Writing is a relatively recent human phenomenon, having evolved independently in diverse cultures throughout the world at different times. Like other innovations, the symbol system that writing is did not simply appear, but rather it evolved from earlier symbol systems. These earlier symbol systems which evolved into writing are considered to be forms of proto-writing.
In her book The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols, Genevieve von Petzinger writes:
“Many linguists believe that mnemonic devices such as recitation aids and tally sticks are the type of graphic communication closest to proto-writing.”
Genevieve von Petzinger also writes:
“A mnemonic device is, in a general sense, any type of memory aid that assists someone in recalling information.”
Cultures without writing use oral traditions for transmitting cultural histories, mythologies, geographies, laws, genealogies, and other information. This means that information is passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. This information is vital for the continuation of the culture and thus it is important that it be passed down with little change and little loss of information. This means that the stories must be told in the same way each time. Each person telling the story must learn and remember the story. In doing this, the oral traditions of many cultures utilize mnemonic devices.
With regard to American Indian oral traditions, linguist Ofelia Zepeda, in her chapter in Science and Native American Communities: Legacies of Pain, Visions of Promise, writes:
“Oral tradition has patterns, schemas, and mnemonic devices that help you remember individual things and connect them to each other so that you can use each at the right time as well as present them effectively to others.”
There are many different kinds of mnemonic devices which are used in oral religions, religious ceremonies, and other occasions where the past needs to be accurately recalled. In their chapter in the Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, David Barton and Mary Hamilton write:
“A variety of devices have been used, and they are often extremely complex, ranging from the use of notched sticks for calendars and reckoning, to the wampum-beaded belts of the North American Iroquois, with diverse functions including narrating stories and carrying messages.”
In modern religions, the use of Catholic rosary beads may be another example of a mnemonic device.
Among the American Indians of the Columbia Plateau, the ititamat was a hemp string ‘time ball’ that served as a day counter. The string was tied with tiny markers of colored stones, bones, bead, and cloth which provided a mnemonic record of significant events in an individual’s life. The ititamat was generally buried with its creator.
The Tohono O’odham, an American Indian people in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, recorded village history on a Calendar Stick. Markings are carved into the stick—often made from the rib of a saguaro cactus—as mnemonic devices to remind the maker of specific events. Anthropologist Bertha Dutton, in her book The Ranchería, Ute, and Southern Paiute Peoples: Indians of the American Southwest, describes the Calendar Stick:
“Perhaps six feet long, a smooth, slightly flattened inner support of the giant cactus, about an inch and a half in diameter, had mnemonic symbols representing happenings recorded on the smooth side.”
Each of the calendar keepers developed their own symbols.
Among the Native American nations of the Northeast, wampum belts made from seashell beads were used to mark important matters, such as treaties. The designs and colors on these belts served as memory aids in recalling these events in later councils. A wampum belt with one or two rows of white wampum interwoven with black and running through the middle indicated that two nations were friendly with each other. On the other hand, a black belt with the mark of a hatchet on it in red is a war belt.
Among many of the Indian nations of the Plains Culture Area (particularly the Blackfoot, Sioux, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Kiowa), tribal historians would make a pictographic record of the events of the previous year. Candace Greene, in an entry in the Handbook of North American Indians, reports:
“A tribal historian gave each year a name based on a memorable occurrence of the season, and other events could be placed in time by reference to that year name.”
This record, usually recorded on a hide, is called a Winter Count.
With regard to the Sioux, Dennis Smith, in his chapter on the Fort Peck Sioux in The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana, 1800-2000, writes:
“Winter counts were a means of recording history, in which the most important events of each year was recorded in art form on a bison hide.”
Ellen Pearlstein, Lynn Brostoff, and Karen Trentelman, in an article on the Rosebud Winter Count in Plains Anthropologist, report:
“Each motif on a winter count represents a noteworthy or unusual natural, political, or social event in the life of the community.”
Using the Winter Count as a mnemonic aid, a tribal historian was able to teach the people about tribal culture and tribal history.
With regard to the use of representational art as a memory aid among American Indians, Allan Taylor, in his chapter on non-speech communication systems in the Handbook of North American Indians, writes:
“Mnemonic pictography was used chiefly for keeping records, generally as reminders for individual use. Originally these were largely religious and historical in nature, but after White contact commercial transactions were also recorded.”
Allan Taylor also reports:
“The religious use of picture writing was to maintain the correct content and order of chants and spells (sometimes in archaic language), which were memorized.”
Birchbark scrolls were widely used for this, particularly among the tribes of the Great Lakes region.
Another example of art and oral history is seen in the totem pole, one of the icons of the cultures of the Indian nations of the Northwest Coast. There are three aspects to the meaning of a totem pole. First, it is a visible, symbolic representation of family history. Second, the family history is publicly recounted and witnessed. When the pole is erected, a respected orator using ceremonial language traces the names of the family and gives the details of the events which are embodied in the images. In some instances the narrative is presented in dramatic form in which clan members in elaborate costumes dance, sing, and act out the events. Finally, the erection of a totem pole is surrounded by appropriate rituals.
The figures on a totem pole are arranged from top to bottom, but the sequence of the figures is not an indication of their importance. The concept of “low man on the totem pole” is not an expression of Northwest Coast culture as position on the pole is not an indication of rank. Totem poles are a visual record of one’s ancestors which show the social position and antiquity of the family. Museum curator Audrey Hawthorn, in her book Kwakiutl Art, writes:
“it is not possible for an outsider who is ignorant of the ceremonial context to ‘read’ the pole as if it were a glyphic or pictographic presentation of myth or history.”
While mnemonic aids are generally associated with oral traditions and religious rituals, it should be noted that writing per se does not seem to have first emerged in relation to either of these, but rather it seems to have developed as an aid to recordkeeping and accounting in early states. With regard to writing in Mesopotamia, Andrew Kirk, in his chapter in The Grammar of the Ancient World, reports:
“Writing was not invented for religious or literary purposes, however, but in order to keep accounts.”
The transition from mnemonic aids to a full-fledged writing system may be seen in South America with a communication system known as the khipu (also spelled qipu). This system was composed of a series of strings which were tied with knots. While it became known to European scholars when the Spanish conquered the Inka, this form of communication probably predates the Inka and was found among the Wari and other pre-Inka cultures dating back to 5,000 years ago.
The Inka maintained libraries filled with khipus and the Spanish reported that the khipus recorded at least 500 years of history. In 1583, however, the Spanish declared the khipus to be pagan and thus emanating from Satan. Thousands of khipus were burned and those who were able to read them were executed. Today there are perhaps 600 khipus known to researchers and none of these have been decoded.
The Spanish and the historians and archaeologists who came later tended to view the khipu as a mnemonic device, perhaps a bit more complex than a simple set of beads, but a mnemonic aid for story-telling nevertheless. In recent years, however, this view of the khipu as a mnemonic aid in an oral tradition has been challenged. Some scholars are now viewing the khipu as a form of writing based on a binary code. These scholars view the khipu as a writing medium which is very foreign to the western world. They feel that the khipu is a true writing system and was needed for the Inka empire.
In his book Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted String Records, Gary Urton writes:
“…I want to state clearly that although I do not accept the basic tenets of the mnemonic interpretation of the khipu, at least if it is limited to the memory-theater, string-around-the-finger, or rosary type of mnemonics, I think that memory undoubtedly played an important role in the reading of these devices.”
More About Language
A Very Short History of the English Language
Language 201: The Indo-European Language Family
Language 201: Glottochronology and Dating the Evolution of Language
Origins of Language: Oral Traditions
Origins of Language: The Sounds of Language
Origins of Language: The Brain