The Interweaving of Memory, Writing and Knotted Cords Amid Early Modern European Expansionism (Europe, China and the Americas)

Abstract

This article takes as its point of departure western theories of memory, which started with Aristotle’s De Memoria et Reminiscentia. The appearance of alphabetic writing, immortalized in Plato’s Phaedrus as an ‘aid not to memory, but to reminiscence,’ rendered the question of memory more complex. This study examines how these European reflections on memory later unfolded in a European/Jesuit expansionism in the early modern period, encouraging descriptions of different indigenous forms of literacy, and how they revolved around the connection between memory and (alphabetic) writing. Knotted string devices known as quipus in the Andean region, also used in ancient China (jiesheng 結繩), and by foreign populations described by the Chinese – i.e. Tibetans –, are the focus of analysis. This article aims to show how European descriptions of knotted cords in these parts of the world could either stress or omit their attributed ‘mnemonic element’, depending on the potential readership of works containing this information