Native peoples of the Americas: Communication

Writing is something we take for granted. This allows us to record and read many things - from facts to feelings. Of course, we did get a little help in developing written English. Our alphabet was invented by the Romans. Our numbers were invented by the Arabs. Printing was invented by the Chinese.

Native Americans did not get this level of help. The result was that most peoples never developed any written language at all.

	Stage one: oral tradition
	These are stories passed by word of mouth. American people stored their stories and histories in their heads. Of course, memories are not perfect. How many times has your memory let you down? How many times have you changed details of a story you passed on to make it sound better?
	Stage two: memory joggers
	Woodland Indians used wampum belts made up of white and purple beads. Their patterns represented information - this jogged the memory to remember the details. The keepers of the wampum used these belts to tell the history of the tribe by "reading" the patterns. The Incas invented a system which was a little like the wampum. Their quipis had a number of strings. These were usually used for counting, using coloured knots in the strings. However, these could be used as a memory jogger for storytellers. The university in Cuzco had a "library" of quipis.
	Stage three: writing
	Only the Maya and Aztecs developed writing. They each used hieroglyphics. This means picture writing. This idea was not new. Thousands of years ago the Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics. It is quite remarkable that the Aztecs and Maya invented something so silimar. Some people believe that there must have been some contact with the Old World for this to have happened. Aztec writing was made up of: - pictograms - pictures showing something, e.g. an event - ideograms - pictures used to show ideas, e.g. that a god was powerful - phonetics - pictures used to show how things sounded All figures were shown from the side. Important people were drawn larger than others. These hieroglyphics were limited as they were too simple to pass on complicated information or ideas. The Maya invented complicated hieroglyphics. Archaeologists discovered that these pictures told histories. In 1959 experts discovered that the Maya used "emblem glyphs" to stand for individual places. By the 1960s experts were putting together Mayan history. Unfortunately, we still do not understand about a third of the 800 hieroglyphics discovered so far.

So, with little or no writing, many of the secrets of America will remain unknown.

James Green: Native peoples of the Americas, Oxford University Press, 1993, page 46 f.