Abstract
The article focuses on the Native American Indian mnemonics, called khipus, and aims to examine their influence on the western tradition from a comparative anthropological standpoint and not from the ethnocentric question of its comparison with writing. The author, rather than trying to define if Native American techniques of memory are true scripts or simple mnemonics, extends the reflection to the analysis of common formal aspects and mental processes. Thoughts on whether writing and mnemonics belong to the same conceptual universe are presented.