Hieroglyphic Records—The Native Books—Authorities—Destruction of the Native Archives by Zumárraga and his Confrères—Picture-writings used after the Conquest for Confession and Law-Suits—Value of the Records—Documents sent to Spain in the Sixteenth Century—European Collections—Lord Kingsborough's Work—Picture-writings retained in Mexico—Collections of Ixtlilxochitl, Siguënza, Gemelli Careri, Boturini, Veytia, Leon y Gama, Pichardo, Aubin, and the National Museum of Mexico—Process of Hieroglyphic Development—Representative, Symbolic, and Phonetic Picture-writing—Origin of Modern Alphabets—The Aztec System—Specimen from the Codex Mendoza—Specimen from Gemelli Careri—Specimen from the Boturini Collection—Probable future success of Interpreters—The Nepohualtzitzin.
The Nahua nations possessed an original hieroglyphic system by which they were able to record all that they deemed worthy of preservation. The art of picture-writing was one of those most highly prized and most zealously cultivated and protected, being entrusted to a class of men educated for the purpose and much honored. The written records included national, historic, and traditional annals, names and genealogical tables of kings and nobles, lists and tribute-rolls of provinces and cities, land-titles, law codes, court records, the calendar and succession of feasts, religious ceremonies of the temple service, names and attributes of the gods, the mysteries of augury and soothsaying, with some description of social customs, mechanical employments, and educational processes. The preparation and guardianship of records of the higher class, such as historical annals and ecclesiastical mysteries, were under the control of the highest ranks of the priesthood, and such records, comparatively few in number, were carefully guarded in the temple archives of a few of the larger cities. These writings were a sealed book to the masses, and even to the educated classes, who looked with superstitious reverence on the priestly writers and their magic scrolls. It is probable that the art as applied to names of persons and places or to ordinary records was understood by all educated persons, although by no means a popular art, and looked upon as a great mystery by the common people. The hieroglyphics were painted in bright colors on long strips of cotton cloth, prepared skins, or maguey-paper—generally the latter—rolled up or, preferably, folded fan-like into convenient books called amatl, and furnished often with thin wooden covers. The same characters were also carved on the stones of public buildings, and probably also in some cases on natural cliffs. The early authorities are unanimous in crediting these people with the possession of a hieroglyphic system sufficiently perfect to meet all their requirements.[642]
DESTRUCTION OF ABORIGINAL RECORDS.
Unfortunately the picture-writings, particularly those in the hands of priests—those most highly prized by the native scholar, those which would, if preserved, have been of priceless value to the students of later times—while in common with the products of other arts they excited the admiration of the foreign invaders, at the same time they aroused the pious fears of the European priesthood. The nature of the writings was little understood. Their contents were deemed to be for the most part religious mysteries, painted devices of the devil, the strongest band that held the people to their aboriginal faith, and the most formidable obstacle in the way of their conversion to the true faith. The destruction of the pagan scrolls was deemed essential to the progress of the Church, and was consequently ordered and most successfully carried out under the direction of the bishops and their subordinates, the most famous of these fanatical destroyers of a new world's literature being Juan de Zumárraga, who made a public bonfire of the native archives. The fact already noticed, that the national annals were preserved together in a few of the larger cities, made the task of Zumárraga and his confrères comparatively an easy one, and all the more important records, with very few probable exceptions, were blotted from existence. The priests, however, sent some specimens, either originals or copies, home to Europe, where they attracted momentary curiosity and were then lost and forgotten. Many of the tribute-rolls and other paintings of the more ordinary class, with perhaps a few of the historical writings, were hidden by the natives and thus saved from destruction. Of these I shall speak hereafter.[643]
After the zeal of the priests had somewhat abated, or rather when the harmless nature of the paintings was better understood, the natives were permitted to use their hieroglyphics again. Among other things they wrote down in this way their sins when the priests were too busy to hear their verbal confessions. The native writing was also extensively employed in the many lawsuits between Aztecs and Spaniards during the sixteenth century, as it had been employed in the courts before the conquest. Thus the early part of the century produced many hieroglyphic documents, not a few of which have been preserved, and several of which I have in my library. During the same period some fragments that had survived the general destruction were copied and supplied with explanations written with European letters in Aztec, or dictated to the priests who wrote in Spanish. The documents, copies, and explanations of this time are of course strongly tinctured with Catholic ideas wherever any question of religion is involved, but otherwise there is no reason to doubt their authenticity.[644]
VALUE OF THE NATIVE RECORDS.
To discuss the historical value of such Aztec writings as have been preserved, or even of those that were destroyed by the Spaniards, or the accuracy of the various interpretations that have been given to the former, forms no part of my purpose in this chapter. Here I shall give a brief account of the preserved documents, with plates representing a few of them as specimens, and as clear an idea as possible of the system according to which they were painted. Respecting the theory, supported by a few writers, that the Aztecs had no system of writing except the habit common to all savage tribes of drawing rude pictures on the rocks and trees, that the statements of the conquerors on the subject are unfounded fabrications, the specimens handed down to us mere inventions of the priests, and their interpretations consequently purely imaginary, it is well to remark that all this is a manifest absurdity. On the use of hieroglyphics the authorities, as we have seen, all agree; on their destruction by the bishops they are no less unanimous; even the destroyers themselves mention the act in their correspondence, glorying in it as a most meritorious deed. The burning was moreover perfectly consistent with the policy of the Church at that time, and its success does not seem extraordinary when we consider the success of the priests in destroying monuments of solid stone. The use of the aboriginal records in the Spanish courts for a long period is undeniable. The priests had neither the motive nor the ability to invent and teach such a system. Respecting the historical value of the destroyed documents, it is safe to believe that they contained all that the Aztecs knew of their past. Having once conceived the idea of recording their annals, and having a system of writing adequate to the purpose, it is inconceivable that they failed to record all they knew. The Aztecs derived their system traditionally from the Toltecs, whose written annals they also inherited; but none of the latter were ever seen by any European, and, according to tradition, they were destroyed by a warlike Aztec king, who wished the glory of his own kingdom to overshadow that of all others, past, present, or future. If the hieroglyphics of the Nahua nations beyond the limits of Anáhuac differed in any respect from those of the Aztecs, such differences have not been recorded.[645]