In the 19th century, the Torres Strait Islanders did not have a numeral system and used sticks to keep counts. Sticks were tied to a string, forming a bundle (called kupe) that could be rolled and unrolled when needed. Kupes were typically used by men to keep track of their accomplishments, such as turtles caught in deep water, fishes speared, or adventures with women (as the one above). These physical visualizations were used as social displays, and big kupes were greatly prized. According to Haddon (1912): These tallies are left entirely to a man's honour; a man may have doubts about the correctness of another's tally, but he would never dare single-handed to express an opinion doubting it. Sometimes a crowd may chaff a man whom they suspect of chearing and get him to confess that he was only 'gammoning'". Kupes have elements of self-logging, as well as using physical visualizations for social purposes (see our entries on SweatAtoms and Meshu.io). They were first reported by British biologist and anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon after a 1898 expedition, but they are likely much older. Tallies were used all over the world and some of them are very old. The prehistoric artefacts found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa included a piece of ochre on which tally marks were seemingly made, as well as pierced shells that seem to have been strung on cord and worn. These artefacts date back from between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years. Sources: Alfred Cort Haddon (1912) Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Volume 4. pp 262-263. Wikipedia. Alfred Cort Haddon. Wikipedia. Blombos Cave.

Women from the Yakama Native American tribe used strings of hemp as personal diaries. Each major event in their life was represented by a knot, a bead or a shell. This mnemonic device is called an Ititamat, or counting-the-days ball, or simply time ball. The first image shows an Ititamat created before 1920. On the second image, each string is a different Ititamat. The last image shows a 2003 replica. A young woman would use a time ball to record her courtship, marriage, and other experiences using a system of knots and beads that only she could decipher. As she grew older, a woman might have several time balls with which to share her life story or keep those memories private. When she passed on, they were buried with her. The ball of twine grew in size as time passed and as events occurred. The women would sometimes divide the twine into 25-year lengths to make it more manageable. When the women were very old, they could use the knots and beads of their time balls to recall not only what happened in their lives but when the events occurred. They could easily recount when their children were born, when they moved away, and other major experiences. Also see our entry on Torres Strait Islanders tallies and on the Polynesian Genealogical Instrument. Sources: Helen H. Schuster (1990) The Yakima. pp. 33-35. Lone Grey Squirrel (2007) Time Ball. Marjanović D., Štorga M., Škec S., Bojčetić N., Pavković N. (2018) Data Objects: Design Principles for Data physicalization. First image from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Second image from Schuster's book (ibid). p. 35. Third image from ideiasdefora.com. Artefact exhibited in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Washington D. C.