,
186–188, 187, 191–192
Tlachihualtepec or Great Pyramid of Cholula, 160, 161
tlacochcalco, 87
Tlaloc heads: in Cotzumalhuapa writing, 53;
Teotihuacan Tlaloc head with quincunx in mouth,
81, 90, 96, 98, 101, 101–103, 102
Tlaltecuhtli, 185, 186, 187, 188
Tlamanalco church choir paintings, 202
Tlapacoya, lack of writing tradition at, 77
Tlapanecs, ritual use of counted bundles by, 153, 155
Tlatelolco. See Mexico-Tlatelolco
Tlatolatl, 212
tlatoque (ruler) successions in Mexica codices, 178–181, 184
Tlaxcallan property plan, 213, 214
Tlaxiaco, alabaster vessel from, 134–139, 136
Tlazolteotl, 208
toads, Chuquibamba textiles’ symbolic use of, 261–262
tocapu, 277–317; ancestral mummies wrapped in
textiles with, 5; arrangement of, variations in, 292;
Berlin cross painted with, 284–287, 285; on chullpas,
290, 292; color schemes, signiicance of, 286–287;
deining, 286–288; Dumbarton Oaks conferences
on, 2; ixed set of signs, problem with interpretation
as, 305; Inkas’ lack of writing system and, 281–283,
308n9; Jama-Coaque vessels with, 296, 297, 305;
khipus and, 279–284, 288, 289–290, 300–301; Lake
Titicaca and ruins of Tiwanaku, association with,
288; in Manco Capac portraits, 301–305, 302, 303,
304; Moche murals, tocapu-like igures in, 293–297,
294, 295, 296, 305; multiple media, appearances in,
290–293; on queros, 285, 286, 287, 297, 305; quilca,
relationship to, 278; quincunx motif and, 297, 299;
as señales (signs), 300–301; signiicant spaces, used
to represent, 297–300, 298, 299; Spanish conquest,
index 407
 in writings and images ater, 278–283, 287–288, 305;
speciic meanings for individual forms, eforts to
decipher, 283–284; symbolic meanings attached
to, 288–290; textiles, relationship to, 278, 287, 289;
Tiwanaku monoliths and, 288–289, 289; uncus (male
tunics) with, 281, 282, 284–287, 290, 291, 293–294,
295, 300, 301–305, 302, 303, 304; urpus painted as if
wearing uncus with, 290, 293
Tokarev, Sergei Aleksandrovich, 12, 13
Toledan-era viceroyalty, khipus of governance under, 353
Tollan, 159–161
Tollan Cholollan, 152
Tolstov, Sergei Pavlovich, 11–12, 13, 14
Codex Tonindeye (Codex Zouche-Nuttall), 115, 152, 158,
167, 169n8
Torres Straits Expedition (1898), 17
Totometla, Tlaloc and quincunx sign from, 101
Tovar calendar, 206
Townsend, Richard, 186
Tozzer, Alfred, 18
tribute khipus, 344, 345
Codex Tudela, 202, 206
tukapu. See tocapu
Tula: lack of study of, 77; Teotihuacan writing and, 82, 87
Codex Tulane, 170n22
tunics, male. See uncus
Tupicocha khipus, 354, 354–355, 374
U-shaped element serving as toponymic sign for
Teotihuacan and Xochicalco, 96, 97
Uaxactun Stela, 27
Ulloa Mogollón, Juan de, 272
Umberger, Emily, 186, 187, 188
uncus (male tunics), 252–253; Peabody Museum
Chuquibamba uncu with solar calendar, 252, 253,
257–258, 258, 266, 268, 269; with tocapu designs, 281,
282, 284–287, 290, 291, 293–294, 295, 300, 301–305, 302,
303, 304; urpus painted as if wearing, 290, 293
Urcid, Javier, 2, 111, 382, 386, 395
urpus painted as if wearing uncus with tocapu designs,
290, 293
Urton, Gary, ix, x, 1, 2, 319, 320, 323, 324, 334, 338, 339, 345,
380, 395
USSR. See Knorosov, Yuri Valentinovich, decipherment
of Maya glyphs by
Uxmal, Yukatekan terms in script at, 27
Uxul stelae, size of glyphs on, 24, 25
variations in Maya glyphs over space and time, 21–42;
in absolute size and relative proportion, 24–26,
25; consonant sensitivity, development of, 32, 33;
diversity, accounting for, 30–34; heterography
(variation at any one time), 34; Middle and Late
Classic-period glyphs, 32–34; morphosyllables,
28–30, 29; number of glyphs in use at any one
time and place, 30–31; phonic and linguistic
408 index
characteristics, 26–30; Postclassic-period glyphs,
34; Preclassic- and Early Classic-period glyphs,
31; propagative syllables, use of, 32–34, 33; social
circumstances afecting, 23, 31, 32, 34–35; vowel
notations, introduction of, 32
Codex Vaticanus A/Ríos, 178, 180, 206
Codex Vaticanus B, 103
Vega, Garcilaso de la, 281, 326, 328
Ventris, Michael, 18
Veracruz: Teotihuacan writing at, 78, 100; Xochicalco
Glyph A on monument probably from, 82, 83
Codex Vienna, 385. See also Codex Vindobonensis
Codex Vindobonensis, 159, 164–165, 165. See also Codex
Vienna
Viracocha, 288
Vista Linda, Monument 1, 58
Von Winning, Hasso, 82, 86, 103
Wari/Middle Horizon khipus, 321, 321–322, 322, 325, 350
Warrior theme in Moche ceramic imagery, 234–238, 235,
236, 237, 240
White Patio mural at Atetelco, 96
Whittaker, Gordon, 385–386
Wichmann, Søren, 30
women and writing: Chuquibamba textiles for women,
252–253 (See also Chuquibamba textile notation
systems); ethnoiconology of representations of
women, 150, 151; Maya glyphs, female literacy in, 23
writing systems in Pre-Columbian America, ix–x,
1–7; comparative dialogue, importance of,
3–6, 18; as cultural category, 379–390 (See also
cultural category, writing systems as); as cultural
code, 111–148 (See also cultural code, written
surface as); cultural superiority associated with
possession of writing system, 306n3; Dumbarton
Oaks conferences on, ix–x, 1–3; elaboration and
abbreviation of literary themes in, 149–174 (See
also elaboration and abbreviation); hybrid graphic
systems, 197–225 (See also hybridity of graphic
systems ater Spanish conquest); Inka lack of, 281–
283, 308n9 (See also Chuquibamba textile notation
systems; Cuzco; khipu; tocapu); oral versus written
transmission, 4–5; orthography of, 6; true writing,
status as, ix, 2; use of writing as term, problem of,
379–380, 387–388. See also speciic systems, e.g.,
Maya glyphs
xiuhamatl, 177
Xiuhtecuhtli, 103, 187
Xochicalco Glyph A on Teotihuacan-style vessels and
monuments, 82, 82–84
Xochicalco script: animated signs in, 59, 59–60;
inventory of inscriptions compared to
Cotzumalhuapa, 49; lack of study of, 77; Temple
of the Feathered Serpent, 59; Teotihuacan writing
 and, 48, 66, 78, 82, 87, 93, 94, 101; Tlaloc head with
quincunx in mouth, 101
Xolochiuhyan place name, Codex Mendoza, 85
Xoxocotlan, Tomb A, lintel, 140, 142
Yagul, Tomb 28, Terrace C, 125, 126–127
Yaxchilan, absolute size and relative proportion of Maya
glyphs at, 24, 25
Yaxha stela, 24, 25
Yaxitzadao, 166
year counts: in Mexica codices, 178–181; on Mexica stone
monuments, 186
Yogana: alabaster vessel attributed to, 134–139, 136; eigy
vessel from, 125–130, 129
Yucatan, number of Maya glyphs in use in, 30
Yukatekan terms in script at Uxmal and Chichen Itza, 27
Zacuala Palace mural, Teotihuacan, 93
Zapotec writing: alabaster carved vessels, 134; and
Cuilapan cloister stone, 117, 118; deined and
described, 112, 112–113; genealogical records,
inscriptions of, 125, 126–128; human skin as writing
surface for, 139; length of use of, 21; migration
theme and, 162, 165–166; mortuary contexts of many
inscriptions, 125–130; places of origin and, 158–160;
scribal error in, 140–143, 141, 142; symmetry as
characteristic of, 100; Teotihuacan writing and, 48,
77–78, 83, 90, 90–93, 91, 92, 100, 104; Xochicalco
Glyph A probably originating in, 83
Zender, Marc, 34, 385
Zhdanov, Andrei, 10–11
Zimatlan: human carved parietal bone attributed to, 134,
136; stone cylindrical basin attributed to, 134, 135
zoomorphic vehicles, Teotihuacan igures riding, 92, 93
Codex Zouche-Nuttall (Codex Tonindeye), 115, 152, 158,
167, 169n8
Zuidema, R. Tom, 251, 286, 345, 386, 395
Zumárraga, Juan de, 212–213, 214
index 409
 dumbar ton oak s pre- columbia n
s y mp osia a nd col loQuia
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and Colloquia series volumes are based on papers
presented at scholarly meetings sponsored by the
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edited by Elizabeth P. Benson, 1968
Dumbarton Oaks Conference on Chavín, edited
by Elizabeth P. Benson, 1971
he Cult of the Feline, edited by Elizabeth P.
Benson, 1972
Mesoamerican Writing Systems, edited by
Elizabeth P. Benson, 1973
Death and the Aterlife in Pre-Columbian America,
edited by Elizabeth P. Benson, 1975
he Sea in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by
Elizabeth P. Benson, 1977
he Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian Textile
Conference, edited by Ann Pollard Rowe,
Elizabeth P. Benson, and Anne-Louise
Schafer, 1979
Pre-Columbian Metallurgy of South America,
edited by Elizabeth P. Benson, 1979
Mesoamerican Sites and World-Views, edited
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and the exchange of ideas on the art and
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Further information on Dumbarton Oaks
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be found at www.doaks.org/publications.
Falsiications and Misreconstructions of
Pre-Columbian Art, edited by Elizabeth Hill
Boone, 1982
Highland-Lowland Interaction in Mesoamerica:
Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Arthur G.
Miller, 1983
Ritual Human Sacriice in Mesoamerica, edited by
Elizabeth Hill Boone, 1984
Painted Architecture and Polychrome Monumental
Sculpture in Mesoamerica, edited by Elizabeth Hill
Boone, 1985
Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Andes, edited
by Christopher B. Donnan, 1985
he Aztec Templo Mayor, edited by Elizabeth Hill
Boone, 1986
he Southeast Classic Maya Zone, edited by
Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gordon R. Willey, 1988
he Northern Dynasties: Kingship and Statecrat in
Chimor, edited by Michael E. Moseley and Alana
Cordy-Collins, 1990
Wealth and Hierarchy in the Intermediate Area,
edited by Frederick W. Lange, 1992
411
 Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, edited
by Janet Catherine Berlo, 1992
Latin American Horizons, edited by Don Stephen
Rice, 1993
Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century
AD, edited by Jeremy A. Sablof and John S.
Henderson, 1993
Collecting the Pre-Columbian Past, edited by
Elizabeth Hill Boone, 1993
Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices,
edited by Tom D. Dillehay, 1995
Native Traditions in the Postconquest World,
edited by Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom
Cummins, 1998
Function and Meaning in Classic Maya
Architecture, edited by Stephen D. Houston, 1998
Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, edited
by David C. Grove and Rosemary A. Joyce, 1999
Gender in Pre-Hispanic America, edited by
Cecelia F. Klein, 2001
Archaeology of Formative Ecuador, edited by
J. Scott Raymond and Richard L. Burger, 2003
Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama,
and Colombia, edited by Jefrey Quilter and John
W. Hoopes, 2003
Palaces of the Ancient New World, edited by Susan
Toby Evans and Joanne Pillsbury, 2004
A Pre-Columbian World, edited by Jefrey Quilter
and Mary Ellen Miller, 2006
412
Twin Tollans: Chichén Itzá, Tula, and the
Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican
World, edited by Jef Karl Kowalski and Cynthia
Kristan-Graham, 2007
Variations in the Expression of Inka Power, edited
by Richard L. Burger, Craig Morris, and Ramiro
Matos Mendieta, 2007
El Niño, Catastrophism, and Culture Change in
Ancient America, edited by Daniel H. Sandweiss
and Jefrey Quilter, 2008
Classic Period Cultural Currents in Southern and
Central Veracruz, edited by Philip J. Arnold III
and Christopher A. Pool, 2008
he Art of Urbanism: How Mesoamerican
Kingdoms Represented hemselves in Architecture
and Imagery, edited by William L. Fash and
Leonardo López Luján, 2009
New Perspectives on Moche Political Organization,
edited by Jefrey Quilter and Luis Jaime Castillo B.,
2010
Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests: Intellectual
Interchange between the Northern Maya Lowlands
and Highland Mexico in the Late Postclassic
Period, edited by Gabrielle Vail and Christine
Hernández, 2010
he Place of Stone Monuments: Context, Use, and
Meaning in Mesoamerica’s Preclassic Transition,
edited by Julia Guernsey, John E. Clark, and
Barbara Arroyo, 2010
heir Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and
Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America, edited
by Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton, 2011