Page:The American Indian.djvu/174

130 Yet, if the Inca of Peru did not have writing, they did have a scheme of knotted cords, or quipu, the methods of which have been inductively worked out by Locke. From this study it appears that the quipu could have served no other purpose than that of recording numbers. In fact, from the Spanish authors and the modern survivals of these knotted cord records, we know that the quipu were used to keep accounts. Mr. Locke's careful study of specimens in the American Museum of Natural History of New York demonstrates that the numerical system upon which the quipu were based was decimal. Further, an empirical analysis of the knots on the several cords shows them to have definite numerical relations from which we infer that the quipu were instruments of enumeration only. It is scarcely conceivable that they could have been used for the recording of other facts. Hence, the oft-repeated statement that they were used to record historic narratives or as mnemonic systems for the same, are unwarranted.

Before leaving this subject, we should note one very remarkable achievement by the Maya. This was no less than the discovery and use of the zero in mathematics. In the Old World, this important contribution to our culture was invented by an Asiatic people, probably a Hindu group, from whom it found its way into Europe. On the other hand, it appears in ancient Maya. The very isolation of these two discoveries suggests their independent invention, but irrespective of this interpretation, the use of the zero in the New World gives its people a high place in culture.

Though somewhat of a diversion, we may at this point note the making of bark cloth and paper. In Mexico, where writing was practised, good paper was made of amatl bark and, when this was not available, of maguey fiber. The latter was covered with thin animal membranes, reminding one of parchment. Outside of Mexico and Central America, no paper was used, but some bark garments were made in the forest regions of South America. In this connection an interesting point is raised by the ridged bark-beater of Mexico and Central America, an implement which reminds one of the tool used