Indigenous American Polygraphy and the Dialogic Model of Media

Abstract

Indigenous American societies pose serious problems for traditional theories of orality, literacy, and writing. This article attempts to deconstruct the orality-literacy dichotomy that has traditionally informed anthropological thought (whether it be of anthropologists, historians, literary critics, or others). Using indigenous American media such as the Andean khipu, Moche fine-line painting, and Mesoamerican iconography as a starting and ending point, it proposes a dialogic model of literacy and subsequently a dialogic model of media that constitutes a revision of the traditional anthropological and historical theory relating to the role of writing/media, its relationship to the development of socioeconomic and political complexity, and its cognitive effects.

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