Chapter XL: Appendix: I (13)

[969] Bandelier (“Art of War, etc.,” in _Peabody Mus. Rept._ x. 113) again says of De Pauw’s _Recherches philosophiques sur les Américaines_, that it is “a very injudicious book, which by its extravagance and audacity created a great deal of harm. It permitted Clavigero to attack even Robertson, because the latter had also applied sound criticism to the study of American aboriginal history, and by artfully placing both as upon the same platform, to counteract much of the good effects of Robertson’s work.”

[970] _Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 114.

[971] In regard to the nature of the chief-of-men we find, among much else of the first importance in the study of the Mexican government, an exposition in Sahagún (lib. vi. cap. 20), which seems to establish the elective and non-hereditary character of the office. It was “this office and its attributes,” says Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 670), “which have been the main stays of the notion that a high degree of civilization prevailed in aboriginal Mexico, in so far as its people were ruled after the manner of eastern despotisms.” Bandelier (_Ibid._ ii. 133) says: “It is not impossible that the so-called empire of Mexico may yet prove to have been but a confederacy of the Nahuatlac tribe of the valley, with the Mexicans as military leaders.” His argument on the word translated “king” is not convincing.

[972] _Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 435.

[973] Introd. to _Conquest of Mexico_. See Vol. II. p. 426. In the Appendix to his third volume, Prescott, relying mainly on the works of Dupaix and Waldeck, arrived at conclusions as respects the origin of the Mexican civilization, and its analogies with the Old World, which accord with those of Stephens, whose work had not appeared at the time when Prescott wrote.

[974] _Houses and House Life_, p. 222.

[975] Bancroft (ii. 92) says: “What is known of the Aztecs has furnished material for nine tenths of all that has been written on the American civilized nations in general.”

[976] _Anahuac, or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern_ (London, 1861). Tylor enlarges upon what he considers the evidences of immense populations; and respecting some of their arts he adds, from inspection of specimens of their handicraft, that “the Spanish conquerors were not romancing in the wonderful stories they told of the skill of the native goldsmiths.” On the other hand, Morgan (_Houses and House Life_, 223) thinks the figures of population grossly exaggerated.

[977] Vol. II. p. 427.

[978] When we consider that Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, in spite of rapine, siege and fire, still retain numerous traces of their earliest times, and that not a vestige of the Aztec capital remains to us except its site, we must assume, in Wilson’s opinion (_Prehistoric Man_, i. 331), that its edifices and causeways must have been for the most part more slight and fragile than the descriptions of the conquerors implied. Morgan instances as a proof of the flimsy character of their masonry, that Cortes in seventeen days levelled three fourths of the city of Mexico. But, adds Wilson, “so far as an indigenous American civilization is concerned, no doubt can be entertained, and there is little room for questioning, that among races who had carried civilization so far, there existed the capacity for its further development, independently of all borrowed aid” (p. 336). The Baron Nordenskjöld informs me that there is in the library at Upsala a MS. map of Mexico by Santa Cruz (d. 1572) which contains numerous ethnographical details, not to be found in printed maps of that day.

[979] _Native Races_, ii. 159.

[980] _Ibid._ ii. 133.

[981] Bancroft has recently epitomized his views afresh in the _Amer. Antiquarian_, Jan., 1888.

[982] Bancroft wrote in San Francisco, it will be remembered.

[983] It was for Bandelier, in his “Social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans” (_Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 557), to demonstrate the proposition that tribal society based, according to Morgan, upon kin, and not political society, which rests upon territory and property, must be looked for among the ancient Mexicans.

[984] Morgan’s _Houses_, etc., 225. Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Rept._, vol. ii. 114) speaks of the views advanced by Morgan in his “Montezuma’s Dinner,” as “a bold stroke for the establishment of American ethnology on a new basis.” It must be remembered that Bandelier was Morgan’s pupil.

[985] _Ibid._ 222.

[986] Morgan says of his predecessors, “they learned nothing and knew nothing” of Indian society.

[987] _Ibid._ 223.

[988] In this he of course assumes that the ruins in Spanish America are of communal edifices.

[989] Bandelier’s papers are in the second volume of the _Reports of the Peabody Museum_ at Cambridge. He contends in his “Art of Warfare among the Ancient Mexicans,” that he has shown the non-existence of a military despotism, and proved their government to be “a military democracy, originally based upon communism in living.” A similar understanding pervades his other essay “On the social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans.” Morgan and Bandelier profess great admiration for each other,—Morgan citing his friend as “our most eminent scholar in Spanish American history” (_Houses_, etc., 84), and Bandelier expresses his deep feeling of gratitude, etc. (_Archæolog. Tour_, 32). This affectionate relation has very likely done something in unifying their intellectual sympathies. The _Ancient Society, or researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization_ (N. Y. 1877), of Morgan is reflected very palpably in these papers of Bandelier. The accounts of the war of the conquest, as detailed in Bancroft’s _Mexico_ (vol. i.), and the views of their war customs (_Native Races_, ii. ch. 13), contrasted with Bandelier’s ideas,—who finds in Parkman’s books “the natural parallelism between the forays of the Iroquois and the so-called conquests of the Mexican confederacy” (_Archæol. Tour_, 32), and who reduces the battle of Otumba to an affair like that of Custer and the Sioux (_Art of Warfare_),—give us in the military aspects of the ancient life the opposed views of the two schools of interpreters.

[990] Being vol. iv. of the _Contributions to No. Amer. Ethnol._ in Powell’s _Survey of the Rocky Mt. Region_. Some of Morgan’s cognate studies relating to the aboriginal system of consanguinity and laws of descent are in the _Smithsonian Contributions_, xvii., the _Smithsonian Misc. Coll._ ii., _Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci. Trans._ vii., and _Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. Proc._, 1857.

[991] Morgan in this, his last work, condenses in his first chapter those which were numbered 1 to 4 in his _Ancient Society_, and in succeeding sections he discusses the laws of hospitality, communism, usages of land and food, and the houses of the northern tribes, of those of New Mexico, San Juan River, the moundbuilders, the Aztecs, and those in Yucatan and Central America. Among these he finds three distinct ethnical stages, as shown in the northern Indian, higher in the sedentary tribes of New Mexico, and highest among those of Mexico and Central America. S. F. Haven commemorated Morgan’s death in the _Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, Apr., 1880.

[992] Cf. Bandelier on “the tenure of lands” in _Peabody Mus. Repts._ (1878), no. xi., and Bancroft in _Nat. Races_, ii. ch. 6, p. 223.

[993] Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 391) points out that when Martin Ursúa captured Tayasál on Lake Petin, the last pueblo inhabited by Maya Indians, he found “all the inhabitants living brutally together, an entire relationship together in one single house,” and Bandelier refers further to Morgan’s _Ancient Society_, Part 2, p. 181.

[994] Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 673) accepts the views of Morgan, calling it “a rude clannish feast,” given by the official household of the tribe as a part of its daily duties and obligations.

[995] On the character of the Tecpan (council house, or official house) of the Mexicans, which the early writers translate “palace,” with its sense of magnificence, see Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Repts._ ii. 406, 671, etc.), with his references. Morgan holds that Stephens is largely responsible for the prevalence of erroneous notions regarding the Mayas, by reason of using the words “palaces” and “great cities” for defining what were really the pueblos of these southern Indians. Bancroft (ii. 84), referring to the ruins, says: They have “the highest value as confirming the truth of the reports made by Spanish writers, very many, or perhaps most, of whose statements respecting the wonderful phenomena of the New World, without this incontrovertible material proof, would find few believers among the skeptical students of the present day.” Bancroft had little prescience respecting what the communal theorists were going to say of these ruins.

[996] Cf. Bancroft’s _Cent. America_, i. 317. Sir J. William Dawson, in his _Fossil Men_ (p. 83), contends that Morgan has proved his point, and he calls the ruins of Spanish America “communistic barracks” (p. 50). Higginson, in the first chapter of his _Larger History_, which is a very excellent, condensed popular statement of the new views which Morgan inaugurated, says of him very truly, that he lacked moderation, and that there is “something almost exasperating in the positiveness with which he sometimes assumes as proved that which is only probable.”

[997] Bancroft in his foot-notes (vol. ii.) embodies the best bibliography of this ancient civilization. Cf. Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, i. ch. 14; C. Hermann Berendt’s “Centres of ancient civilization and their geographical distribution,” an _Address before the Amer. Geog. Soc._ (N. Y. 1876); Draper’s _Intellectual Development of Europe_; Brasseur’s _Ms. Troano_; Humboldt’s _Cosmos_ (English transl. ii. 674); Michel Chevalier in the _Revue de deux Mondes_, Mar.-July, 1845, embraced later in his _Du Méxique avant et pendant la Conquête_ (Paris, 1845); Brantz Mayer’s _Mexico as it was; The Galaxy_, March, 1876; _Scribner’s Mag._ v. 724; _Overland Monthly_, xiv. 468; De Charency’s _Hist. du Civilisation du Méxique_ (_Revue des Questions historiques_), vi. 283; Dabry de Thiersant’s _Origine des indiens du Nouveau Monde_ (Paris, 1883); Peschel’s _Races of Men_, 441; Nadaillac’s _Les premiers hommes et les temps préhistoriques_, ii. ch. 9, etc.

[998] For the bibliography of his works see Brunet, Sabin, Field, etc. The octavo edition of his _Vues_ has 19 of the 69 plates which constitute the _Atlas_ of the large edition. See the chapter on Peru for further detail.

[999] John Lloyd Stephens, _Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_, Lond. and N. Y. 1841,—various later eds., that of London, 1854, being “revised from the latest Amer. ed., with additions by Frederick Catherwood.” Stephens started on this expedition in 1839, and he was armed with credentials from President Van Buren. He travelled 3000 miles, and visited eight ruined cities, as shown by his route given on the map in vol. i. Cf. references in Allibone, ii. p. 2240; _Poole’s Index_, p. 212; his _Incidents of Travel in Yucatan_ will be mentioned later.

Frederick Catherwood’s _Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_ (Lond. 1844) has a brief text (pp. 24) and 25 lithographed plates. Some of the original drawings used in making these plates were included in the _Squier Catalogue_, p. 229. (Sabin’s _Dict._ iii. no. 11520.) Captain Lindesay Brine, in his paper on the “Ruined Cities of Central America” (_Journal Roy. Geog. Soc._ 1872, p. 354; _Proc._ xvii. 67), testifies to the accuracy of Stephens and Catherwood. These new developments furnished the material for numerous purveyors to the popular mind, some of them of the slightest value, like Asahel Davis, whose _Antiquities of Central America_, with some slight changes of title, and with the parade of new editions, were common enough between 1840 and 1850.

[1000] Viollet le Duc, in his _Histoire de l’habitation humaine depuis les temps préhistoriques_ (Paris, 1875), has given a chapter (no. xxii.) to the “Nahuas and Toltecs.” Views more or less studied, comprehensive, and restricted are given in R. Cary Long’s _Ancient Architecture of America, its historic value and parallelism of development with the architecture of the Old World_ (N. Y. 1849), an address from the _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._ 1849, p. 117; R. P. Greg on “the Fret or Key Ornament in Mexico and Peru,” in the _Archæologia_ (London), vol. xlvii. 157; and a popular summary on “the pyramid in America,” by S. D. Peet, in the _American Antiquarian_, July, 1888, comparing the mounds of Cholula, Uxmal, Palenqué, Teotihuacan, Copan, Quemada, Cohokia, St. Louis, etc. John T. Short summarizes the characteristics of the Nahua and Maya styles (_No. Amer. of Antiquity_, 340, 359). There are chapters on their architecture in Bancroft, _Nat. Races_, ii.; but the references in his vol. iv. are most helpful.

[1001] Vols. v. vi. vii. on “Ancient Mexican Civilization,” “Pyramid of Teotihuacan,” “Sacrificial Calendar Stone,” “Central America at time of Conquest,” “Ruins at Palenque and Copan,” “Ruins of Uxmal,” etc.

[1002] Duplicates were placed in the Nat. Museum at Washington by the liberality of Pierre Lorillard.

[1003] The English translation is condensed in parts: _The ancient cities of the New World: being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882_. _Translated from the French by J. Gonino and Helen S. Conant._ (London, 1887.) Some of his notable results were the discovery of stucco ornaments in the province of Iturbide, among ruins which he unfortunately named Lorillard City (Eng. tr. ch. 22). The palace at Tula is also figured in Brocklehurst’s _Mexico to-day_, ch. 25. The discovery of what Charnay calls glass and porcelain is looked upon as doubtful by most archæologists, who believe the specimens to be rather traces of Spanish contact.

[1004] Bancroft, iv. 453, and references.

[1005] Bandelier (p. 235) is confident that it was built by an earlier people than the Nahuas.

[1006] Cf. Bandelier, p. 247. Short, p. 236.

[1007] Bancroft (v. 200) gives references on these points, and particular note may be taken of Veytia, i. 18, 155, 199; and Brasseur, _Hist. Nations Civ._ iv. 182. Cf. also Nadaillac, p. 351. Bandelier (_Archæolog. Tour_, 248, 249) favors the gradual growth theory, and collates early sources (p. 250). Bancroft (iv. 474) holds that we may feel very sure its erection dates back of the tenth, and perhaps of the seventh, century.

[1008] Bandelier’s idea (p. 254) is that as the Indians never repair a ruin, they abandoned this remaining mound after its disaster, and transplanted the worship of Quetzalcoatl to the new mound, since destroyed, while the old shrine was in time given to the new cult of the Rain-god.

[1009] As Bancroft thinks; but Bandelier says that it was not of this mound, but of the temple which stood where the modern convent stands, that this count was made. _Arch. Tour_, 242.

[1010] _Storia Ant. del Messico_, ii. 33.

[1011] _Vues_, i. 96 pl. iii., or pl. vii., viii. in folio ed.; _Essai polit._, 239. The later observers are: Dupaix (_Antiq. Mex._, and in Kingsborough, v. 218; with iv. pl. viii.). Bancroft remarks on the totally different aspects of Castañeda’s two drawings. Nebel, in his _Viaje pintoresco y Arqueolójico sobre la república Mejicana_, 1829-34 (Paris, 1839, folio), gave a description and a large colored drawing. Of the other visitors whose accounts add something to our knowledge, Bancroft (iv. 471) notes the following: J. R. Poinsett, _Notes on Mexico_ (London, 1825). W. H. Bullock, _Six Months in Mexico_ (Lond., 1825). H. G. Ward, _Mexico in 1827_ (Lond., 1828). Mark Beaufoy, _Mex. Illustrations_ (Lond., 1828), with cuts. Charles Jos. Latrobe, _Rambles in Mexico_ (Lond., 1836). Brantz Mayer, _Mexico as it was_ (N. Y., 1854); _Mexico, Aztec, etc._ (Hartford, 1853); and in Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, vi. 582. Waddy Thompson, _Recoll. of Mexico_ (N. Y., 1847). E. B. Tylor, _Anahuac_ (Lond., 1861), p. 274. A. S. Evans, _Our Sister Republic_ (Hartford, 1870). Summaries later than Bancroft’s will be found in Short, p. 369, and Nadaillac, p. 350. Bancroft adds (iv. 471-2) a long list of second-hand describers.

[1012] It is illustrated with a map of the district of Cholula (p. 158), a detailed plan of the pyramid or mound (Humboldt is responsible for the former term) as it stands amid roads and fields (p. 230), and a fac-simile of an old map of the pueblo of Cholula (1581).

Bandelier speaks of the conservative tendencies of the native population of this region, giving a report that old native idols are still preserved and worshipped in caves, to which he could not induce the Indians to conduct him (p. 156); and that when he went to see the _Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco_, or some native pictures of the 16th century, representing the Conquest, and of the highest importance for its history, he was jealously allowed but one glance at them, and could not get another (_Archæol. Tour_, p. 123). He adds: “The difficulty attending the consultation of any documents in the hands of Indians is universal, and results from their superstitious regard for writings on paper. The bulk of the people watch with the utmost jealousy over their old papers.... They have a fear lest the power vested in an original may be transferred to a copy” (pp. 155-6).

[1013] Pinart, no. 590.

[1014] He repeats Alzate’s plate of the restoration of the ruins.

[1015] Bancroft refers (iv. 483) to various compiled accounts, to which may be added his own and Short’s (p. 371). Cf. F. Boncourt in the _Revue d’Ethnographie_ (1887).

[1016] Prescott, Kirk ed., i. 12. See the map of the plateau of Anahuac in Ruge, _Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeck._, i. 363.

[1017] Cf. Gros in the _Archives de la Com. Scient. du Méxique_, vol. i.; H. de Saussure on the _Découverte des ruines d’une ancienne ville Méxicaine située sur le plateau de l’Anahuac_ (Paris, 1858,—_Bull. Soc Géog. de Paris_).

[1018] The same is true of the earliest Spanish buildings. Icazbalceta (_México en 1554_, p. 74) says that the soil is constantly accumulating, and the whole city gradually sinks.

[1019] Bancroft (iv. 505, 516, with references) says that such objects, when brought to light by excavations, have not always been removed from their hiding-places; and he argues that beneath the city there may yet be “thousands of interesting monuments.” Cf. B. Mayer’s _Mexico as it was_, vol. ii.

Bandelier (_Archæol. Tour_, Part ii. p. 49) gives us valuable “Archæological Notes about the City of Mexico,” in which he says that Alfredo Chavero owns a very large oil painting, said to have been executed in 1523, giving a view of the aboriginal city and the principal events of the Conquest. It shows that the ancient city was about one quarter the size of the modern town.

We find descriptions of the city before the conquerors transformed it, in Brasseur’s _Hist. Nations Civ._ iii. 187; iv. line 13; and in Bancroft (ii. ch. 18) there is a collation of authorities on Nahua buildings, with specific references on the city of Mexico (ii. p. 567). Bandelier describes with citations its military aspects at the time of the Conquest (_Peabody Mus. Reports_, x. 151).

The movable relics found in Mexico are the following:—

1. The calendar stone. See annexed cut.

2. Teoyamique. See cut in the appendix of this volume.

3. Sacrificial stone. See annexed cut.

4. Indio triste. See annexed cut.

5. Head of a serpent, discovered in 1881. Cf. Bandelier’s _Archæol. Tour_, p. 69.

6. Human head. Cf. Bancroft, iv. 518. All of the above, except the calendar stone, are in the Museo Nacional.

7. Gladiatorial stone, discovered in 1792, but left buried. Cf. B. Mayer’s _Mexico_, 123; Bancroft, iv. 516; Kingsborough, vii. 94; Sahagún, lib. ii.

8. A few other less important objects. Cf. Bandelier, _Archæol. Tour_, 52.

Antonio de Leon y Gama, who unfortunately had no knowledge of the writings of Sahagún, has discussed most of these relics in his _Descripcion histórico y Cronológico de las dos Piedras &_. (2d ed. Bustamante, 1832.)

[1020] Bancroft, iv. 520, with authorities, p. 523. Cf. _American Antiquarian_, May, 1888.

[1021] Bancroft’s numerous references make a foot-note (iv. 530). He adds a plan from Almaraz, and says that the description of Linares (_Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin_, 30, i. 103) is mainly drawn from Almaraz. It is believed, but not absolutely proven, that the mounds were natural ones, artificially shaped (Bandelier, 44). The extent of the ruins is very great, and it is a current belief that the city in its prime must have been very large. The whole region is exceptionally rich in fragmentary and small relics, like pottery, obsidian implements, and terra-cotta heads. Cf. for these last, _Lond. Geog. Soc. Journal_, vii. 10; Thompson’s _Mexico_, 140; Nebel, _Viaje_; Mayer’s _Mexico as it was_, 227 (as cited in Bancroft, iv. 542); and later publications like T. U. Brocklehurst’s _Mexico to-day_ (Lond., 1883), and Zelia Nuttall’s “Terra Cotta Heads from Teotihuacan,” in the _Amer. Journal of Archæology_ (June and Sept. 1886), ii. 157, 318.

Bancroft judges that the ruins date back to the sixth century, and says that these mounds served for models of the Aztec teocallis. On the commission already referred to was Antonio García y Cubas, who conducted some personal explorations, and in describing these in a separate publication, _Ensayo de un Estudio Comparativo entre las Pirámides Egípcias y Mexicanas_ (Mexico, 1871), he points out certain analogies of the American and Egyptian structures, which will be found in epitome in Bancroft (iv. 543). In discussing the monoliths of the ruins, Amos W. Butler (_Amer. Antiquarian_, May, 1885), in a paper on “The Sacrificial Stone of San Juan Teotihuacan,” advanced some views that are controverted by W. H. Holmes in the _Amer. Journal of Archæology_ (i. 361), from whose foot-notes a good bibliography of the subject can be derived. Bandelier (_Archæol. Tour_, 42) thinks that because no specific mention is made of them in Mexican tradition, it is safe to infer that these monuments antedate the Mexicans, and were in ruins at the time of the Conquest.

[1022] The early writers make little mention of the place except as one of the halting-places of the Aztec migration. Torquemada has something to say (quoted in _Soc. Mex. Geog. Bol._, 2º, iii. 278, with the earliest of the modern accounts by Manuel Gutierrez, in 1805). Capt. G. F. Lyon (_Journal of a residence and tour in Mexico_, London, 1828) visited the ruins in 1828. Pedro Rivera in 1830 described them in Márcos de Esparza’s _Informe presentado al Gobierno_ (Zacatecas, 1830,—also in _Museo Méxicano_, i. 185, 1843). The plan in Nebel’s Viaje (copied in Bancroft, iv. 582) was made for Governor García, by Berghes, a German engineer, in 1831, who at the time was accompanied by J. Burkart (_Aufenthalt und Reisen in Mexico_, Stuttgart, 1836), who gives a plan of fewer details. Bancroft (iv. 579) thinks Nebel’s views of the ruins the only ones ever published, and he enumerates various second-hand writers (iv. 579).

Cf. Fegeux, “Les ruines de la Quemada,” in the _Revue d’Ethnologie_, i. 119. The noticeable features of these ruins are their massiveness and height of walls, their absence of decoration and carved idols, and the lack of pottery and the smaller relics. Their history, notwithstanding much search, is a blank.

[1023] Cf. Bandelier, p. 320.

[1024] Bandelier, p. 276.

[1025] Ramirez, ed. 1867.

[1026] His brief account is copied by Mendieta and Torquemada, and is cited in Bandelier, p. 324.

[1027] _Geog. Descripcion_, ii. cited in Bandelier, 324. Cf. _Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin_, vii. 170.

[1028] Bandelier says (p. 279) that he saw them in the library of the Institute of Oaxaca, and that, though admirable, they have a certain tendency to over-restoration,—the besetting sin of all explorers who make drawings.

[1029] Cf. Field, no. 1612.

[1030] _Ruines_, etc., 261, and Viollet le Duc, p. 74; _Anciens Villes_, ch. 24.

[1031] There is a _Rapport sur les ruines_, by Doutrelaine, in the _Archives de la Commission Scientifique du Méxique_ (vol. iii.); Nadaillac (p. 364) and Short (p. 361) have epitomized results, and Louis H. Aymé gives some _Notes on Mitla_ in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, April, 1882, p. 82; Bancroft (iv. 391) enumerates various second-hand descriptions.

[1032] I do not understand Bandelier’s statement (p. 277) that it is taken from Bancroft’s plan, which it only resembles in a general way.

[1033] Bancroft classifies their architectural peculiarities (iv. pp. 267-279).

[1034] See Vol. II. ch. 3. Bancroft (ii. p. 784) collates the early accounts of the habitations of the people, and (iv. 254, 260, 261) the descriptions of the ruins and statelier edifices, as seen by these explorers.

[1035] _For. Q. Rev._, xviii. 251.

[1036] Cf. _Poole’s Index_, p. 1439.

[1037] Bancroft, iv. 145; Field, no. 1138; Leclerc, no. 1217; Pilling, p. 2767; _Dem. Review_, xi. 529. Cf. _Poole’s Index_, P. 1439.

[1038] _Registro Yucateco_, ii. 437; _Diccionario Universal_ (México, 1853), x. 290.

[1039] Bandelier, _Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, n. s., i. 92, calls the paper “not very valuable.”

[1040] This gentleman, since the death of his father, of the same name, succeeded, after an interval, the elder antiquary in the president’s chair of the American Antiquarian Society.

[1041] Cf. Short, p. 396. Le Plongeon retorts (_Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, n. s., i. 282) by telling his critic that he had never been in Yucatan. Considering the effect of contact in many of those who have written of the ruins, it may be a question if the implication is valuable as a piece of criticism. Mr. Salisbury and Dr. Le Plongeon reported from time to time in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._ the results of the latter’s investigations, and the researches to which they gave rise. Those in April, 1876, and April, 1877, of these _Proceedings_, were privately printed by Mr. Salisbury, as _The Mayas_, etc. In April, 1878, Mr. Salisbury reported upon the “Terra-cotta figures from Isla Mujeres.” In Oct., 1878, there were communications from Dr. Le Plongeon, and from Alice D. Le Plongeon, his wife. In April, 1879, Dr. Le Plongeon communicated a letter on the affinities of Central America and the East. Since this the Le Plongeons have found other channels of communication. Dr. Le Plongeon expanded his somewhat extravagant notions of Oriental affinities in his _Sacred mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago; their relation to the sacred mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea, and India. Freemasonry in times anterior to the temple of Solomon_ (New York, 1886).

His preface is largely made up with a rehearsal of his rebuffs and in complaints of the want of public appreciation of his labors. He is, however, as confident as ever, and deciphers the bas-reliefs and mural inscriptions of Chichen-Itza by “the ancient hieratic Maya alphabet” which he claims to have discovered, and shows this alphabet in parallel columns with that of Egypt as displayed by Champollion and Bunsen. Mrs. Le Plongeon published her _Vestiges of the Mayas_ in New York, in 1881, and gathered some of her periodical writings in her _Here and There in Yucatan_ (N. Y., 1886). Cf. her letter on the ancient records of Yucatan in _The Nation_, xxix. 224.

[1042] Baldwin (p. 125), in a condensed way, and likewise Short (ch. 8) and Bancroft (iv. ch. 5), more at length, have mainly depended on Stephens. Cf. references in Bancroft, iv. 147, and Bandelier’s list in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, n. s., i. 82, 95. E. H. Thompson has contributed papers in _Ibid._ Oct., 1886, p. 248, and April, 1887, p. 379, and on the ruins of Kich-Moo and Chun-Kal-Cin in April, 1888, p. 162. Brasseur, beside his _Hist. Nat. Civ._, ii. 20, has something in his introduction to his _Relation de Landa_. The description of the ruins at Zayi, which Stephens gives, shows that some of the rooms were filled solid with masonry, and he leaves it as an unaccountable fact; but Morgan (_Houses and House Life_, p. 267) thinks it shows that the builders constructed a core of masonry, over which they reared the walls and ceilings, which last, after hardening, were able to support themselves, when the cores were removed; and that in the ruins at Zayi we see the cores unremoved.

[1043] Cf. the _pros_ and _cons_ in Waldeck and Charnay. Waldeck first named the ornaments as “Elephants’ trunks” (_Voy. Pitt._ p. 74). There are cuts in Stephens, reproduced in Bancroft. There is also a cut in Norman. Cf. E. H. Thompson in _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, April, 1887, p. 382.

[1044] Stephens, _Yucatan_, ii. 265, gives an ancient Indian map (1557), and extracts from the archives of Mani, which lead him to infer that at that time it was an inhabited Indian town.

[1045] Bancroft (iv. 151) gives various references to second-hand descriptions, noted before 1875, to which may be added those in Short, p. 347; Nadaillac, 334; Amer. Antiquarian, vii. 257, and again, July, 1888.

Probably the most accurate of the plans of the ruins is that of Stephens (_Yucatan_, i. 165), which is followed by Bancroft (iv. 153). Brasseur’s report has a plan, and others, all differing, are given by Waldeck (pl. viii.), Norman (p. 155), and Charnay (_Ruines_, p. 62). Views and cuts of details are found in Waldeck, Stephens, Charnay,—whence later summarizers like Bancroft, Baldwin, and Short have drawn their copies; while special cuts are copied in Armin (_Das Heutige Mexico_); Larenaudière (_Mexique et Guatemala_, Paris, 1847); Le Plongeon (_Sacred Mysteries_); Ruge (_Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, p. 357); Morgan (_Houses_, etc., ch. xi.), and in various others. One can best trace the varieties and contrasts of the different accounts of the various edifices in Bancroft’s collations of their statements. His constant citation, even to scorn them, of the impertinencies of George Jones’s _Hist. of Anc. America_ (London, 1842),—the later notorious Count Johannes,—was hardly worth while.

[1046] Landa described the ruins. _Relation_, p. 340.

[1047] All other accounts are based on these. Bancroft, who gives the best summary (iv. 221), enumerates many of the second-hand writers, to whom Short (p. 396) must be added. Stephens gives a plan (ii. 290) which Bancroft (iv. 222) follows; and it apparently is worthy of reasonable confidence, which cannot be said of Norman’s. The ruins present some features not found in others, and the most interesting of such may be considered the wall paintings, one representing a boat with occupants, which Stephens found on the walls of the building called by him the Gymnasium, because of stone rings projecting from the walls (see annexed cut), which were supposed by him to have been used in ball games. Norman calls the same building the Temple; Charnay, the Cirque; but the native designation is Iglesia.

[1048] _Yucatan_, i. 94. Cf. Bancroft, _Native Races_, ii. 117; v. 164, 342.

[1049] Bancroft collates the views of different writers (iv. 285). He himself holds that these buildings are more ancient than those of Anáhuac; consequently he rejects the arguments of Stephens, that it was by the Toltecs, after they migrated south from Anáhuac, that these constructions were raised (_Native Races_, v. 165, and for references, p. 169). Charnay (_Bull. de la Soc. de Géog._, Nov., 1881) believes they were erected between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.

It is well known now that the concentric rings are a useless guide in tropical regions to determine the age of trees, though in the past, the immense size of trees as well as the deposition of soil have been used to determine the supposed ages of ruins. Waldeck counted a ring a year in getting two thousand years for the time since the abandonment of Palenqué; but Charnay (Eng. tr. _Ancient Cities_, p. 260) says that these rings are often formed monthly. Cf. Nadaillac, p. 323.

[1050] So called because near a modern village of that name, founded by the Spaniards about 1564. Bancroft (iv. 296) says the ruins are ordinarily called by the natives Casas de Piedra. Ordoñez calls them Nachan, but without giving any authority, and some adopt the Aztec equivalent Calhuacan, city of the serpents. Because Xibalba is held by some to be the name of the great city of this region in the shadowy days of Votan, that name has also been applied to the ruins. Otolum, or the ruined place, is a common designation thereabouts, but Palenqué is the appellation in use by most travellers and writers.

[1051] The fact is, that widely distinct estimates have been held, some dating them back into the remotest antiquity, and others making them later than the Conquest. Bancroft (iv. 362) collates these statements. Cf. Dr. Earl Flint in _Amer. Antiquarian_, iv. 289. Morelet identifies them with the Toltec remains, supposing them to be the work of that people after their emigration, and to be of about the same age as Mitla. Charnay (_Anc. Cities of the New World_, p. 260) claims that Cortes knew the place as the religious metropolis of the Acaltecs. On the question of Cortes’ knowledge see _Science_, Feb. 27, 1885, p. 171; and _Ibid._ (by Brinton) March 27, 1885, p. 248.

[1052] The original is in the Roy. Acad. of Hist. at Madrid (Brasseur, _Bib. Mex.-Guat._, p. 125), and is called _Descripcion del terreno publacion antigua_.

[1053] Field, no. 231; Sabin, xvii. p. 292. The report of Rio was brief, and as we would judge now, superficial. Dupaix treats him disparagingly. The appended essay by Cabrera, an Italian, is said to have been largely filched from Ramon’s paper, which had been confidentially placed in his hands (Short, 207). A Spanish text of Cabrera is in the Museo Nacional. Cf. Brasseur (_Bib. Mex.-Guat._), p. 30; Pinart, no. 186. It is a question if the plates, which constituted the most interesting part of the English book, be Rio’s after all; for though they profess to be engraved after his drawings, they are suspiciously like those made by Castañeda, twenty years after Rio’s visit (Bancroft, iv. 290). David B. Warden translated Rio’s report in the _Recueil de voyages et de Mémoires, par la Soc. de in Géog. de Paris_. (vol. ii.), and gave some of the plates. (Cf. Warden’s _Recherches sur les antiquités de l’Amérique Septentrionale_, Paris, 1827, in _Mém. de la Soc. de Géog._) There is a German version, _Beschreibung einer alten Stadt_ (Berlin, 1832), by J. H. von Minutoli, which is provided with an introductory essay.

[1054] Sabin, x. 209, 213. Cf. _Annales de Philos. Chrétienne_, xi.

[1055] _Bull. de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris_, ix. (1828) 198. Dupaix, i. 2d div. 76.

[1056] “Palenque et autres lieux circonvoisins,” in Dupaix, i. 2d div. 67 (in English in _Literary Gazette_, London, 1831, no. 769, and in _Lond. Geog. Soc. Journal_, iii. 60). Cf. _Bull. de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris_, 1832. He is overenthusiastic, as Bandelier thinks (_Amer. Ant. Soc. Proc._, n. s., i. p. 111).

[1057] The report by Angrand, which induced this purchase, is in the work as published.

[1058] He had described them in his _Hist. Nat. Civ._, i. ch. 3.

[1059] The book usually sells for about 150 francs.

[1060] Given, also enlarged, in the folio known as Catherwood’s _Views_.

[1061] The German version was made from this (Jena, 1872).

[1062] Particularly ch. 13, 14. Charnay is the last of the explorers of Palenqué. All the other accounts of the ruins found here and there are based on the descriptions of those who have been named, or at least nothing is added of material value by other actual visitors like Norman (_Rambles in Yucatan_, p. 284). Bancroft (iv. 294) enumerates a number of such second-hand describers. The most important work since Bancroft’s summary is Manuel Larrainzar’s _Estudios sobre la historia de America, sus ruinas y antigüedades, y sobre el orígen de sus habitantes_ (Mexico, 1875-78), in five vols., all of whose plates are illustrations from the ruins of Palenqué, which are described and compared with other ancient remains throughout the world. Cf. Brühl, _Culturvölker d. alt. Amerikas_. Plans of the ruins will be found in Waldeck (pl. vii., followed mainly by Bancroft, iv. 298, 307), Stephens (ii. 310), Dupaix (pl. xi.), Kingsborough (iv. pl. 13), and Charnay (ch. 13 and 14). The views of the ruins given by these authorities mainly make up the stock of cuts in all the popular narratives.

The most interesting of the carvings is what is known as the Tablet of the Cross, which was taken from one of the minor buildings, and is now in the National Museum at Washington. It has often been engraved, but such representations never satisfied the student till they could be tested by the best of Charnay’s photographs. (Engravings in Brasseur and Waldeck, pl. 21, 22; Rosny’s _Essai sur le déchiffrement_, etc.; Minutoli’s _Beschreibung einer alten Stadt in Guatimala_ (Berlin, 1832); Stephens’s _Cent. Amer._, ii.; Bancroft, _Nat. Races_, iv. 333; Charnay, _Les anciens Villes_, and Eng. transl. p. 255; Nadaillac, 325; _Powell’ s Rept._, i. 221; cf. p. 234; _Amer. Antiquarian_, vii. 200.) The most important discussion of the tablet is Charles Rau’s _Palenqué Tablet in the U. S. National Museum_ (Washington, 1879), being the _Smithsonian Contri. to Knowledge_, no. 331, or vol. xxii. It contains an account of the explorations that have been made at Palenqué, and a chapter on the “Aboriginal writing in Mexico, Central America, and Yucatan, with some account of the attempted translations of Maya hieroglyphics.” Rau’s conclusion is that it is a Phallic symbol. Cf. a summary in _Amer. Antiquarian_, vi., Jan., 1884, and in _Amer. Art Review_, 1880, p. 217. Rau’s paper was translated into Spanish and French: _Tablero del Palenque en el Museo nacional de los Estados-Unidos_ [traducido por Joaquin Davis y Miguel Perez], in the _Anales del Museo nacional_. Tomo 2, pp. 131-203. (México, 1880.) _La Stèle de Palenqué du Musée national des Etats-Unis, à Washington. Traduit de l’Anglais avec autorisation de l’auteur._ In the _Annales du Musée Guimet_, vol. x. (Paris, 1887.) Rau’s views were criticised by Morgan.

There are papers by Charency on the interpretation of the hieroglyphs in _Le Muséon_ (Paris, 1882, 1883).

The significance of the cross among the Nahuas and Mayas has been the subject of much controversy, some connecting it with a possible early association with Christians in ante-Columbian days (Bancroft, iii. 468). On this later point see Bamps, _Les traditions relatives à l’homme blanc et au signe de la cruz en Amérique à l’Epoque précolumbienne_, in the _Compte rendu, Congrès des Américanistes_ (Copenhagen, 1883), p. 125; and “Supposed vestiges of early Christian teaching in America,” in the _Catholic Historical Researches_ (vol. i., Oct., 1885). The symbolism is variously conceived. Bandelier (_Archæol. Jour._) holds it to be the emblem of fire, indeed an ornamented fire-drill, which later got mixed up with the Spanish crucifix. Brinton (_Myths of the New World_, 95) sees in it the four cardinal points, the rain-bringers, the symbol of life and health, and cites (p. 96) various of the early writers in proof. Brinton (_Am. Hero Myths_, 155) claims to have been the first to connect the Palenqué cross with the four cardinal points. The bird and serpent—the last shown better in Charnay’s photograph than in Stephens’s cut—is (_Myths_, 119) simply a rebus of the air-god, the ruler of the winds. Brinton says that Waldeck, in a paper on the tablet in the _Revue Américaine_ (ii. 69), came to a similar conclusion. Squier (_Nicaragua_, ii. 337) speaks of the common error of mistaking the tree of life of the Mexicans for the Christian symbol. Cf. Powell’s _Second Rept., Bur. of Ethnol._, p. 208; the _Fourth Rept._, p. 252, where discredit is thrown upon Gabriel de Mortillet’s _Le Signe de la cross avant le Christianisme_ (Paris, 1866); Joly’s _Man before Metals_, 339; and Charnay’s _Les Anciens Villes_ (or Eng. transl. p. 85). Cf. for various applications the references in Bancroft’s index (v. p. 671).

[1063] Both were alike, and one was broken in two. There are engravings in Waldeck, pl. 25; Stephens, ii. 344, 349; Squier’s _Nicaragua_, 1856, ii. 337; Bancroft, iv. 337.

[1064] These have been the subject of an elaborate folio, thought, however, to be of questionable value, _Die Steinbildwerke von Copân und Quiriguâ, aufgenommen von Heinrich Meye; historisch erläutert und beschrieben von Dr. Julius Schmidt_ (Berlin, 1883), of which there is an English translation, _The stone sculptures of Copán and Quiriguá_; translated from the German by A.D. Savage (New York, 1883). It gives twenty plates, Catherwood’s plates, and the cuts in Stephens, with reproductions in accessible books (Bancroft, iv. ch. 3; Powell’s _First Rept. Bur. Ethn._ 224; Ruge’s _Gesch. des Zeitalters; Amer. Antiquarian_, viii. 204-6), will serve, however, all purposes.

[1065] Squier says: “There are various reasons for believing that both Copan and Quirigua antedate Olosingo and Palenqué, precisely as the latter antedate the ruins of Quiché, Chichen-Itza, and Uxmal, and that all of them were the work of the same people, or of nations of the same race, dating from a high antiquity, and in blood and language precisely the same that was found in occupation of the country by the Spaniards.”

[1066] Named apparently from a neighboring village.

[1067] Ref. in Bancroft, iv. 79.

[1068] This account can be found in Pacheco’s _Col. Doc. inéd._ vi. 37, in Spanish; in Ternaux’s _Coll._ (1840), imperfect, and in the _Nouv. Annales des Voyages_, 1843, v. xcvii. p. 18, in French; in Squier’s _Cent. America_, 242, and in his ed. of Palacio (N. Y. 1860), in English; and in Alexander von Frantzius’s _San Salvador und Honduras im Jahre_ 1576, with notes by the translator and by C. H. Berendt.

[1069] Stephens, _Cent. Am._, i. 131, 144; Warden, 71; _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_, xxxv. 329; Bancroft, iv. 82; _Bull. de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris_, 1836, v. 267; Short, 56, 82,—not to name others.

[1070] His account is in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Trans._, ii.; _Bull. Soc. de Géog._ 1835; Dupaix, a summary, i. div. 2, p. 73; Bradford’s _Amer. Antiq._, in part. Galindo’s drawings are unknown. Stephens calls his account “unsatisfactory and imperfect.”

[1071] _Central America_, i. ch. 5-7; _Views of Anc. Mts._ It is Stephens’s account which has furnished the basis of those given by Bancroft (iv. ch. 3); Baldwin, p. 111; Short, 356; Nadaillac, 328, and all others. Bancroft in his bibliog. note (iv. pp. 79-81), which has been collated with my own notes, mentions others of less importance, particularly the report of Center and Hardcastle to the Amer. Ethnol. Soc. in 1860 and 1862, and the photographs made by Ellerley, which Brasseur (_Hist. Nat. Civ._ i. 96; ii. 493; _Palenqué_, 8, 17) found to confirm the drawings and descriptions of Catherwood and Stephens.

Stephens (_Cent. Am._, i. 133) made a plan of the ruins reproduced in _Annales des Voyages_ (1841, p. 57), which is the basis of that given by Bancroft (iv. 85). Dr. Julius Schmidt, who was a member of the Squier expedition in 1852-53, furnished the historical and descriptive text to a work which in the English translation by A.D. Savage is known as _Stone Sculptures of Copán and Quiriguá, drawn by Heinrich Meye_ (N. Y., 1883). What Stephens calls the Copan idols and altars are considered by Morgan (_Houses and House Life_, 257), following the analogy of the customs of the northern Indians, to be the grave-posts and graves of Copan chiefs. Bancroft (iv. ch. 3) covers the other ruins of Honduras and San Salvador; and Squier has a paper on those of Tenampua in the _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1853.

[1072] Stephens’s _Central America_, ii. ch. 7; and _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_, vol. lxxxviii. 376, derived from Catherwood.

[1073] Other travellers who have visited them are John Baily, _Central America_ (Lond. 1850); A. P. Maudsley, _Explorations in Guatemala_ (Lond. 1883), with map and plans of ruins, in the _Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc._ p. 185; W. T. Brigham’s _Guatemala_ (N. Y., 1886). Bancroft (iv. 109) epitomizes the existing knowledge; but the remains seem to be less known than any other of the considerable ruins. There are a few later papers: G. Williams on the Antiquities of Guatemala, in the _Smithsonian Report_, 1876; Simeon Habel’s “Sculptures of Santa Lucia Cosumalhuapa in Guatemala” in the _Smithson. Contrib._ xxii. (Washington, 1878), or “Sculptures de Santa (Lucia) Cosumalwhuapa dans le Guatémala, avec une rélation de voyages dans l’Amérique Centrale et sur les cótes occidentales de l’Amérique du Sud, par S. Habel. Traduit de l’anglais, par J. Pointet,” with eight plates, in the _Annales du Musée Guimet_, vol. x. pp. 119-259 (Paris, 1887); Philipp Wilhelm Adolf Bastian’s “Stein Sculpturen aus Guatemala,” in the _Jahrbuch der k. Museen zu Berlin_, 1882, or “Notice sur les pierres sculptées du Guatémala récemment acquises par le Musée royal d’ethnographie de Berlin. Traduit avec autorisation de l’auteur par J. Pointet,” in the _Annales du Musée Guimet_, vol. x. pp. 261-305 (Paris, 1887); and C. E. Vreeland and J. F. Bransford, on the _Antiquities at Pantaleon, Guatemala_ (Washington, 1885), from the _Smithsonian Report_ for 1884.

[1074] _Nicaragua; its people, scenery, monuments, and the proposed interoceanic canal_ (N. Y., 1856; revised 1860), a portion (pp. 303-362) referring to the modern Indian occupants. Squier was helped by his official station as U. S. chargé d’affaires; and the archæological objects brought away by him are now in the National Museum at Washington. He published separate papers in the _Amer. Ethnol. Soc. Trans._ ii.; _Smithsonian Ann. Rept._ v. (1850); _Harper’s Monthly_, x. and xi. Cf. list in Pilling, nos. 3717, etc.

[1075] His explorations were in 1865-66. He carried off what he could to the British Museum.

[1076] Like Bedford Pim and Berthold Seemann’s _Dottings on the Roadside in Panama, Nicaragua, and Mosquito_ (Lond., 1869).

[1077] J. F. Bransford’s “Archæological Researches in Nicaragua,” in the _Smithsonian Contrib._ (Washington, 1881). Karl Bovallius’s _Nicaraguan Antiquities_, with plates (Stockholm, 1886), published by the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography, figures various statues and other relics found by the author in Nicaragua, and he says that his drawings are in some instances more exact than those given by Squier before the days of photography. In his introduction he describes the different Indian stocks of Nicaragua, and disagrees with Squier. He gives a useful map of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

[1078] It is only of late years that they have been kept apart, for the elder writers like Kingsborough, Stephens, and Brantz Mayer, confounded them.

[1079] The Father Alonzo Ponce, who travelled through Yucatan in 1586, is the only writer, according to Brinton (_Books of Chilan Balam_, p. 5), who tells us distinctly that the early missionaries made use of aboriginal characters in giving religious instruction to the natives (_Relacion Breve y Verdadera_).

[1080] Leon y Gama tells us that color as well as form seems to have been representative.

[1081] See references on the accepted difficulties in _Native Races_, ii. 551. Mrs. Nuttall claims to have observed certain complemental signs in the Mexican graphic system, “which renders a misinterpretation of the Nahuatl picture-writings impossible” (_Am. Asso. Adv. Science, Proc._, xxxv. Aug., 1886); _Peabody Mus. Papers_, i. App.

[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.”

[1091] _Manuscrit Troano Etudes sur le système graphique et la langue des Mayas_ (Paris, 1869-70)—the first volume containing a fac-simile of the Codex in seventy plates, with Brasseur’s explications and partial interpretation. In the second volume there is a translation of Gabriél de Saint Bonaventure’s _Grammaire Maya_, a “Chrestomathie” of Maya extracts, and a Maya lexicon of more than 10,000 words. Brasseur published at the same time (1869) in the _Mémoires de la Soc. d’Ethnographie a Lettre à M. Léon de Rosny sur la découverte de documents relatifs à la haute antiquité américaine, et sur le déchiffrement et l’interprétation de l’écriture phonétique et figurative de la langue Maya_ (Paris, 1869). He explained his application of Landa’s alphabet in the introduction to the _MS. Troano_, i. p. 36. Brasseur later confessed he had begun at the wrong end of the MS. (_Bib. Mex.-Guat._, introd.). The pebble-shape form of the characters induced Brasseur to call them _calculiform_; and Julien Duchateau adopted the term in his paper “Sur l’écriture calculiforme des Mayas” in the _Annuaire de la Soc. Amér._ (Paris, 1874), iii. p. 31.

[1092] _L’écriture hiératique_, and _Archives de la Soc. Am. de France_, n. s., ii. 35.

[1093] _Ancient Phonetic Alphabets of Yucatan_ (N. Y., 1870), p. 7.