I’ve spent a lot of time in the Andes studying the Quechua, and one thing that really stood out was the repetitive spiral motif in their quipu cords—those knotted string recordings. The pattern isn’t just decorative; each repetition marks a different level of authority. The chief’s cord has the spiral repeated eight times, while the heads of each family line repeat it four times, and the common villagers have it twice. It’s a visual way of encoding hierarchy that the whole community could read at a glance. Another example is the Polynesian tiki carvings, where the same figure is repeated in a circle to represent the cycle of kinship and communal responsibility. It’s like the people left a living puzzle on their artifacts, and I love piecing it together.