The Story of the Alphabet

by Edward Clodd

In stage (c) the sign as eye-picture suggests the name;

In stage (d) the sign as ear-picture suggests the sound;

and it is in the passage from (c) to (d), whereby constant signs are chosen to stand for constant sounds, that the progress of the human race was assured, because only thereby was the preservation of all that is of abiding value made possible.

Fig. 7.—Quipu, for Reckoning, &c.

(a) The Mnemonic Stage.—This is well represented by "quipus" or knotted cords, and by wampums or shell-ornamented belts. The quipu (Fig. 7) has a long history, and is with us both in the rosary on which the Roman Catholic counts his prayers, in the knot which we tie in our handkerchief to help a weak memory, and in the sailor's log-line. Herodotus tells us that when Darius bade the Ionians remain to guard the floating bridge which spanned the Ister, he "tied sixty knots in a thong, saying: 'Men of Ionia ... do ye keep this thong and do as I shall say:—so soon as ye shall have seen me go forward against the Scythians, from that time begin and untie a knot on each day; and if within this time I am not here, and ye find that the days marked by the knots have passed by, then sail away to your own lands'" (iv. 98). And the same obviously handy device is of widespread use, reaching its more elaborate form among the ancient Peruvians, from whose language the term "quipu," meaning "knot," is borrowed. It consists of a main cord, to which are fastened at given distances thinner cords of different colours, each cord being knotted in divers ways for special purposes, and each colour having its own significance. Red strands stood for soldiers, yellow for gold, white for silver, green for corn, and so forth, while a single knot meant ten, two single knots meant twenty, double knots one hundred, and two double knots two hundred. Such simple devices served manifold purposes. Besides their convenience in reckoning, they were used for keeping the annals of the empire of the Incas; for transmitting orders to outlying provinces; for registering details of the army; and even for preserving records of the dead, with whom the quipu was buried, as in old Egypt the biography or titles of the deceased were set forth in hieroglyph and deposited in the tomb. Quoting from Von Tschudi's Peru, Dr. E. B. Tylor says that each town had its officer whose special function was to tie and interpret the quipus. They were called Quipucamayocuna, or knot-officers; but although they attained great facility in their work, they were seldom able to read a quipu without the aid of an oral commentary. When one came from a distant province, it was necessary to give notice with it whether it referred to census, tribute, war, and so forth. But by constant practice they so far perfected the system as to be able to register with their knots the most important events of the kingdom, and to set down its laws and ordinances. Although vain attempts to read the quipus have been made in the present day, Dr. Tylor adds that there are still Indians in Southern Peru "who are perfectly familiar with the contents of certain historical quipus preserved from ancient times; but they keep their knowledge a profound secret, especially from the white men." (Early History of Mankind, p. 160.) This knot-reckoning is in use among the Puna herdsmen of the Peruvian plateaux. On the first strand of the quipu they register the bulls, on the second the cows, these again they divide into milch-cows and those that are dry; the next strands register the calves, the next the sheep and so forth, while other strands record the produce; the different colours of the cords and the twisting of the knots giving the key to the several purposes. Akin to this is the practice among the Paloni Indians of California, concerning whom Dr. Hoffman reports that each year a certain number are chosen to visit the settlement at San Gabriel to sell native blankets. "Every Indian sending goods provided the salesman with two cords made of twisted hair or wool, on one of which was tied a knot for every real received, and on the other a knot for each blanket sold. When the sum reached ten reals, or one dollar, a double knot was made. Upon the return of the salesman, each person selected from the lot his own goods, by which he would at once perceive the amount due, and also the number of blankets for which the salesman was responsible." The natives of Ardrah, in West Africa, use small cords, each knot in which has a meaning; and among the Jebus, the objects knotted into strings tell their separate tale, cowrie shells placed face to face denoting friendship; an arrow, war; and so forth. Other tribes have devised message-sticks somewhat after the well-known native Australian type. More highly-developed knot-reckoning is found among the Mexican Zuni, and in more primitive form among some North American Indians; but, not tarrying to detail these, we cross the Pacific, noting, on our passage, that a generation ago the Hawaiian tax-gatherers kept accounts of the assessable property throughout the island on lines of cordage from four to five hundred fathoms long. Knots, loops, and tufts of different shape, size, and colour indicated the several districts, and the amount of tax to be paid by each inhabitant was defined by marks of the same character as those now specified, with such variety as to prevent confusion. The Shû-King, a sacred historical book of the Chinese, records the use of knotted cords prior to the invention of writing. The number and distances of the knots served as conventional mnemonics, and also as imperial records, until written characters replaced them. "Legend refers the tying of knots in strings to about 2800 b.c., when Fo-hi invented eight symbols, and at the same time pictorial representations of these knotted strings were taken to indicate the object thereby symbolised." These Morse-like symbols are:—

(C. Gardner, Journal Ethnological Society, 1870, vol. ii. p. 5)

Another Chinese legend says that "the most ancient forms were five hundred and forty characters, formed by a combination of knotted strings and the eight symbols, made in the form of birds' claws in various states of tension, and that all these five hundred and forty characters were suggested to the inventor by the marks (left by the claws) upon the sand." The use of looped or knotted cords is depicted in Egyptian hieroglyph, and among other tribes of the African continent the Jebus of to-day evidence the survival of this primitive memoria technica, while from Melanesia to Formosa the knotted cord, as in Australia and Africa the message-stick, render service as means of communication between man and his fellows. The nine incisions, with a longer cut across them to denote ten, is a mode of decimal reckoning and of record found alike among Red Indians and London bargees. The same purpose explains the custom, in force well within the present century, of our Exchequer in keeping certain accounts by means of notched tallies. The tally was a squared stick of well-seasoned hazel or willow, in one side of which notches of different breadth, indicating pounds, shillings, and pence, were cut to mark the amount of money lent by any person to the Government, the same amount being cut in Roman numerals, together with the lender's name and date of the loan, on the two opposite sides. The stick was then split down the middle, and one half handed to the lender, the other half being kept in the Exchequer. When the money fell due, the lender surrendered his half for comparison with its fellow, and the two being found to "tally," the loan was repaid. It was through the overheating of stoves in the burning of heaps of accumulated tally-sticks that the Houses of Parliament were destroyed in 1834. Fifty years ago in Scotland (and the like may happen in out-of-the-way hamlets to-day), the baker's boy took a "nick-stick" with his bread, and made a notch in the stick for every loaf he left on his rounds. So it was, Dr. Hoffman tells us, with the Pennsylvanian dairyman, who kept account of the milk which he sold by marking notches for pints and quarts on a stick. As these notches correspond to entries of transactions in our daybooks and ledgers, so the once widely-used Clog Almanack corresponded to our modern Whitaker. It consisted of a square-shaped "clog" or "block" of wood (sometimes of metal), and was designed chiefly to show when the Sundays and holidays fell, certain symbols or hieroglyphs being drawn against saint and other festal days—as, for example, an axe for Saint Paul, a true-lovers' knot for Saint Valentine, and a harp for Saint David. With this may be compared the hieroglyphic wheels named "record of the gods," formerly in use for recording time among the Indians of Virginia. "These wheels had sixty spokes, each for a year, as if to mark the ordinary age of man, and they were painted on skins kept by the priests. They marked on each spoke or division a hieroglyphic figure to show the memorable events of the year." (Tylor, p. 93.)

Wampum-belts are of much narrower geographical distribution than quipus. They consist of hand-made beads or perforated shells arranged in various more or less conventionalised patterns on bark filaments, hemp, or deerskin strips or sinews, the ends of the belts being selvedged by sinews or hempen fibres. The patterns are pictorial symbols recording events in the history of the tribe or treaties between tribes; the belts being also used to note land boundaries or personal property, sometimes even passing, in the old days, as shell-money in all parts of New England from one end of the coast to the other. As illustrating a common purpose for which the wampum record was used, Peter Clarke tells us, in his Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts (a tribe of the Huron-Iroquois stock), that "in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the king or head chief, Sut-staw-ra-tse, called a meeting at the house of Chief Adam Brown, who had charge of the archives, which consisted of wampum belts, parchments, &c., contained in a large trunk. One by one they were brought out and shown to the assembled chiefs and warriors. Chief Brown wrote on a piece of paper and tacked it to each wampum belt, designating the compact or treaty it represented, after it had been explained from memory by the chiefs appointed for that purpose. There sat before them the venerable king, in whose head were stored the hidden contents of each wampum belt, listening to the rehearsal, and occasionally correcting the speaker and putting him on the right track whenever he deviated." Clarke goes on to say that "when the majority of the people removed to the south-west, they demanded to have the belts, as these might be a safeguard to them. Some of these belts recorded treaties of alliance or of peace with other tribes which were now residing in that region, and it might be of great importance to the Wyandotts to be able to produce and refer to them. The justice of this claim was admitted, and they were allowed to have the greater part of their belts." And modern inquirers tell us that, in so far as the wampums still possess utility, it is as evidence of a subsisting treaty or a title-deed. Few examples, however, of the vast number of belts once in the possession of the North American tribes (and these almost exclusively confined to the Iroquois country) survive, since in the displacement of the red man by the white their value from the land-right point of view has disappeared. Four interesting specimens, known as the "Hale Series of Huron Wampum Belts," which were presented by Dr. Tylor to the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford in 1897, form the subject of lengthy memoirs by the donor and the late Horatio Hale in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (xxvi. 3, pp. 221-54). Of these only the barest summary is needful. The first and oldest example, dating from before the middle of the seventeenth century, is named the "Double Calumet Treaty Belt" (Figs. 8, 9). It is nine beads in width, and although imperfect, is still nearly four feet long. On a dark ground of the costly purple wampum there is the device of a council-hearth in what was probably the centre of the belt, flanked on one side by four and on the other side by three double calumets, i.e. double-headed peace-pipes, each possessing a bowl at both ends. Of course a pipe of this sort is of no use for smoking. It is a creation of the heraldic imagination, like the double-headed eagle of some modern European powers. This, first appearing on the arms of the German Emperor in the middle of the fourteenth century, may have been derived through contact with the East from Hittite bas-reliefs, as the cherub of our grave-stone cutters is derived through the Hebrews from the Assyrians, and the symbolic design of the Good Shepherd from the old type of Hermes, the ram-bearing god.