Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

[1082] Prehist. Man, ii. 57, 64, for his views

[1083] Bancroft, Native Races, ii. ch. 17 (pp. 542, 552) gives a good description of the Aztec system, with numerous references; but on this system, and on the hieroglyphic element in general, see Gomara; Bernal Diaz; Motolinia in Icazbalceta’s Collection, i. 186, 209; Ternaux’s Collection, x. 250; Kingsborough, vi. 87; viii. 190; ix. 201, 235, 287, 325; Acosta, lib. vi. cap. 7; Sahagún, i. p. iv.; Torquemada, i. 29, 30, 36, 149, 253; ii. 263, 544; Las Casas’s Hist. Apologética; Purchas’s Pilgrimes, iii. 1069; iv. 1135; Clavigero, ii. 187; Robertson’s America; Boturini’s Idea, pp. 5, 77, 87, 96, 112, 116; Humboldt’s Vues, i. 177, 192; Veytia, i. 6, 250; Gallatin in Am. Ethn. Soc. Trans. i. 126, 165; Prescott’s Mexico, i. ch. 4; Brasseur’s Nat. Civ., i. pp. xv, xvii; Domenech’s Manuscrit pictographique, introd.; Mendoza, in the Boletin Soc. Mex. Geog., 2^de ed. i. 896; Madier de Montjau’s Chronologie hiéroglyphico-phonetic des rois Aztèques, de 1322 à 1522, with an introduction “sur l’Ecriture Méxicaine;” Lubbock’s Prehistoric Times, 279, and his Origin of Civilization, ch. 2; E. B. Tylor’s Researches into the Early Hist. of Mankind, 89; Short’s No. Amer. of Antiq., ch. 8; Müller’s Chips, i. 317; The Abbé Jules Pipart in Compte-rendu, Congrès des Amér. 1877, ii. 346; Isaac Taylor’s Alphabets; Foster’s Prehistoric Races, 322; Nadaillac, 376, not to cite others. Bandelier has discussed the Mexican paintings in his paper “On the sources for aboriginal history of Spanish America” in Am. Asso. Adv. Science, Proc., xxvii. (1878). See also Peabody Mus. Reports, ii. 631; and Orozco y Berra’s “Códice Mendozino” in the Anales del Museo Nacional, vol. i. Mrs. Nuttall’s views are in the Peabody Mus., Twentieth Report, p. 567. Quaritch (Catal. 1885, nos. 29040, etc.) advertised some original Mexican pictures; a native MS. pictorial record of a part of the Tezcuco domain (supposed a.d. 1530), and perhaps one of the “pinturas” mentioned by Ixtlilxochitl; a colored Mexican calendar on a single leaf of the same supposed date and origin; with other MSS. of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. (Cf. also his Catal., Jan., Feb., 1888.)

The most important studies upon the Aztec system have been those of Aubin. Cf. his Mémoire sur la peinture didactique et l’écriture figurative des Anciens Méxicains, in the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France, iii. 225 (Revue Orient. et Amér.), in which he contended for the rebus-like character of the writings. He made further contributions to vols. iv. and v. (1859-1861). Cf. his “Examen des anciennes peintures figuratives de l’ancien Méxique,” in the new series of Archives, etc., vol. i.; and the introd. to Brasseur’s Nations Civilisées, p. xliv.

[1084] Bancroft (Nat. Races, ii. ch. 24) translates these from Landa, Peter Martyr, Cogulludo, Villagutierre, Mendieta, Acosta, Benzoni, and Herrera, and thinks all the modern writers (whom he names, p. 770) have drawn from these earlier ones, except, perhaps, Medel in Nouv. Annales des Voyages, xcvii. 49. Cf. Wilson, Prehistoric Man, ii. 61. It will be seen later that Holden discredits the belief in any phonetic value of the Maya system. But compare on the phonetic value of the Mexican and Maya systems, Brinton in Amer. Antiquarian (Nov. 1886); Lazarus Geiger’s Contrib. to the Hist. of the Development of the Human Race (Eng. tr. by David Asher). London, 1880, p. 75; and Zelia Nuttall in Am. Ass. Adv. Sci. Proc., Aug. 1886.

[1085] Dr. Bernoulli, who died at San Francisco, in California, in 1878, and whose labors are commemorated in a notice in the Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft (vi. 710) at Basle, found at Tikal, in Guatemala, some fragments of sculptured panels of wood, bearing hieroglyphics as well as designs, which he succeeded in purchasing, and they were finally deposited in 1879 in the Ethnological Museum in Basle, where Rosny saw them, and describes them, with excellent photographic representations, in his Doc. Ecrits de l’Antiq. Amér. (p. 97). These tablets are the latest additions to be made to the store already possessed from Palenqué, as given by Stephens in his Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan; those of the Temple of the Cross at Palenqué, after Waldeck’s drawings in the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France (ii., 1864); that from Kabah in Yucatan, given by Rosny in his Archives Paléographiques (i. p. 178; Atlas, pl. xx.), and one from Chichen-Itza, figured by Le Plongeon in L’Illustration, Feb. 10, 1882; not to name other engravings. Rosny holds that Rau’s Palenqué Tablet (Washington, 1879) gives the first really serviceably accurate reproduction of that inscription. Cf. on Maya inscriptions, Bancroft, ii. 775; iv. 91, 97, 234; Morelet’s Travels; and Le Plongeon in Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc., n. s., i. 246. This last writer has been thought to let his enthusiasm—not to say dogmatism—turn his head, under which imputation he is not content, naturally (Ibid. p. 282).

[1086] “Landa’s alphabet a Spanish fabrication,” appeared in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., April, 1880. In this, Philipp J. J. Valentini interprets all that the old writers say of the ancient writings to mean that they were pictorial and not phonetic; and that Landa’s purpose was to devise a vehicle which seemed familiar to the natives, through which he could communicate religious instruction. His views have been controverted by Léon de Rosny (Doc. Ecrits de la Antiq. Amér. p. 91); and Brinton (Maya Chronicles, 61), calls them an entire misconception of Landa’s purpose.

[1087] Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc., n. s., i. 251.

[1088] Troano MS., p. viii.

[1089] Relation, Brasseur’s ed., section xli.

[1090] This is given in the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France, ii. pl. iv.; in Brasseur’s ed. of Landa; in Bancroft’s Nat. Races, ii. 779; in Short, 425; Rosny (Essai sur le déchiff. etc., pl. xiii.) gives a “Tableau des caractères phonétique Mayas d’après Diégo de Landa et Brasseur de Bourbourg.”