ABSTRACT
The systematic organization of shapes and colors on surfaces is another way that people around the world have imposed spatial ordering. This chapter focuses on a particular spatial configuration which is widespread throughout many cultures. Although the strips of both the Inca and Maori can be discussed with the same Western terminology, they are remarkably different, as each is expressive of and contributive to the cultural complex in which it appears. The chapter also focuses on figures that are constrained to remain on a strip and are repeated along it with no change in size or shape, there are only a limited number of motions possible. It discusses the symmetry group of the square and the Inca strip patterns later, but for now they are presented solely as illustrations: illustrations of strip patterns and illustrations of Inca creations.
