estors
and wrote his book accordingly, but is in the pages of that careful
investigator Montesinos, a pure-blooded Spaniard. As a matter of fact,
to students of Sumner's "Folkways," the story rings true. Some young
fellow, brighter than the rest, developed a system of ideographs
which he scratched on broad, smooth leaves. It worked. People were
beginning to adopt it. The conservative priests of Tampu-tocco did
not like it. There was danger lest some of the precious secrets,
heretofore handed down orally to the neophytes, might become public
property. Nevertheless, the invention was so useful that it began to
spread. There followed some extremely unlucky event--the ambassadors
were killed, the king's plans miscarried. What more natural than
that the newly discovered ideographs should be blamed for it? As a
result, the king of Tampu-tocco, instigated thereto by the priests,
determined to abolish this new thing. Its usefulness had not yet
been firmly established. In fact it was inconvenient; the leaves
withered, dried, and cracked, or blew away, and the writings were
lost. Had the new invention been permitted to exist a little longer,
some one would have commenced to scratch ideographs on rocks. Then it
would have persisted. The rulers and priests, however, found that the
important records of tribute and taxes could be kept perfectly well
by means of the quipus. And the "job" of those whose duty it was to
remember what each string stood for was assured. After all there is
nothing unusual about Montesinos' story. One has only to look at the
history of Spain itself to realize that royal bigotry and priestly
intolerance have often crushed new ideas and kept great nations from
making important advances.

Montesinos says further that Tupac Cauri established in Tampu-tocco
a kind of university where boys were taught the use of quipus, the
method of counting and the significance of the different colored
strings, while their fathers and older brothers were trained in
military exercises--in other words, practiced with the sling, the
bolas and the war-club; perhaps also with bows and arrows. Around the
name of Tupac Cauri, or Pachacuti VII, as he wished to be called,
is gathered the story of various intellectual movements which took
place in Tampu-tocco. Finally, there came a time when the skill and
military efficiency of the little kingdom rose to a high plane. The
ruler and his councilors, bearing in mind the tradition of their