El modelo de Max Uhle para el estudio de los "quipus", a la luz de sus notas inéditas de trabajo de campo (1894-1897)

Abstract

This article illustrates the European models that were applied to the study of the quipu during the XIX century. Emphasis is given to the proposal of German archaeologist Max Uhle (1856-1944), who endorsed the diffusionist theory in vogue at that time. Personal, academic, scientific and socio-political circumstances prevalent at the time of Uhle’s expedition to La Paz, Bolivia, are reconstructed here, including his search and acquisition of Aimara’s modern quipus for the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlín), and for the Free Museum of Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). Field-work around the Altiplano farms (haciendas) is described, since it is on the basis of the personal relationship he developed with the local people that he obtained help in deciphering the record-knots of the quipus, and in translating the information from Aimara into Spanish. By reading his articles about the quipus it is possible to examine the development of his thinking about modern quipus. Uhle’s unpublished personal notebooks and his correspondence with the German ethnographer Adolf Bastian (1826- 1905), also unpublished, served as sources of information.