[emilga]

It would be so cool if the Native Americans independently discovered the Method of Loci (or something similar)! If so, I wonder if they also developed the same rules of thumb as the Greeks/Romans, like: space your loci apart, always view your loci from the same angle, store a fixed number of items at each loci, etc.

I'm aware of one interesting example where someone created a memory palace around an object that's not a building (or a route along a street). IIRC a person became blind and wanted to write a book, so s/he stored plot points at different parts of an intricate vase s/he was familiar with. (In medieval Europe, the fingers of the left hand were also used for memory purposes.)

Using a stylized bird gives you readily apparent loci: the beak, the head, each of the three feathers of each wing, etc.

Magnifying the bird and turning it into a path is clever, since your sense of place, amount of fatigue while walking, and on which side the sun hits you, would all help cement the route in your memory.

[honopu]

Memory Palace, as in used for memorization, is covered in Moonwalking with Einstein (a book). It's certainly an interesting way to memorize things, in this case competitions for memorizing a deck of cards.