406 PERUVIAN QUIPUS. 



LIB. vi. another, and the young ones learned, and carefully kept, as 

 a holy thing, what their superiors had tolde them, and 

 taught it with the like care to their posteritie. Besides 

 this diligence, they supplied the want of letters and writings, 

 partely by painting, as those of Mexico (although they of 

 Peru were very grosse and blockish 1 ), and partely, and most 

 commonly by Quippos. 2 These Quippos are memorialls or 

 or registers, made of bowes, 3 in the which there are diverse 

 knottes and colours, which do signifie diverse things, and 

 it is strange to see what they have expressed and repre 

 sented by this meanes : for their Quippos serve them 

 insteede of Bookes of histories, of lawes, ceremonies, and 

 accounts of their affaires. There were officers appointed to 

 keepe these Quippos, the which at this day they call Qui- 

 pocamayos, the which were bound to give an account of 

 everything, as Notaries and Registers doe heere. There 

 fore they fully believed them in all things, for, according 

 to the varietie of business, as warres, pollicie, tributes, 

 ceremonies and landes, there were sundry Quippos or 

 braunches, in every one of the which there were so many 

 knottes, little and great, and strings tied vnto them, some 

 red, some greene, some blew, some white ; and finally, such 

 diversitie, that even as wee derive an infinite number of 

 woordes from the foure and twenty letters, applying them 

 in diverse sortes, so doe they draw innumerable woordes 

 from their knottes and diversitie of colours. Which thing 

 they doe in such a manner that if at this day in Peru, any 

 Commissary come at the end of two or three years to take 

 information vppon the life of any officer, the Indians come 

 with their small reckonings verified, saying, that in such a 

 village they have given him so many egges which he hath 

 not payed for, in such a house a henne, in another two bur 

 dens of grasse for his horse, and that he hath paied but 



1 &quot; JMuy grosseras y toscas.&quot; 2 &quot; Quipus.&quot; 



z u llaniales,&quot; rope s-ends. 



