ANCIENT LANGUAGES OF THE FIRST INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.
Letter to M. Champollion, on the Graphic Systems of America, and the Glyphs of Otolum or Palenque, in Central America.—By C. S. Rafinesque.
You have become celebrated by deciphering, at last, the glyphs and characters of the ancient Egyptians, which all your learned predecessors had deemed a riddle, and pronounced impossible to read. You first announced your discovery in a letter. I am going to follow your footsteps on another continent, and a theme equally obscure; to none but yourself can I address with more propriety letters on a subject so much alike in purpose and importance, and so similar to your own labors.
I shall not enter at present into any very elaborate discussion. I shall merely detail, in a concise manner, the object and result of my inquiries, so as to assert my claim to a discovery of some importance in a philological and historical point of view: which was announced as early as 1828 in some journals (three letters to Mr. McCulloch on the American nations), but not properly illustrated. Their full development would require a volume, like that of yours on the Egyptian antiquities, and may follow this perhaps at some future time.
It may be needful to prefix the following principles as guides to my researches, or results of my inquiries:—
1. America has been the land of false systems; all those made in Europe on it are more or less vain and erroneous.
2. The Americans were equal in antiquity, civilization, and sciences, to the nations of Africa and Europe—like them, the children of the Asiatic nations.
3. It is false that no American nations had systems of writing, glyphs, and letters. Several had various modes of perpetuating ideas.
4. There were several such graphic systems in America to express ideas, all of which find equivalents in the east continent.
5. They may be ranged in twelve series, proceeding from the most simple to the most complex.
1st Series.—Pictured symbols or glyphs of the Toltecas, Aztecas, Huaztecas, Skeres, Panos, &c.; similar to the first symbols of the Chinese, invented by Tien-hoang, before the flood and earliest Egyptian glyphs.
2d Series.—Outlines of figures or abridged symbols and glyphs, expressing words or ideas, used by almost all the nations of North and South America, even the most rude; similar to the second kind of Egyptian symbols, and the tortoise letters brought to China by the Longma (dragon and horse) nation of barbarous horsemen, under Sui-gin.
3d Series.—Quipos or knots on strings used by the Peruvians and several other South American nations; similar to the third kind of Chinese glyphs introduced under Yong-Ching, and used also by many nations of Africa.
4th Series.—Wampums, or strings of shells and beads, used by many nations of North America; similar to those used by some ancient or rude nations in all parts of the world, as tokens of ideas.
5th Series.—Runic glyphs or marks, and notches on twigs or lines, used by several nations of North America; consimilar to the Runic glyphs of the Celtic and Teutonic nations.
6th Series.—Runic marks and dots, or graphic symbols, not on strings nor lines, but in rows, expressing words or ideas; used by the ancient nations of North America and Mexico, the Talegas, Aztecas, Natchez, Powhatans, Tuscaroras, &c., and also the Muhizcas of South America; similar to the ancient symbols of the Etruscans, Egyptians, Celts, &c., and the Ho-tu of the Chinese, invented by Tsang-hie, called also the Ko-teu-chu letters, which were in use in China till 827 before our era.
7th Series.—Alphabetical symbols, expressing syllables or sounds, not words, but grouped, and the groups disposed in rows; such is the graphic system of the monuments of Otolum, near Palenque, the American Thebes; consimilar to the groups of alphabetical symbols used by the ancient Libyans, Egyptians, Persians, and also the last graphic system of the Chinese, called Ventze, invented by Sse-hoang.
8th Series.—Cursive symbols in groups, and the groups in parallel rows, derived from the last (which are chiefly monumental), and used in the manuscripts of the Mayas, Guatemalans, &c.; consimilar to the actual cursive Chinese, some demotic Egyptian, and many modifications of ancient graphic alphabets, grouping the letters or syllables.
9th Series.—Syllabic letters, expressing syllables, not simple sounds, and disposed in rows. Such is the late syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, and many graphic inscriptions found in North and South America. Similar to the syllabic alphabets of Asia, Africa, and Polynesia.
10th Series.—Alphabets, or graphic letters, expressing simple sounds, and disposed in rows. Found in many inscriptions, medals, and coins in North and South America, and lately introduced everywhere by the European colonists; similar to the alphabets of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
11th Series.—Abbreviations, or letters standing for whole words, or part of a glyph and graphic delineation, standing and expressing the whole; used by almost all the writing nations of North and South America, as well as Asia, Europe, and Africa.
12th Series.—Numeric system of graphic signs, to express numbers. All the various kinds of signs, such as dots, lines, strokes, circles, glyphs, letters, &c., used by some nations of North and South America, as well as in the eastern continent.
Some years ago, the Society of Geography, of Paris, offered a large premium for a voyage to Guatemala, and a new survey of the antiquities of Yucatan and Chiapa, chiefly those fifteen miles from Palenque, which are wrongly called by that name. I have restored to them the true name of Otolum, which is yet the name of the stream running through the ruins. I should have been inclined to undertake this voyage and exploration myself, if the civil discords of the country did not forbid it. My attention was drawn forcibly to this subject as soon as the account of those ruins, surveyed by Captain Del Rio as early as 1787, but withheld from the public eye by Spain, was published in 1822, in English.
This account, which partly describes the ruins of a stone city seventy-five miles in circuit (length thirty-two English miles, greatest breadth twelve miles), full of palaces, monuments, statues, and inscriptions—one of the earliest seats of American civilization, about equal to Thebes of Egypt—was well calculated to inspire me with hopes that they would throw a great light over American history, when more properly examined.
I have been disappointed in finding that no traveller has dared to penetrate again to that recondite place, and illustrate all the ruins and monuments, with the languages yet spoken all around. The Society of Geography has received many additional accounts, derived from documents preserved in Mexico; but they have not been deemed worthy of the reward offered for a new survey, and have not even been published. The same has happened with Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, in South America, another mass of ancient ruins, and a mine of historical knowledge, which no late traveller has visited or described.
Being, therefore, without hope of any speedy accession to our knowledge of those places, I have been compelled to work upon the materials now extant, which have happily enabled me to do a great deal, notwithstanding all their defects, and throw some light on that part of the history of America.
Philadelphia, January, 1832.