[8]. The first copy of Landa’s alphabet published in the United States was by myself in the American Historical Magazine, 1870. Twenty years later, 1890, in my Essays of an Americanist, p. 242, I reproduced a photographic fac-simile of it from the original MS. Though not without considerable value in certain directions, I do not think it worth while to dwell upon it here.
Bishop Landa’s important work, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, written about 1570, must be carefully read by every student on this branch. It has been twice published, first by the Abbé Brasseur, at Paris, 1864, and more fully at Madrid, under the competent editorship of Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado, in 1884. On the relative merits of the two editions, see my “Critical Remarks on the Editions of Diego de Landa’s Writings,” in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1887.
[9]. The Abbé Brasseur’s whimsical speculations are in his introduction to the Codex Troano, published by the French government in 1869. The chief work of de Rosny on the subject is his Essai sur le Déchiffrement de l’Ecriture Hiératique de l’Amérique Centrale, folio, Paris, 1876. He fully recognizes, however, that there are also ideographic and pictorial characters as well as phonetic.
[10]. Dr. Le Plongeon’s “Alphabet” was published in the Supplement to the Scientific American, New York, for January, 1885.
[11]. At the time of his unexpected death, Dr. Cresson had left with me a full exposition of his theory. His enthusiasm was unbounded, and the sacrifices he had made in the pursuit of archæological science merit for his memory a kindly recognition among students of this subject.
[12]. Palenqué et la Civilisation Maya (Paris, 1888). The “Alphabet phonétique des anciens Mayas” is on pp. 10 sqq. The author was at one time attached to the French legation in Guatemala.
[13]. In the American Anthropologist, Washington, D. C.
[14]. See my Library of Aboriginal American Literature, No. 1: The Maya Chronicles, Introduction, pp. 37–50 (Philadelphia, 1882).
[15]. Vincente Pineda, Gramatica de la Lengua Tzel-tal, pp. 154, sqq. (Chiapas, 1887). Pineda makes the multiplier 400 instead of 20, in which he is certainly in error.
[16]. The object portrayed is evidently a shell, probably selected as a rebus; but the name of the species I have not found. The ordinary terms are puy and xicin.