Nodular writing is a unique phenomenon in human culture. This is a type of writing that uses threads (cords) as a carrier of information, and knots, as well as thread colors, to encode it. Nodal writing was designed to convey certain information. With the help of such a message, a person could tell almost everything.
The emergence of nodular writing is associated with the invention of the thread, which dates back to about the 5th millennium BC. At the beginning, the letters created with the help of variously tied knots were more of a ritual and in some cases counting character.
The ancient mnemonic and counting system of the Incas, the kipu, is a complex rope weave and knots made from the wool of the South American camelids (alpaca and llama) or cotton. The kippu can be from several hanging threads up to 2000. It was used to transmit messages by messengers of the chapel along specially laid imperial roads, as well as in various aspects of public life (as a calendar, topographic system, for fixing taxes and laws, etc.) … One of the Spanish chroniclers (José de Acosta) wrote that “the entire Inca empire was ruled by means of the kipu” and no one could avoid those who carried out the calculations using the nodes.
The use of knotted cords as a means of keeping records is described in some Chinese texts. In ancient China, they were used to exercise control. Later, the Chinese replaced them with written signs and numbers. In the days of Zhan Cheng, Xuan Yuan, Fu Xi and Shen-nong, people tied knots to communicate with each other. To mark an important matter, a rope was used to tie a large knot; a small knot was tied to indicate a minor matter. The number of nodes corresponded to the number of cases to be dealt with.
According to Furlani, ropes with knots in the religion of Ancient Babylon were used for magical rites of bewitchment in order to deprive any limb of strength or paralyze the action of evil forces, to stop the disease, when untiing the knot meant the destruction of the spell.
The traditional Jewish prayer blanket, the tallit, has knots in the 7-8-11-13 curling ends, about which all sorts of guesses have been put forward to encode gematric information regarding the Hebrew name of God or the 613 commandments of Judaism.
Among the North American Indians, the wampum served a variety of purposes. They are cylindrical beads strung on cords from Busycotypus canaliculatus shells. These belts among the Algonquins and especially among the Iroquois had a number of special functions: they were an adornment of clothing, served as a currency unit, and most importantly, various important messages were transmitted with their help. Among the Iroquois tribes, such wampums were usually delivered by special messengers - wampum-bearers. The development of wampum records would, in all likelihood, lead to the creation of writing among the North American Indians.
The historian Nordenskjold pointed out that the Indians of Colombia and Panama also had ropes with knots, in Central America and Mexico (both in the central part and in the north), in the Amazon and even in Polynesia. Baudin argued that the kipu was in Popayan, the Orinoco Caribbean, the North American Indian tribes, the Mexicans before the codes, and the inhabitants of the Marquesas. The historian Padre José Guevara also mentioned that the Tupa-Guaraní Indians told about their traditions with the help of the kipu, and Padre Lozano, that the Diagitians from Andalgal had it and used it in 1611. Jacques Pere reported on the use in a religious ceremony of the undukuru subject ("beads helping to memorize", indicating the order and phases of performing ritual dances), similar to the kipu in French Guyana among a tribe descended from the Tupi-Guarani people,who lived in the Amazon region and settled in Guyana.
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Ropes with knots were also found in other lands among various peoples: on about. Ryukyu, the Caroline Islands, Hawaii, some mountainous regions of California, West Africa, the Mongols, and also Europe.