Chapter XIII: Part III: Graphic Systems and Literature (2)

“The natives of Yucatan are, among all the inhabitants of New Spain, especially deserving of praise for three things: First, that before the Spaniards came they made use of characters and letters, with which they wrote out their histories, their ceremonies, the order of sacrifices to their idols, and their calendars, in books made of bark of a certain tree. These were on very long strips, a quarter or a third (of a yard) in width, doubled and folded, so that they resembled a bound book in quarto, a little larger or smaller. These letters and characters were understood only by the priests of the idols (who in that language are called Ahkins) and a few principal natives. Afterwards some of our friars learned to understand and read them, and even wrote them.”[221]

The interesting fact here stated, that some of the early missionaries not only learned to read these characters, but employed them to instruct the Indians, has been authenticated by a recent discovery of a devotional work written in this way.

The earliest historian of Yucatan is Fr. Bernardo de Lizana.[222] But I do not know of a single complete copy of his work, and only one imperfect copy, which is, or was, in the city of Mexico, from which the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg) copied and republished a few chapters. Lizana was himself not much of an antiquary, but he had in his hands the manuscripts left by Father Alonso de Solana, who came to Yucatan in 1565, and remained there til his death, in 1599. Solana was an able man, acquiring thoroughly the Maya tongue, and left in his writings many notes on the antiquities of the country.[223] Therefore we may put considerable confidence in what Lizana writes on these matters.

The reference which I find in his work to the Maya writings is as follows:

“The most celebrated and revered sanctuary in this land, and that to which they resorted from all parts, was this town and temples of Ytzamal, as they are now called; and that it was founded in most ancient times, and that it is still known who did found it, will be set forth in the next chapter.

“III. The history and the authorities which we can cite are certain ancient characters, scarcely understood by many, and explained by some old Indians, sons of the priests of their gods, who alone knew how to read and expound them, and who were believed in and revered as much as the gods themselves, etc.[224]”

We have here the positive statement that these hieroglyphic inscriptions were used by the priests for recording their national history, and that by means of them they preserved the recollection of events which took place in a very remote past.

Another valuable early witness, who testifies to the same effect, is the Dr. Don Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, who was _cura_ of Valladolid, in Yucatan, in 1596, and, later, dean of the chapter of the cathedral at Merida. His book, too, is extremely scarce, and I have never seen a copy; but I have copious extracts from it, made by the late Dr. C. Hermann Berendt from a copy in Yucatan. Aguilar writes of the Mayas:

“They had books made from the bark of trees, coated with a white and durable varnish. They were ten or twelve yards long, and were gathered together in folds, like a palm leaf. On these they painted in colors the reckoning of their years, wars, pestilences, hurricanes, inundations, famines, and other events. From one of these books, which I myself took from some of these idolaters, I saw and learned that to one pestilence they gave the name _Mayacimil_, and to another _Ocnakuchil_, which mean ‘sudden deaths’ and ‘times when the crows enter the houses to eat the corpses.’ And the inundation they called _Hunyecil_, the submersion of trees.”[225]

The writer leaves it uncertain whether he learned these words directly from the characters of the book or through the explanations of some native.

It has sometimes been said that the early Spanish writers drew a broad line between the picture-writing that they found in America and an alphabetic script. This may be true of other parts, but is not so of Yucatan. These signs, or some of them, are repeatedly referred to as “letters,” _letras_.

This is pointedly the case with Father Gabriel de San Buenaventura, a French Franciscan who served in Yucatan about 1670–'80. He published one of the earliest grammars of the language, and also composed a dictionary in three large volumes, which was not printed. Father Beltran de Santa Rosa quotes from it an interesting tradition preserved by Buenaventura, that among the inventions of the mythical hero-god of the natives, _Itzamna_ or _Kinich ahau_, was that of “the letters of the Maya language,” with which letters they wrote their books.[226] Itzamna, of course, dates back to a misty antiquity, but the legend is of value, as showing that the characters used by the natives did, in the opinion of the early missionaries, deserve the name of _letters_.

Father Diego Lopez Cogolludo is the best-known historian of Yucatan. He lived about the middle of the seventeenth century, and says himself that at that time there was little more to be learned about the antiquities of the race. He adds, therefore, substantially nothing to our knowledge of the subject, although he repeats, with positiveness, the statement that the natives “had characters by which they could understand each other in writing, such as those yet seen in great numbers on the ruins of their buildings.”[227]

This is not very full. Yet we know to a certainty that there were quantities of these manuscripts in use in Yucatan for a generation after Cogolludo wrote. To be sure, those in the Christianized districts had been destroyed, wherever the priests could lay their hands on them; but in the southern part of the peninsula, on the islands of Lake Peten and adjoining territory, the powerful chief, Canek, ruled a large independent tribe of Itzas. They had removed from the northern provinces of the peninsula somewhere about 1450, probably in consequence of the wars which followed the dissolution of the confederacy whose capital was the ancient city of Mayapan.

Their language was pure Maya, and they had brought with them in their migration, as one of their greatest treasures, the sacred books which contained their ancient history, their calendar and ritual, and the prophecies of their future fate. In the year 1697 they were attacked by the Spaniards, under General Don Martin de Ursua; their capital, on the island of Flores, in Lake Peten, taken by storm; great numbers of them slaughtered or driven into the lake to drown, and the twenty-one temples which were on the island razed to the ground.

A minute and trustworthy account of these events has been given by Don Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, in the course of which occur several references to the sacred books, which he calls _Analtés_.

The king Canek, he tells us, in reading in his _Analtés_, had found notices of the northern provinces of Yucatan and of the fact that his predecessors had come thence, and had communicated these narratives to his chiefs.[228]

These books are described as showing “certain characters and figures, painted on certain barks of trees, each leaf or tablet about a quarter (of a yard) wide, and of the thickness of a piece of eight, folded at one edge and the other in the manner of a screen, called by them _Analtehes_.”[229]

When the island of Flores was captured these books were found stored in the house of the king Canek, containing the account of all that had happened to the tribe.[230] What disposition was made of them we are not informed.

I have reserved until now a discussion of the description of the Maya writing presented in the well-known work of Diego de Landa, the second bishop of Yucatan. Landa arrived in the province in August, 1549, and died in April, 1579, having passed most of the intervening thirty years there in the discharge of his religious duties. He became well acquainted with the language, which, for that matter, is a comparatively easy one, and though harsh, illiberal, and bitterly fanatic, he paid a certain amount of attention to the arts, religion, and history of the ancient inhabitants.

The notes that he made were copied after his death and reached Spain, where they are now preserved in the library of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid. In 1864 they were published at Paris, with a French translation, by the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg).

Of all writers Landa comes the nearest telling us how the Mayas used their system of writing; but, unfortunately, he also is so superficial and obscure that his words have given rise to very erroneous theories. His description runs as follows:

“This people also used certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books their ancient matters and their sciences, and with them (_i. e._, with their characters or letters), and figures (_i. e._, drawings or pictures), and some signs in the figures, they understood their matters, and could explain them and teach them. We found great numbers in these letters, but as they contained nothing that did not savor of superstition and lies of the devil, we burnt them all, at which the natives grieved most keenly and were greatly pained.

“I will give here an _a_, _b_, _c_, as their clumsiness does not allow more, because they use one character for all the aspirations of the letters, and for marking the parts another, and thus it could go on _in infinitum_, as may be seen in the following example. _Le_ means a noose and to hunt with one; to write in their characters, after we had made them understand that there are two letters, they wrote it with three, giving to the aspiration of the _l_ the vowel _é_, which it carries before it; and in this they are not wrong so to use it, if they wish to, in their curious manner. After this they add to the end the compound part.”[231]

I need not pursue the quotation. The above words show clearly that the natives did not in their method of writing analyze a word to its primitive phonetic elements. “This,” said the bishop, “we had to do for them.” Therefore they did not have an alphabet in the sense of the word as we use it.

On the other hand, it is equally clear, from his words and examples, that they had figures which represented sounds, and that they combined these and added a determinative or an ideogram to represent words or phrases.

FIG. 1.—Fac Simile of Landa’s Manuscript.
]

The alphabet which he inserts has been engraved and printed several times, but nowhere with the fidelity desirable for so important a monument in American archæology. For that reason I insert a photographic reproduction of it from the original MS. in the library of the Academia de la Historia of Madrid.

A comparison of this with the alphabet as given in Brasseur’s edition of Landa discloses several variations of importance. Thus the Abbé places the first form of the letter _C_ horizontally instead of upright. Again in the MS., the two figures for the letter _U_ stand, the first at the end of one line, the second at the beginning of the next. From their strong analogy with the sign of the sky at night, I am of opinion that they belong together as members of one composite sign, not separately as Brasseur gives them.

Both in it and in the inscriptions, manuscripts, and paintings the forms of the letters are rounded, and a row of them presents the outlines of a number of pebbles cut in two. Hence the system of writing has been called “calculiform,” from _calculus_, a pebble. The expression has been criticised, but I agree with Dr. Förstemann in thinking it a very appropriate one. It was suggested, I believe, by the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg).

This alphabet of course, can not be used as the Latin _a_, _b_, _c_. It is surprising that any scholar should have ever thought so. It would be an exception, even a contradiction, to the history of the evolution of human intelligence, to find such an alphabet among nations of the stage of cultivation of the Mayas or Aztecs.

The severest criticism which Landa’s figures have met has been from Dr. Phillip J. J. Valentini. He discovered that many of the sounds of the Spanish alphabet were represented by signs or pictures of objects whose names in the Maya begin with that sound. Thus he supposes that Landa asked an Indian to write in the native character the Spanish letter _a_, and the Indian drew an obsidian knife, which, says Dr. Valentini, is in the Maya _ach_; in other words, it begins with the vowel _a_. So for the sound _ki_, the Indian gave the sign of the day named _kinich_.

Such is Dr. Valentini’s theory of the formation of Landa’s alphabet; and not satisfied with lashing with considerable sharpness those who have endeavored by its aid to decipher the manuscripts and mural inscriptions, he goes so far as to term it “a Spanish fabrication.”

I shall not enter into a close examination of Dr. Valentini’s supposed identification of these figures. It is evident that it has been done by running over the Maya dictionary to find some word beginning with the letter under criticism, the figurative representation of which word might bear some resemblance to Landa’s letter. When the Maya fails, such a word is sought for in the Kiche or other dialect of the stock; and the resemblances of the pictures to the supposed originals are sometimes greatly strained.

But I pass by these dubious methods of criticism, as well as several lexicographic objections which might be raised. I believe, indeed, that Dr. Valentini is not wrong in a number of his identifications. But the conclusion I draw is a different one. Instead of proving that this is picture-writing, it indicates that the Mayas used the second or higher grade of phonetic syllabic writing, which, as I have before observed, has been shown by M. Aubin to have been developed to some extent by the Aztecs in some of their histories and connected compositions (see above, page 231). Therefore the importance and authenticity of Landa’s alphabet are, I think, vindicated by this attempt to treat it as a “fabrication.”[232]

Landa also gives some interesting details about their books. He writes:

“The sciences that they taught were the reckoning of the years, months, and days, the feasts and ceremonies, the administration of their sacraments, the fatal days and seasons, their methods of divination and prophecies, events about to happen, remedies for diseases, their ancient history, together with the art of reading and writing their books with characters which were written, and pictures which represented the things written.

“They wrote their books on a large sheet doubled into folds, which was afterwards inclosed between two boards, which they decorated handsomely. They were written from side to side in columns, as they were folded. They manufactured this paper from the root of a tree and gave it a white surface on which one could write. Some of the principal nobles cultivated these sciences out of a taste for them, and although they did not make public use of them, as did the priests, yet they were the more highly esteemed for this knowledge.”[233]

From the above extracts from Spanish writers we may infer that—

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_).

_3.—References from Native Sources._

We might reasonably expect that the Maya language should contain terms relating to their books and writings which would throw light on their methods. So, no doubt, it did. But it was a part of the narrow and crushing policy of the missionaries not only to destroy everything that related to the times of heathendom, but even to drop all words which referred to ancient usages. Hence the dictionaries are more sterile in this respect than we might have supposed.

The verb “to write” is _dzib_, which like the Greek γράφειν, meant also to draw and to paint. From this are derived the terms _dziban_, something written; _dzibal_, a signature, etc.

Another word, meaning to write, or to paint in black, is _zabac_. As a noun, this was in ancient times applied to a black fluid extracted from the _zabacche_, a species of tree, and used for dyeing and painting. In the sense of “to write,” _zabac_ is no longer found in the language, and instead of its old meaning, it now refers to ordinary ink.

The word for letter or character is _uooh_. This is a primitive root found with the same or a closely allied meaning in other branches of this linguistic stock, as, for instance, in the Kiché and Cakchiquel. As a verb, pret. _uooth_, fut. _uooté_, it also means to form letters, to write; and from the passive form, _uoohal_, we have the participial noun, _uoohan_, something written, a manuscript.

The ordinary word for book, paper, or letter, is _huun_, in which the aspirate is almost mute, and is dropped in the forms denoting possession, as _u uun_, my book, _yuunil Dios_, the book of God, _il_ being the so-called “determinative” ending. It occurs to me as not unlikely that _uun_, book, is a syncopated form of _uoohan_, something written, given above. To read a book is _xochun_, literally to _count_ a book.

According to Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, the name of the sacred books of the Itzas was _analté_. In the printed _Diccionario de la Lengua Maya_, by Don Juan Pio Perez, this is spelled _anahté_, which seems to be a later form.

The term is not found in several early Maya dictionaries in my possession, of dates previous to 1700. The Abbé Brasseur indeed, in a note to Landa, explains it to mean “a book of wood,” but it can have no such signification. Perhaps it should read _hunilté_, this being composed of _hunil_, the “determinative” form of _huun_, a book, and the termination _té_, which added to nouns, gives them a specific sense, _e. g._ _amayté_, a square figure, from _amay_, an angle; _tzucublé_, a province, from _tzuc_, a portion separated from the rest. It would mean especially the sacred or national books.

The particular class of books which were occupied with the calendar and the ritual were called _tzolanté_, which is a participial noun from the verb _tzol_, passive _tzolal_, to set in order, to arrange, with the suffix _té_. By these books were set in order and arranged the various festivals and fasts.

When the conquest was an accomplished fact and the priests had got the upper hand, the natives did not dare use their ancient characters. They exposed themselves to the suspicion of heresy and the risk of being burnt alive, as more than once happened. But their strong passion for literature remained, and they gratified it as far as they dared by writing in their own tongue with the Spanish alphabet volumes whose contents are very similar to those described by Landa.

A number of these are still in existence, and offer an interesting field for antiquarian and linguistic study. Although, as I say, they are no longer in the Maya letters, they contain quite a number of ideograms, as the signs of the days and the months, and occasional cartouches and paintings, which show that they were made to resemble the ancient manuscripts as closely as possible.

They also contain not infrequent references to the “writing” of the ancients, and what are alleged to be extracts from the old records, chiefly of a mystic character. The same terms are employed in speaking of the ancient graphic system as of the present one. Thus in one of them, known as “The Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel,” occurs this phrase: _Bay dzibanil tumenel Evangelistas yetel profeta Balam_—“as it was written by the Evangelists, and also by the prophet Balam,” this Balam being one of their own celebrated ancient seers.

Among the predictions preserved from a time anterior to the Conquest, there are occasional references to their books and their contents. I quote, as an example, a short prophecy attributed to Ahkul Chel, “priest of the idols.” It is found in several of the oldest Maya manuscripts, and is in all probability authentic, as it contains nothing which would lead us to suppose that it was one of the “pious frauds” of the missionaries.

“_Enhi cibte katune yume, maixtan à naaté; Uatac u talel, mac bin ca ɔabac tu coɔ pop; Katune yume bin uluc, holom uil tucal ya; Tali ti xaman, tali ti chikine; ahkinob uil yane yume; Mac to ahkin, mac to ahbobat, bin alic u than uoohe; Yhcil Bolon Ahau, maixtan à naaté?_”

“The lord of the cycle has been written down, but ye will not understand; “He has come, who will give the enrolling of the years; “The lord of the cycle will arrive, he will come on account of his love; “He came from the north, from the west. There are priests, there are fathers, “But what priest, what prophet, shall explain the words of the books, “In the Ninth Ahau, which ye will not understand?”[234]

From this designedly obscure chant we perceive that the ancient priests inscribed their predictions in books, which were afterward explained to the people. The expression _bin alic u than uoohe_—literally, “he will speak the words of the letters”—seems to point to a phonetic writing, but as it may be used in a figurative sense, I shall not lay stress on it.[235]

_4.—The Existing Codices._

The word _Codex_ ought to be confined, in American archæology, to manuscripts in the original writing of the natives. Some writers have spoken of the “Codex Chimalpopoca,” the “Codex Zumarraga,” and the “Codex Perez,” which are nothing more than manuscripts either in the native or Spanish tongues written with the Latin alphabet.

Of the Maya Codices known, only four have been published, which I will mention in the order of their appearance.

_The Dresden Codex._—This is an important Maya manuscript preserved in the Royal Library at Dresden. How or when it came to Europe is not known. It was obtained from some unknown person in Vienna in 1739.

This Codex corresponds in size, appearance, and manner of folding to the descriptions of the Maya books which I have presented above from Spanish sources. It has thirty-nine leaves, thirty-five of which are colored and inscribed on both sides, and four on one side only, so that there are only seventy-four pages of matter. The total length of the sheet is 3.5 meters, and the height of each page is 0.295 meter, the width 0.085 meter.

The first publication of any portion of this Codex was by Alexander von Humboldt, who had five pages of it copied for his work, _Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigenes de l’Amérique_, issued at Paris in 1813 (not 1810, as the title-page has it). It was next very carefully copied in full by the Italian artist, Agostino Aglio, for the third volume of Lord Kingsborough’s great work on _Mexican Antiquities_, the first volume of which appeared in 1831.

From Kingsborough’s work a few pages of the Codex have been from time to time republished in other books, which call for no special mention; and two pages were copied from the original in Wuttke’s _Geschichte der Schrift_, Leipzig, 1872.

Finally, in 1880, the whole was very admirably chromo-photographed by A. Naumaun’s establishment at Leipzig, to the number of fifty copies, forty of which were placed on sale. It is the first work which was ever published in chromo-photography, and has, therefore, a high scientific as well as antiquarian interest.

The editor was Dr. E. Förstemann, aulic counselor and librarian-in-chief of the Royal Library. He wrote an introduction (17 pp. 4to.) giving a history of the manuscript, and bibliographical and other notes upon it of much value. One opinion he defends must not be passed by in silence. It is that the Dresden Codex is not one, but parts of two original manuscripts written by different hands.

It appears that it has always been in two unequal fragments, which all previous writers have attributed to an accidental injury to the original. Dr. Förstemann gives a number of reasons for believing that this is not the correct explanation, but that we have here portions of two different books, having general similarity but also many points of diversity.

This separation led to an erroneous (or perhaps erroneous) sequence of the pages in Kingsborough’s edition. The artist Aglio took first one fragment and copied both sides, and then proceeded to the next one; and it is not certain that in either case he begins with the first page in the original order of the book.

_The Codex Peresianus_, or _Codex Mexicanus, No. II_, of the _Bibliothèque Nationale_ of Paris.—This fragment—for it is unfortunately nothing more—was discovered in 1859 by Prof. Leon de Rosny among a mass of old papers in the National Library. It consists of eleven leaves, twenty-two pages, each 9 inches long and 5¼ inches wide. The writing is very much defaced, but was evidently of a highly artistic character, probably the most so of any manuscript known. It unquestionably belongs to the Maya manuscripts.

Its origin is unknown. The papers in which it was wrapped bore the name “Perez,” in a Spanish hand of the seventeenth century, and hence the name “Peresianus” was given it. By order of the Minister of Public Instruction, ten photographic copies of this Codex, without reduction, were prepared for the use of scholars. None of them were placed on sale, and so far as I know the only one which has found its way to the United States is that in my own library. An ordinary lithographic reproduction was given in the _Archives paléographiques de l’Orient et de l’Amérique_, tome I. (Paris, 1869–'71).

_The Codex Tro_, or _Troano_.—The publication of this valuable Codex we owe to the enthusiasm of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg). On his return from Yucatan in 1864 he visited Madrid, and found this Manuscript in the possession of Don Juan de Tro y Ortolano, professor of paleography, and himself a descendent of Hernan Cortes. The abbé named it _Troano_, as a compound of the two names of its owner; but later writers often content themselves by referring to it simply as the _Codex Tro_.

It consists of thirty-five leaves and seventy pages, each of which is larger than a page of the Dresden Codex, but less than one of the _Codex Peresianus_. It was published by chromo-lithography at Paris, in 1869, prefaced by a study on the graphic system of the Mayas by the abbé, and an attempt at a translation. The reproduction, which was carried out under the efficient care of M. Leonce Angrand, is extremely accurate.

_The Codex Cortesianus._—This Codex, published at Paris, 1883, under the editorship of Professor Leon de Rosny, presents the closest analogy to the Codex Troano, of which, indeed, it probably formed a part. It has forty-two leaves, closely written in the calculiform character. There is no evidence that it was brought to Spain by Cortes, but from a tradition to that effect, it has received its name.

All four of these codices were written on paper manufactured from the leaves of the maguey plant, such as that in common use in Mexico. In Maya the maguey is called _ci_, the varieties being distinguished by various prefixes. It grows luxuriantly in most parts of Yucatan, and although the favorite tipple of the ancient inhabitants was mead, they were not unacquainted with the intoxicating _pulque_, the liquor from the maguey, if we can judge from their word for a drunkard, _ci-vinic_ (_vinic_==man). The old writers were probably in error when they spoke of the books being made of the barks of trees; or, at least, they were not all of that material.

The above-mentioned Manuscripts are the only ones which have been published. I shall not enumerate those which are said to exist in private hands. So long as they are withheld from the examination of scientific men they can add nothing to the general stock of knowledge, and as statements about them are not verifiable, it is useless to make any.

In addition to the Manuscripts, we have the mural paintings and inscriptions found at Palenque, Copan, Chichen Itza, and various ruined cities within the boundaries of the Maya-speaking races. There is no mistaking these inscriptions. They are unquestionably of the same character as the Manuscripts, although it is also easy to perceive variations, which are partly owing to the necessary differences in technique between painting and sculpture: partly, no doubt, to the separation of age and time.

Photographs and “squeezes” have reproduced many of these inscriptions with entire fidelity. We can also depend upon the accurate pencil of Catherwood, whose delineations have never been equalled. But the pictures of Waldeck and some other travelers do not deserve any confidence, and should not be quoted in a discussion of the subject.

THE BOOKS OF CHILAN BALAM.[236]

Civilization in ancient America rose to its highest level among the Mayas of Yucatan. Not to speak of the architectural monuments which still remain to attest this, we have the evidence of the earliest missionaries to the fact that they alone, of all the natives of the New World, possess a literature written in “letters and characters,” preserved in volumes neatly bound, the paper manufactured from the material derived from fibrous plants, and sized with a durable white varnish.[237]

A few of these books still remain, preserved to us by accident in the great European libraries; but most of them were destroyed by the monks. Their contents were found to relate chiefly to the pagan ritual, to traditions of the heathen times, to astrological superstitions, and the like. Hence, they were considered deleterious, and were burned wherever discovered.

This annihilation of their sacred books affected the natives most keenly, as we are pointedly informed by Bishop Landa, himself one of the most ruthless of Vandals in this respect.[238] But already some of the more intelligent had learned the Spanish alphabet, and the missionaries had added a sufficient number of signs to it to express with tolerable accuracy the phonetics of the Maya tongue. Relying on their memories, and no doubt aided by some manuscripts secretly preserved, many natives set to work to write out in this new alphabet the contents of their ancient records. Much was added which had been brought in by the Europeans, and much omitted which had become unintelligible or obsolete since the Conquest; while, of course, the different writers, varying in skill and knowledge, produced works of very various merit.

Nevertheless, each of these books bore the same name. In whatever village it was written, or by whatever hand, it always was, and to-day still is, called “The Book of Chilan Balam.” To distinguish them apart, the name of the village where a copy was found or written, is added. Probably, in the last century, almost every village had one, which was treasured with superstitious veneration. But the opposition of the _padres_ to this kind of literature, the decay of ancient sympathies, and especially the long war of races, which since 1847 has desolated so much of the peninsula, have destroyed most of them. There remain, however, either portions or descriptions of not less than sixteen of these curious records. They are known from the names of the villages respectively as the Book of Chilan Balam of Nabula, of Chumayel, of Káua, of Mani, of Oxkutzcab, of Ixil, of Tihosuco, of Tixcocob, etc., these being the names of various native towns in the peninsula.

When I add that not a single one of these has ever been printed, or even entirely translated into any European tongue, it will be evident to every archæologist and linguist what a rich and unexplored mine of information about this interesting people they may present. It is my intention in this article merely to touch upon a few salient points to illustrate this, leaving a thorough discussion of their origin and contents to the future editor who will bring them to the knowledge of the learned world.

Turning first to the meaning of the name “_Chilan Balam_,” it is not difficult to find its derivation. “_Chilan_,” says Bishop Landa, the second bishop of Yucatan, whose description of the native customs is an invaluable source to us, “was the name of their priests, whose duty it was to teach the sciences, to appoint holy days, to treat the sick, to offer sacrifices, and especially to utter the oracles of the gods. They were so highly honored by the people that usually they were carried on litters on the shoulders of the devotees.”[239] Strictly speaking, in Maya “_chilan_” means “interpreter,” “mouth-piece,” from “_chij_,” “the mouth,” and in this ordinary sense frequently occurs in other writings. The word, “_balam_”—literally, “tiger,”—was also applied to a class of priests, and is still in use among the natives of Yucatan as the designation of the protective spirits of fields and towns, as I have shown at length in a previous study of the word as it occurs in the native myths of Guatemala.[240] “_Chilan Balam_,” therefore, is not a proper name, but a title, and in ancient times designated the priest who announced the will of the gods and explained the sacred oracles. This accounts for the universality of the name and the sacredness of its associations.

The dates of the books which have come down to us are various. One of them, “The Book of Chilan Balam of Mani,” was undoubtedly composed not later than 1595, as is proved by internal evidence. Various passages in the works of Landa, Lizana, Sanchez Aguilar and Cogolludo—all early historians of Yucatan—prove that many of these native manuscripts existed in the sixteenth century. Several rescripts date from the seventeenth century,—most from the latter half of the eighteenth.

The names of the writers are generally not given, probably because the books, as we have them, are all copies of older manuscripts, with merely the occasional addition of current items of note by the copyist; as, for instance, a malignant epidemic which prevailed in the peninsula in 1673 is mentioned as a present occurrence by the copyist of “The Book of Chilan Balam of Nabula.”

I come now to the contents of these curious works. What they contain may conveniently be classified under four headings:

Astrological and prophetic matters; Ancient chronology and history; Medical recipes and directions; Later history and Christian teachings.

The last-mentioned consist of translations of the “_Doctrina_,” Bible stories, narratives of events after the Conquest, etc., which I shall dismiss as of least interest.

The astrology appears partly to be reminiscences of that of their ancient heathendom, partly that borrowed from the European almanacs of the century 1550–1650. These, as is well known, were crammed with predictions and divinations. A careful analysis, based on a comparison with the Spanish almanacs of that time, would doubtless reveal how much was taken from them, and it would be fair to presume that the remainder was a survival of ancient native theories.

But there are not wanting actual prophecies of a much more striking character. These were attributed to the ancient priests and to a date long preceding the advent of Christianity. Some of them have been printed in translations in the “_Historias_” of Lizana and Cogolludo, and of some the originals were published by the late Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in the second volume of the reports of the “_Mission Scientificque au Mexique et dans l’ Amérique Centrale_.” Their authenticity has been met with considerable skepticism by Waitz and others, particularly as they seem to predict the arrival of the Christians from the East and the introduction of the worship of the cross.

It appears to me that this incredulity is uncalled for. It is known that at the close of each of their larger divisions of time (the so-called “_katuns_,”) a “_chilan_,” or inspired diviner, uttered a prediction of the character of the year or epoch which was about to begin. Like other would-be prophets, he had doubtless learned that it is wiser to predict evil than good, inasmuch as the probabilities of evil in this worried world of ours outweigh those of good; and when the evil comes his words are remembered to his credit, while if, perchance, his gloomy forecasts are not realized, no one will bear him a grudge that he has been at fault. The temper of this people was, moreover, gloomy, and it suited them to hear of threatened danger and destruction by foreign foes. But, alas! for them. The worst that the boding words of the oracle foretold was as nothing to the dire event which overtook them—the destruction of their nation, their temples and their freedom, ’neath the iron heel of the Spanish conqueror. As the wise Gœthe says:

“_Seltsam ist Prophetenlied,
Doch mehr seltsam was geschieht._”

As to the supposed reference to the cross and its worship, it may be remarked that the native word translated “cross” by the missionaries, simply means “a piece of wood set upright,” and may well have had a different and special signification in the old days.

By way of a specimen of these prophecies, I quote one from “The Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel,” saying at once that for the translation I have depended upon a comparison of the Spanish version of Lizana, who was blindly prejudiced, and that in French of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, who knew next to nothing about Maya, with the original. It will be easily understood, therefore, that it is rather a paraphrase than a literal rendering. The original is in short, aphoristic sentences, and was, no doubt, chanted with a rude rhythm:

“What time the sun shall brightest shine,
Tearful will be the eyes of the king.
Four ages yet shall be inscribed,
Then shall come the holy priest, the holy god.
With grief I speak what now I see.
Watch well the road, ye dwellers of Itza.
The master of the earth shall come to us.
Thus prophesies Nahau Pech, the seer,
In the days of the fourth age,
At the time of its beginning.”

Such are the obscure and ominous words of the ancient oracle. If the date is authentic, it would be about 1480—the “fourth age” in the Maya system of computing time being a period of either twenty or twenty-four years at the close of the fifteenth century.

It is, however, of little importance whether these are accurate copies of the ancient prophecies; they remain, at least, faithful imitations of them, composed in the same spirit and form which the native priests were wont to employ. A number are given much longer than the above, and containing various curious references to ancient usages.

Another value they have in common with all the rest of the text of these books, and it is one which will be properly appreciated by any student of languages. They are, by common consent of all competent authorities, the genuine productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of the native tongue by those born to its use. No matter how fluent a foreigner becomes in a language not his own, he can never use it as does one who has been familiar with it from childhood. This general maxim is ten-fold true when we apply it to a European learning an American language. The flow of thought, as exhibited in these two linguistic families, is in such different directions that no amount of practice can render one equally accurate in both. Hence the importance of studying a tongue as it is employed by natives; and hence the very high estimate I place on these “Books of Chilan Balam” as linguistic material—an estimate much increased by the great rarity of independent compositions in their own tongues by members of the native races of this continent.

I now approach what I consider the peculiar value of these records, apart from the linguistic mould in which they are cast; and that is the light they throw upon the chronological system and ancient history of the Mayas. To a limited extent, this has already been brought before the public. The late Don Pio Perez gave to Mr. Stephens, when in Yucatan, an essay on the method of computing time among the ancient Mayas, and also a brief synopsis of Maya history, apparently going back to the third or fourth century of the Christian era. Both were published by Mr. Stephens in the appendix to his “Travels in Yucatan,” and have appeared repeatedly since in English, Spanish and French.[241] They have, up to the present, constituted almost our sole sources of information on these interesting points. Don Pio Perez was rather vague as to whence he derived his knowledge. He refers to “ancient manuscripts,” “old authorities,” and the like; but, as the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg justly complains, he rarely quotes their words, and gives no descriptions as to what they were or how he gained access to them.[242] In fact, the whole of Señor Perez’s information was derived from these “Books of Chilan Balam;” and without wishing at all to detract from his reputation as an antiquary and a Maya scholar, I am obliged to say that he has dealt with them as scholars so often do with their authorities; that is, having framed his theories, he quoted what he found in their favor and neglected to refer to what he observed was against them.

Thus, it is a cardinal question in Yucatecan archæology as to whether the epoch or age by which the great cycle (the _ahau katun_,) was reckoned, embraced twenty or twenty-four years. Contrary to all the Spanish authorities, Perez declared for twenty-four years, supporting himself by “the manuscripts.” It is true there are three of the “Books of Chilan Balam”—those of Mani, Káua and Oxkutzcab,—which are distinctly in favor of twenty-four years; but, on the other hand, there are four or five others which are clearly for the period of twenty years, and of these Don Perez said nothing, although copies of more than one of them were in his library. So of the epochs, or _katuns_, of Maya history; there are three or more copies in these books which he does not seem to have compared with the one he furnished Stephens. His labor will have to be repeated according to the methods of modern criticism, and with the additional material obtained since he wrote.

Another valuable feature in these records is the hints they furnish of the hieroglyphic system of the Mayas. Almost our only authority heretofore has been the essay of Landa. It has suffered somewhat in credit because we had no means of verifying his statements and comparing the characters he gives. Dr. Valentini has even gone so far as to attack some of his assertions as “fabrications.” This is an amount of skepticism which exceeds both justice and probability.

The chronological portions of the “Books of Chilan Balam” are partly written with the ancient signs of the days, months and epochs, and they furnish us, also, delineations of the “wheels” which the natives used for computing time. The former are so important to the student of Maya hieroglyphics, that I have added photographic reproductions of them to this paper, giving also representations of those of Landa for comparison. It will be observed that the signs of the days are distinctly similar in the majority of cases, but that those of the months are hardly alike.

The hieroglyphs of the days taken from the “_Codex Troano_,” an ancient Maya book written before the Conquest, probably about 1400, are also added to illustrate the variations which occurred in the hands of different scribes. Those from the “Books of Chilan Balam” are copied from a manuscript known to Maya scholars as the “_Codice Perez_,” of undoubted authenticity and antiquity.[243]

The result of the comparison I thus institute is a triumphant refutation of the doubts and slurs which have been cast on Bishop Landa’s work, and vindicate for it a very high degree of accuracy.

The hieroglyphics for the months are quite complicated, and in the “Books of Chilan Balam” are rudely drawn; but, for all that, two or three of them are evidently identical with those in the calendar preserved by Landa. Some years ago, Professor de Rosny expressed himself in great doubt as to the fidelity in the tracing of these hieroglyphs of the months, principally because he could not find them in the two codices at his command.[244] As he observes, they are _composite_ signs, and this goes to explain the discrepancy; for it may be regarded as established that the Maya script permitted the use of several signs for the same sound, and the sculptor or scribe was not obliged to represent the same word always by the same figure.

FIG. 1.—Signs of the Months, from the Book of Chilan Balam of
Chumayel.
]

FIG. 2.—Signs of the Months, as given by Bishop Landa.
]

In close relation to chronology is the system of numeration and arithmetical signs. These are discussed with considerable fulness, especially in the “Book of Chilan Balam of Káua.” The numerals are represented by exactly the same figures as we find in the Maya manuscripts of the libraries of Dresden, Pesth, Paris and Madrid; that is, by points or dots up to five, and the fives by single straight lines, which may be indiscriminately drawn vertically or horizontally. The same book contains a table of multiplication in Spanish and Maya, which settles some disputed points in the use of the vigesimal system by the Mayas.

A curious chapter in several of the books, especially those of Káua and Mani, is that on the thirteen _ahau katuns_, or epochs, of the greater cycle of the Mayas. This cycle embraced thirteen periods, which, as I have before remarked, are computed by some at twenty years each, by others at twenty-four years each. Each of these _katuns_ was presided over by a chief or king, that being the meaning of the word _ahau_. The books above mentioned give both the name and the portrait, drawn and colored by the rude hand of the native artist, of each of these kings, and they suggest several interesting analogies.

They are, in the first place, identical, with one exception, with those on an ancient native painting, an engraving of which is given by Father Cogolludo in his “History of Yucatan,” and explained by him as the representation of an occurrence which took place after the Spaniards arrived in the peninsula. Evidently, the native in whose hands the worthy father found it, fearing that he partook of the fanaticism which had led the missionaries to the destruction of so many records of their nation, deceived him as to its purport, and gave him an explanation which imparted to the scroll the character of a harmless history.

The one exception is the last or thirteenth chief. Cogolludo appends to this the name of an Indian who probably did fall a victim to his friendship to the Spaniards. This name, as a sort of guarantee for the rest of his story, the native scribe inserted in place of the genuine one. The peculiarity of the figure is that it has an arrow or dagger driven into its eye. Not only is this mentioned by Cogolludo’s informant, but it is represented in the paintings in both the “Books of Chilan Balam” above noted, and also, by a fortunate coincidence, in one of the calendar pages of the “_Codex Troano_,” plate xxiii., in a remarkable cartouche, which, from a wholly independent course of reasoning, was some time since identified by the well-known antiquary, Professor Cyrus Thomas, of Illinois, as a cartouche of one of the _ahau katuns_, and probably of the last of them. It gives me much pleasure to add such conclusive proof of the sagacity of his supposition.[245]

FIG. 3.—SIGNS OF THE DAYS.

The first column on the right is from Landa. The second is from the
“_Codex Troano_.” The remaining four are from the Book of Chilan
Balam of Káua.
]

There is other evidence to show that the engraving in Cogolludo is a relic of the purest ancient Maya symbolism—one of the most interesting which have been preserved to us; but to enter upon its explanation in this connection would be too far from my present topic.

A favorite theme with the writers of the “Books of Chilan Balam” was the cure of diseases. Bishop Landa explains the “_chilanes_” as “sorcerers and doctors,” and adds that one of their prominent duties was to diagnose diseases and point out their appropriate remedies.[246] As we might expect, therefore, considerable prominence is given to the description of symptoms and suggestions for their alleviation. Bleeding and the administration of preparations of native plants are the usual prescriptions; but there are others which have probably been borrowed from some domestic medicine-book of European origin.

The late Don Pio Perez gave a great deal of attention to collecting these native recipes, and his manuscripts were carefully examined by Dr. Berendt, who combined all the necessary knowledge, botanical, linguistic and medical, and who has left a large manuscript, entitled “_Recetarios de Indios_,” which presents the subject fully. He considers the scientific value of these remedies to be next to nothing, and the language in which they are recorded to be distinctly inferior to that of the remainder of the “Books of Chilan Balam.” Hence, he believes that this portion of the ancient records was supplanted some time in the last century by medical notions introduced from European sources. Such, in fact, is the statement of the copyists of the books themselves, as these recipes, etc., are sometimes found in a separate volume, entitled “The Book of the Jew,”—_El Libro del Judio_. Who this alleged Jewish physician was, who left so widespread and durable a renown among the Yucatecan natives, none of the archæologists has been able to find out.[247]

The language and style of most of these books are aphoristic, elliptical and obscure. The Maya language has naturally undergone considerable alteration since they were written; therefore, even to competent readers of ordinary Maya, they are not readily intelligible. Fortunately, however, there are in existence excellent dictionaries, which, were they published, would be sufficient for this purpose.

ON THE “STONE OF THE GIANTS.”[248]

At the last meeting of this Society, a photograph was received of the _Piedra de los Gigantes_, or “Stone of the Giants,” now situated at Escamela, near the city of Orizaba, Mexico. It was obligingly forwarded by the Mexican antiquary, Father Damaso Sotomayor, and was referred by the Society to me for a possible interpretation of the figures represented.

The sender accompanied the envoy with a copy of a newspaper published in Orizaba, entitled _El Siglo que Acaba_, which contained a lengthy interpretation of the figure by Father Sotomayor in accordance with the principles laid down in his recently published work on the decipherment of Aztec hieroglyphics.[249] The Father sees in the inscribed figures a mystical allusion to the coming of Christ to the Gentiles, and to the occurrences supposed in Hebrew myth to have taken place in the Garden of Eden. As I cannot agree in the remotest with his hypothesis, I shall say nothing further about it, but proceed to give what I consider the true significance of the inscribed figures.

I should preface my remarks by mentioning that this stone is not a recent discovery in Mexican archæology. It was examined by Captain Dupaix in the year 1808, and is figured in the illustrations to his voluminous narrative.[250] The figure he gives is however so erroneous that it yields but a faint idea of the real character and meaning of the drawing. It omits the ornament on the breast, and also the lines along the right of the giant’s face, which as I shall show are distinctive traits. It gives him a girdle where none is delineated, and the relative size and proportions of all the three figures are quite distorted. Dupaix informs us, however, of several particulars which the Rev. Sotomayor omitted to state. From the former’s description we learn that the stone, or rather rock, on which the inscription is found is roughly triangular in shape, presenting a nearly straight border of thirty feet on each side. It is hard and uniform in texture, and of a dark color. The length or height of the principal figure is twenty-seven feet, and the incised lines which designate the various objects are deeply and clearly cut. In the present position of the stone, which is the same as that stated by Captain Dupaix, the head of the principal figure, called “the giant,” lies toward the east, while the right hand is extended toward the north and the left toward the west. It is open to doubt whether this disposition was accidental or intentional, as there is reason to believe that the stone is not now in its original position, or not in that for which it was intended.