1921 .] 
Best.—Polynesian Mnemonics. 
67 
POLYNESIAN MNEMONICS. 
Notes on the Use of the Quipus in Polynesia in Former 
Times ; also some Account of the Introduction of the 
Art of Writing. 
By Elsdon Best, Dominion Museum. 
It is not generally known that knotted cords were employed by the 
Polynesians in pre-European days for the purpose of recording tallies, as 
in the Hawaiian Isles, and also, according to Maori tradition, for sending 
messages. The term “ Maori ” is here employed as denoting the native 
inhabitants of the isles of New Zealand only. We have but little data 
dealing with this subject—naught, indeed, save a few brief allusions in 
various works. We are told that knotted cords were used by the Hawaiian 
natives in pre-European times largely for tallying food products—that 
is, for arithmetical purposes. Turner, in his work on Samoa, writes : 
“ Tying a number of knots on a piece of cord was a common way of 
noting and remembering things, in the absence of a written language, 
among these South-Sea-Islanders.’’ 
The word quipu, meaning a knot, comes from an Indian tongue of Peru. 
It is pronounced “ keepoo,” the orthography being Spanish. This system 
was employed, in the land of the Incas, principally for numerical purposes. 
Apparently, for other purposes, it could be used only as an aid to memory, 
not for recording events or for the purpose of sending an ordinary message : 
thus numbers only Could thereby be recorded and understood without 
extraneous assistance. This Peruvian system was a comparatively elaborate 
one. Instead of a single cord, a number were employed. From a head or 
leading cord other smaller ones were suspended : these were of different 
colours, each denoting a different subject, as red for soldiers, yellow for 
gold, and so on. 
The use of this memory-aid has, in the past, been practised in many 
parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Polynesia. An old custom in Europe 
was to place a knotted cord round a child’s neck to serve as a charm or 
talisman, a form of charm being recited over each knot. This looks as 
though the simple quipu talisman may have been the prototype of the 
old-time Asiatic rosary that was borrowed by Christianity. In his account 
of Strong Island, Caroline C-roup, and its natives, H. B. Sterndale wrote : 
“ They keep records by means of wooden beads and knotted cords, which 
they carefully preserve, and refer to when they want to tell what happened 
in former years.” Ling Both tells us that the quipu is employed for simple 
purposes in Borneo ( Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo , vol. 2, 
p. 290). The same is reported from New Guinea, as seen in Chalmers’s 
Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 70. 
The quipu was employed in remote times in China, and was in use 
among the natives of the Pelew Islands. At the Hawaiian Islands these 
knotted cords seem to have been employed much as they were m Peru. 
Thus in Tyerman and Bennet’s Journal we read that “ The tax-gatherers, 
although they can neither read nor write, keep very exact accounts of all 
the articles of all kinds collected from the inhabitants throughout the 
island. This is done principally by one man, and the register is nothing 
