Education of Children according to the Codex Mendoza.
For most interesting specimens of Aztec picture-writing as well as their supposed explanation, we refer the reader to the Gemelli Carreri and Boturini Migration maps in the Atlas of Garcia y Cubas, or in the second volume of Mr. Bancroft’s work, which are the only places where they are to be found correctly reproduced. Mr. Delafield sought to find an analogy between the Aztec and Egyptian hieroglyphic systems on no other ground than that both were representative, symbolic and phonetic, a most wonderful discovery indeed.[622] Notwithstanding this fact, and many similar efforts, no marked analogy between the Aztec picture-writing and the hieroglyphic systems of any other peoples has yet been pointed out.[623]
Map of Yucatan.—We have found it impossible in this chapter to convey any adequate idea of the number and extent of the ruins scattered over Central America and Mexico. Only by reference to an accurately prepared map, having distinctness and detail, can a proper understanding of this interesting field be reached. Maps of Northern and Central Mexico alone, meeting the requirements, have for some time been accessible, but a reliable map of Yucatan and of neighboring States has long been a desideratum. This great want has recently been supplied by the publication in New York of a rare specimen of cartography, bearing the title, Mapa de la Peninsula de Yucatan, compilado por Joaquin Hübbe y Andres Azuar Perez y revisado y aumentado con datos importantes por C. Hermann Berendt, 1878—size, 28 × 36 inches. Stephens, in his work on Yucatan, indicated the sites of many remains discovered by him; but Señor Perez has for the first time brought before us a view of the whole field, including Yucatan and Campeachy, together with the greater part of Tabasco and Belize, and portions of Guatemala and Chiapas, showing, by means of appropriate symbols, the great number of known ruins. The map has met with merited approval from the American Antiquarian Society, and has been reproduced in Dr. A. Petermann’s Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt, Gotha, Band 25, No. VI, 1879.
CHAPTER IX.
CHRONOLOGY, CALENDAR SYSTEMS AND RELIGIOUS ANALOGIES.
No Mound-builder Chronology known—Maya Calendar—Landa on the Calendar—Maya Days—Maya Months—The Katun—The Ahau Katun or Great Cycle—The Maya System Adjusted to our Chronology—The Adjustment by Perez—Intercalary Days—The Nahua Calendar—The Sources—Divisions of Mexican Calendar—The Aztec Year—The Nemontemi—Aztec Months—Aztec Days—Nahua Ritual Calendar—Mexican Calendar Stone—Sources of Interpretation—History of the Stone—Interpretation of the Stone—Date of the Origin of the Calendar Stone—Date of the Nahua Migration—Analogies with the Nahua Calendar—Religious Analogies—Jewish Analogies—Deluge Traditions—Supposed Parallels in Jewish and Mexican History—Analogies of Doctrine—Analogies of Ceremonial Law—Yucatanic Trinity Myth—Mexican and Asiatic Analogies—Buddhism in the New World—Scandinavian Analogies—Mexican and Greek Analogies—Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Comparisons.
Chronology and Calendar Systems.—No tablet or relic of Mound-builder origin has yet been discovered, which can be said to give any clue to the system of chronology employed by that people. Several supposed calendar stones have been found, such, for instance, as the Cincinnati Tablet referred to in Chapter I, and the Tablet from Mississippi in the possession of Wm. Marshall Anderson, Esq., of Circleville, Ohio. However, their character is only a matter of conjecture, since no progress whatever has been made toward evolving any system from them. Farther south, on the soil where a higher civilization flourished, we meet with two calendar systems, which, while they have several points of resemblance, are quite distinct from each other.
The first of these, the Maya, is probably the most ancient. Bishop Landa is our chief authority in this field, though Don Juan Pio Perez, a more recent writer, also familiar with the Maya language, has furnished us some material.[624] Bishop Landa informs us that the Mayas had a year of 365 days and 6 hours divided into months (a month being called a U) in two ways, first into months of thirty days each, and second, into eighteen months of twenty days each. As the Bishop makes no explanation of the former statement, we are unable to determine whether the months of thirty days each were employed in Yucatan prior to the conquest, or not, but we are rather inclined to the opinion that they were not.