226 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
wearer from going astray, no matter where he may be; in other words, it has some 
connection with eross-trails and the four cardinal points, to which the Apache pay 
the strictest attention. 
I was at first inclined to associate these cords with the quipus of the Pernvians and 
also with the wampum of the aborigines of the Atlantic coast, and investigation 
only confirms this first suspicion. 
The praying beads of the Buddhists and of many Oriental peoples, 
who have used them from high antiquity, are closely allied to the quipu. 
They are more familiar now in the shape of the rosaries of Roman 
Catholics. In the absence of manufactured articles, arranged on wires, 
the necessary materials were easily procured. Berries, nuts, pease, or 
beans strung in any manner answered the purpose. The abacus of the 
Chinese and Greeks was connected in origin with the same device. 
E. F. im Thurn (d) says of the Nikari-Karu Indians of Guiana: 
At last, after four days’ stay, we got off. The two or three people from Euwari- 
manakuroo who came with us gave their wives knotted strings of quippus, each 
knot representing one of the days they expected to be away, and the whole string 
thus forming a calendar to be used by the wives until the return of their husbands. 
That the general idea or invention for mnemonic purposes appearing 
in the quipu was actually used pictorially is indicated in the illustra- 
tions of the sculptures of Santa Lucia Cosumalhuapa in Guatemala 
given by Dr. S. Habel (b). Upon these he remarks: 
It has been frequently affirmed that the aborigines of America had nowhere arisen 
high enough in civilization to have characters for writing and numeral signs, but 
the sculptures of Santa Lucia exhibit signs which indicate a kind of cipher-writing 
higher in form than mere hieroglyphics. From the mouth of most of the human 
beings, living or dead, emanates a stati, variously bent, to the sides of which nodes 
are attached. These nodes are of different sizes and shapes, and variously distrib- 
uted on the sides of the staff, either singly or in twos and threes, the last named 
either separated or in shape of a trefoil, This manner of writing not only indicates 
that the person is speaking or praying, but also indicates the very words, the con- 
tents of the speech or prayer. It is quite certain that each statt, as bent and orna- 
mented, stood for a well-known petition, which the priest could read as easily as 
those acquainted with a cipher dispatch can know its purport. Further, one may 
be allowed to conjecture that the various curves of the staves served the purpose of 
strength and rhythm, just as the poet chooses his various meters for the same purpose. 
The following notices of the ancient mnemonic use of knotted cords 
and of its survival in various parts of the world are extracted from the 
essay of Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie (d) : 
The Yang tung, south of Khoten, and consequently north of Tibet, who first com- 
municated with China in A. D. 641, had no written characters. They only cut 
notches in sticks and tied knots in strings for records. 
The Bratyki and Buriats of Siberia are credited with the use of knotted cords. 
The Japanese are also reputed to have employed knots on strings or bind-weeds 
for records. 
The Li of Hainan, being unacquainted with writing, use knotted cords or notched 
sticks in place of bonds or agreements. 
In the first half of the present century cord records were still generally used in 
the Indian archipelago and Polynesia proper. The tax-gatherers in the island of 
Hawaii by this means kept accounts of all the articles collected by them from the 
inhabitants. A rope 400 fathoms long was used as a revenue book. It was divided 
