[Third in a series] – 1 2 3 4

In considering how ICTs can be used in regard to processing Indigenous knowledge, Barbara Schoenhoff poses this question: “Still, how do you incorporate this on a computer system? By computerizing the proverbs or proverbializing the computer system” (99)? As the past conversation has illustrated, the first suggestion – computerizing the proverbs – is not effective. The second suggestion, however, if not taken rhetorically, leads us to a strange place. To imagine technology that operates in a manner that responds to the nature of Indigenous knowledge is to imagine a new mode of technological practice. This requires us to adopt a new paradigm, one that acknowledges that, “indigenization means not just enlisting ICTs to do things with tradition, but enlisting tradition to do things with ICTs. In keeping with the general tenet of human-machine relations, indigenous ICT users may tend to cognize and manipulate these tools differently based upon and in accordance with indigenous idioms” (Landzelius, 296). Let us next explore how such Indigenous idioms might inform the design of ICTs.

Indigenous Memory Technologies: Lukasa, Wiigwaasabak, and Wampum

Indigenous peoples not only employ stories and oral tradition to remember, but many have used physical memory technologies as well. This section will present three such technologies as we prepare to explore their implications for ICT design: The lukasa of the Luba, the wiigwaasabak of the Ojibwa, and the wampum of the Haudenosaunee.

Lukasa, or memory boards are hand-held wooden objects covered with beads, pins, cowrie shells and carvings, “that present a conceptual map of fundamental aspects of Luba culture. They are at once illustrations of the Luba political system, historical chronicles of the Luba state, and territorial diagrams of local chiefdoms” (Nooter, 58). They were traditionally interpreted and read by members of the Mbudye, a kinship society rigorously trained in the secret knowledge passed on through the lukasa. The boards served as evocative mnemonics – far from being stable texts, they served to assist the Mbudye in their performances by providing a coded interpretative framework for embellishment. These people – these keepers of memory – advance “through a series of stages within the society as they master successive levels of arcane knowledge. Only those at the apex of the association can decipher and interpret the lukasa’s intricate designs and motifs” (Memory Board, 1).

Like the lukasa, the wiigwaasabakoon of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) – and also the Abenaki, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc peoples, among others – were used as memory technologies. Instead of wood, beads, and shells, these items were scrolls made of birch bark etched with pictographs. A wiigwaasabak was used by members of the Medewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) to recall songs and stories. Quoting Colonel Garrick Mallery’s paper “Recently Discovered Algonkian Pictographs” written in 1888, Walter Hoffman writes:

“The devices are not only mnemonic, but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely invented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved therefrom. To persons acquainted with secret societies a good comparison for the charts or rolls would be what is called the tressel board of the Masonic order, which is printed and published and publicly exposed without exhibiting any of the secrets of the order, yet is not only significant, but useful to the esoteric in assistance to their memory as to degrees and details of ceremony” (288).

Note that even though an individual might gaze upon one of the scrolls, unless they were initiated into the mysteries of the Medewiwin, they would not be able to interpret the meaning. As in the case of the Lukasa, the meaning is negotiated in performative interpretation by people trained in the art.

Lastly, let us consider some aspects of the wampum belts of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). These belts were constructed with beads made from quahog shells, “in which the various designs of beads denoted different ideas according to a definitely accepted system, which could be read by anyone acquainted with wampum language, irrespective of what the spoken language was” (Sidis). The belts were used for treaties, commemorative purposes, tribute, ransom, marriage proposals, burials, and other important occasions. Unlike the Luba and the Ojibwa, the Haudenosaunee did not keep secret the language of the wampum, although with every law that was passed by the Iroquois Council, “the treaty or law that went with the wampum was memorized by certain trained individuals” (Tehanetorens, 12). Because of their central location within the Six Nations, the Onondaga Nation is recognized as the official keepers of the wampum belts.