Unless you are a descendant of the Aztecs, probably not. Which is okay. Because it’s doubtful even folks who do have traces of Montezuma’s blood coursing through their veins keep their quipu up to date, if they even have one. As far as that goes, you could probably pick up some spare dinero by betting they won’t even know what a quipu is. It’s Old Stuff. As in ancient. As in pre-Columbian. Old.
In the spirit of transparency, let me say I only know about the item in question because in an episode of a long-ago TV show called Numb3rs – the “3” is intentional – a character returns to Earth after spending four months on the International Space Station. As he disembarks from the space shuttle which has returned him to terra firma, friends watching the event on TV wonder what he has around his neck. “Is that macramé?” one asks. Later, when asked the same question by his best friend, he explains it’s a quipu, a system of strings and knots to record important events in one’s life. He started it, he says, because NASA isn’t big on personal privacy, especially when it comes to journals or diaries. Anything he might have written would have to be submitted to and approved by NASA, whether he intended it for publication or not. So, he resorted to the quipu, which wouldn’t reveal anything to anyone other than its creator.
This set me to thinking: If I decided to make a quipu of my own, what events in my life would be significant enough to merit knots? I came up with ten, spread over nearly seventy years. How many could you come up with?
And a PS: Welcome new subscribers to Expatriate Games! Soon we’ll be a Movement!
I think 60 knots, at least. Yup, my life took many twists and turns!