Quite another and a more perfect method of writing prevailed among the Mayas of Yucatan and Central America. Their books were exceedingly neat, and strongly resembled an ordinary quarto volume, such as appears on European bookshelves. I have so lately discussed their manufacture, and the so-called alphabet in which they were written, and in a work of such easy access, that it is enough if I quote the conclusions there arrived at.[10] They are:—
1. The Maya graphic system was recognized, from the first, to be distinct from the Mexican.
2. It was a hieroglyphic system, known only to the priests and a few nobles.
3. It was employed for a variety of purposes, prominent among which was the preservation of their history and calendar.
4. It was a composite system, containing pictures (figuras), ideograms (caracteres), and phonetic signs (letras).
The ruins of Palenque, Copan, and other Maya cities, abound in such hieroglyphs.
The natives of Nicaragua, those, at least, of Aztec lineage, made use of parchment volumes, folded into a neat and portable compass, in which they painted, in red and black ink, certain figures, "by means of which," says the chronicler Oviedo, "they could express and understand whatever they wished, with entire clearness."[11]
In South America the Peruvians had their quipus, cords of different lengths, sizes and colors, knotted in various ways, and attached to a base cord, an arrangement that was a decided aid to the memory, though it could not be connected with the sounds of words. There are also faint traces of figures, with definite meaning, among the Muyscas of Colombia; and the Moxos of Western Bolivia are said to have employed, as late as the last century, a method of writing, consisting of lines traced on wooden slabs.[12]
Section 3. Narrative Literature.
Of all forms of sustained discourse, we may reasonably suppose that of narration to have been the earliest. The incidents of the hunt were related at the return; the experiences of the past were told as a guide to the present; and the first efforts of the imagination are the depicting of fictitious occurrences, tradition and myth, story and history; these make up most of the entertainment of conversation to simple minds.