Each of these peculiarities represented a
certain number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but _what_, not the
most fluent _quipu_ reader could tell unless he was acquainted with the
general topic treated of. Therefore, whenever news was sent in this
manner a person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal commentator,
and to prevent confusion the _quipus_ relating to the various
departments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses, one for
war, another for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On what
principle or mnemotechnics the ideas were connected with the knots and
colors we are totally in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they
had any application beyond the art of numeration.[14-2] Each combination
had, however, a fixed ideographic value in a certain branch of
knowledge, and thus the _quipu_ differed essentially from the Catholic
rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of
North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been
compared.
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