from other sources, could use the knots as reminders and suggesters by which an event could be kept in memory with more accuracy. These were the Amautas, or learned men and councillors. For them the quipus formed a system of reminders, giving accuracy to knowledge derived from other methods of recording events and traditions. For it cannot be supposed that the system of different coloured knots could do more than supply a sort of aid to memory, or a memoria technica. It is, however, certain that the traditions and records of events were preserved by the Amautas with considerable exactness. There is, for instance, the Paccari-tampu myth. It is told by Garcilasso de la Vega, Cieza de Leon, Betanzos, Balboa, Morua, Montesinos, Salcamayhua and Sarmiento, all agreeing sufficiently closely to prove that precisely the same tradition had been handed down, with the same details, to their various informants. Similarly the details of the Chanca war and other principal events were preserved.
Sarmiento tells us how this was done on the highest authority. He examined thirty-two witnesses of the Inca family in 1571, and his first inquiry was respecting the way in which the memory of historical events was preserved. He was informed that the descendants of each sovereign formed an ayllu or family, whose duty it was to keep the records of the events of his reign. This was done by handing down the histories in the form of narratives and songs which the Amautas of each
