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banana sellers in Lagos, Nigeria

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i love this photo of alice coltrane

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girls education in south sudan, sudão do sul, sara hylton

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Quipu

A Quipu (khipu) was a method used by the Incas and other ancient Andean cultures to keep records and communicate information using string and knots. In the absence of an alphabetic writing system, this simple and highly portable device achieved a surprising degree of precision and flexibility. Quipu could record dates, statistics, accounts, and even abstract ideas. Quipu are still used today across South America.

Quipu use a wide variety of colours, strings, and sometimes several hundred knots all tied in various ways at various heights. These combinations can even represent, in abstract form, key episodes from traditional folk stories and poetry. In recent years scholars have also challenged the traditional view that quipu were merely a memory aid device and go so far as to suggest that quipu may have been progressing towards narrative records and so becoming a viable alternative to written language just when the Inca Empire collapsed.

Method

A typical quipuconsists of a horizontal string or even wooden bar, from which hang any number of knotted and coloured strings made from either cotton or wool. Some of the larger quipu have as many as 1500 strings, and these could also be woven in different ways suggesting this, too, had a meaning. The various colour shades used could also carry a specific meaning. So, too, the type of knot, the position of it on the string, the total number of knots and the sequence of the knots could all combine to create a potentially huge number of meanings. The whole method was based on a decimal positional system, with the largest decimal used being 10,000. The Inca mathematical system was almost exactly the same as our own system in use today. The numbers or units in the system on a particular quipu are indicated by the strings furthest from the primary string, acting as a sort of key.

Different types of knot had different meanings. For example, a knot could indicate a number from one to nine by the turns of string within the knot, a figure-of-eight knot could indicate a fixed value, a ‘granny’ knot equalled ten, and a string missing a knot signified zero. Secondary strings could also hang from any single string and these could indicate that this string was an exception or of secondary importance to the other strings. Finally, individual quipu could join with others in a specific and meaningful sequence.

Naturally, to maximise the quipu’s potential for information storage, it was better to have an accompanying oral record and so there grew a body of experts or masters, the khipu kamayuq (also quipucamayos). These individuals memorized the oral account which fully explained a particular quipu and, as the job was hereditary, the oral part was passed from generation to generation. There was a certain pressure attached to the job, however, as lapses in memory could be severely punished.

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Pomo basketry artist, Mabel McKay (1974)

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Hello, this land is MY LAND.

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“I keep the beacon lit so love might see me.”

— Deborah A. Miranda, Touch

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While erigmally made as toys for young children, Pomo and Maidu dolls became popular with collectors for their unique appearances

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Hudson (USA, 1865–1937)

The #Dove Place (Ma-yu-ma), 1916 (No. 492)

Oil on Canvas

Private Collection (L.6.1.2005) - on display at Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah, CA

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Grace Hudson (USA, 1865–1937)

The Foxes, 1919 (No. 533)

Oil on canvas

Private Collection (Loan No. 26.2.98) - On display at Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah, CA (2002-11-1)

"When Kole-pi-ta [Culin Mitchell] had measles, she was peevish, restless and hard to please and was very trying until the old grandfather brought in a fox kitten. By the time Kole-pi-ta had recovered, the fox was named Con-cu and established as a member of the family under the protection of her indulgent parents.

Con-cu took kindly to domesticity - ate, played and slept with Kole-pi-ta - and she adopted many of his woodsy habits. On warm autumn days when she should be in the mission school with the other children, she is frivoling in the woods with Con-cu - climbing trees; hunting mice, grubs, berries; or sporting in the leaves.

When drying meat, fish, or fruit are scattered or missing or any other light mischief done in the [Indian] Rancheria, the injured lay it to the 'foxes!'

- Grace Hudson

Grace herself had a pet fox when she was young, along with pet squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, civet cats, and doves. She remembered her fox fondly as a ‘jolly, affectionate little fellow, and always up to something.’”

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australia

Two icons in the same shot? It's a big yes from us 🙌 Head to @visitcentralaus in @ntaustralia to marvel at the striking formations of @seeuluru and Kata Tjuṯa, pictured here, both of which hold deep and sacred significance to the local Aṉangu people ❤️

📸: @lolahubner and @shotbyjira

📍: Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park, @visitcentralaus, @ntaustralia

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How this community from Tibet is modernising a centuries-old braiding tradition

Thirty-five-year-old Yangram, who lives in northwestern Tibet, began braiding her sisters’ hair at the age of 12. The nomadic herding tribes that live here are known for the unique traditional style of 108 Braids, a reference to the 108 holy volumes of Tibetan Buddhism.

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Music in space! Astronaut Ellen Ochoa lays down a melody in the flight deck aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, April 1993. Dr. Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in space on the mission (STS-56) & flew a total of 4 times totalling nearly 41 days during her space flight career. Selected in 1990 by NASA, she flew aboard Atlantis twice & once more on Discovery. In 2013, she became director of the Johnson Space Center. Incredible career in space!

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Nora AlMatrooshi

Nora AlMatrooshi, the first Emirati woman astronaut, worked as a piping engineer before becoming an astronaut candidate for the United Arab Emirates. https://mbrsc.ae/team/nora/

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