Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts Part 12

Among the important results growing out of, and deductions to be drawn from, my discovery in regard to these two plates, I may mention the following:

_First._ That the order in which the groups and characters are to be taken is around to the left, opposite the course of the sun, which tallies with most of the authorities, and in reference to the Maya calendar confirms Perez's statement, heretofore mentioned.

_Second._ That the cross, as has been generally supposed, was used among these nations as a symbol of the cardinal points.

_Third._ It tends to confirm the belief that the bird figures were used to denote the winds. This fact also enables us to give a signification to the birds' heads on the engraved sh.e.l.ls found in the mounds of the United States, a full and interesting account of which is given by Mr.

Holmes in a paper published in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.[50] Take for example the three sh.e.l.ls figured on Plate LIX--reproduced in our Fig. 10--Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Here is in each case the four-looped circle corresponding with the four loops of the Cortesian and Fejervary plates, also with the looped serpent of the Mexican calendar stone, and the four serpents of Plate 43 of the Borgian Codex. The four bird heads on each sh.e.l.l are pointed toward the left, just as on Plate 44 of the Fejervary Codex, and Plates 65 and 66 of the Vatican Codex B, and doubtless have the same signification in the former as in the latter--the _four winds_, or winds of the four cardinal points. If this supposition be correct, of which there is scarcely room for a doubt, it not only confirms Mr. Holmes's suggestions, but also indicates that the mound builders followed the same custom in this respect as the Nahua nations, and renders it quite probable that there was more or less intercourse between the two peoples, which will enable us to account for the presence in the mounds of certain articles, which otherwise appear as anomalies.

_Fourth._ Another and more important result is the proof it furnishes of an intimate relation of the Maya with the Nahua nations. That all the Central American nations had calendars substantially the same in principle as the Mexican, is well known. This of itself would indicate a common origin not so very remote; but when we see two contiguous or neighboring peoples making use of the same conventional signs of a complicated nature, down even to the most minute details, and those of a character not comprehensible by the commonalty, we have proof at least of a very intimate relation. I cannot attempt in this place to discuss the question of the ident.i.ty or non-ident.i.ty of the Maya, Toltec and Aztec nations, nor the relations of one to the other, but follow the usual method, and speak of the three as distinct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.--Engraved sh.e.l.ls from mounds.]

If Leon y Gama is correct in is statement,[51] "No todos comenzaban a contar el circlo por un mismo ano; los Toltecos lo empezaban desde _Tecpatl_; los de Teotihuacan desde _Calli_; los Mexicanos desde _Tochtli_; y los Tezcocanos desde _Acatl_," and the years began with _c.i.p.actli_, we are probably justified in concluding that the Fejervary Codex is a Tezcucan ma.n.u.script.

Be this as it may, we have in these two plates the evidence of an intimate relation between the Maya and Nahua nations, as that of the Cortesian Codex certainly appertains to the former and the Fejervary as certainly to the latter.

Which was the original and which the copy is a question of still greater importance, as its proper determination may have the effect to overturn certain opinions which have been long entertained and generally conceded as correct. If an examination should prove that the Mayas have borrowed from the Nahuas it would result in proving the calendar and sculptures of the former to be much more recent than has been generally supposed.

It must be admitted that the Mexican or Nahua ma.n.u.scripts have little or nothing in them that could have been borrowed from the Maya ma.n.u.scripts or inscriptions; hence, if we find in the latter anything belonging to or found in the former it will indicate that they are borrowed and that the Mexican are the older.

In addition to the close resemblance of these two plates, the following facts bearing upon this question are worthy of notice. In the lower part of Plate 52 of the Dresden Codex we see precisely the same figure as that used by the Mexicans as the symbol of _c.i.p.actli_.

The chief character of the hieroglyphic, 15 R. (Rau's scheme), of the Palenque Tablet is a serpent's head (shown correctly only on the stone in the Smithsonian Museum and in Dr. Rau's photograph), and nearly the same as the symbol for the same Mexican day. The method of representing a house in the Maya ma.n.u.scripts is substantially the same as the Mexican symbol for _Calli_ (House). The cross on the Palenque Tablet has so many features in common with those in the blue and red loops of the Fejervary Codex as to induce the belief that they were derived from the same type.

We see in that of the Tablet the reptile head as at the base of the cross in the blue loop, the nodes, and probably the bird of that in the red loop, and the two human figures.

What is perhaps still more significant, is the fact that in this plate of the Fejervery[TN-19] Codex, and elsewhere in the same Codex, we see evidences of a transition from pictorial symbols to conventional characters; for example, the yellow heart-shaped symbol in the lower left-hand corner of the Fejervary plate which is there used to denote the day _Ocelotl_ (Tiger). On the other hand we find in the ma.n.u.script Troano for example, on plate III, one of the symbols used in the _Tonalamatl_ of the Vatican Codex B and in other Mexican codices to signify water. On Plate XXV* of the same ma.n.u.script, under the four symbols of the cardinal points, we see four figures, one a sitting figure similar to the middle one with black head, on the left side of the Cortesian plate; one a spotted dog sitting on what is apparently part of the carapace of a tortoise; one a monkey, and the other a bird with a hooked bill. Is it not possible that we have here an indication of the four days--Dragon, Death, Monkey, Vulture, with which the Mexican years began?

In all the Maya ma.n.u.scripts we find the custom of using heads as symbols, almost, if not quite, as often as in the Mexican codices. Not only so, but in the former, even in the purely conventional characters, we see evidences of a desire to turn every one possible into the figure of a head, a fact still more apparent in the monumental inscriptions.

Turning to the ruins of Copan as represented by Stephens and others, we find on the altars and elsewhere the same death's-head with huge incisors so common in Mexico, and on the statues the snake-skin so often repeated on those of Mexico. Here we find the _c.i.p.actli_ as a huge crocodile head,[52] also the monkey's head used as a hieroglyphic.[53]

The pendant lip or lolling tongue, which ever it be, of the central figure of the Mexican calendar stone is found also in the central figure of the sun tablet of Palenque[54] and a dozen times over in the inscriptions.

The long, elephantine, Tlaloc nose, so often repeated in the Mexican codices, is even more common and more elaborate in the Maya ma.n.u.scripts and sculptures, and, as we learn from a MS. paper by Mr. Gustav Eisen, lately received by the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, has also been found at Copan.

Many more points or items of agreement might be pointed out, but these will suffice to show that one must have borrowed from the other, for it is impossible that isolated civilizations should have produced such identical results in details even down to conventional figures. Again we ask the question, Which was the borrower? We hesitate to accept what seems to be the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from these facts, as it compels us to take issue with the view almost universally held. One thing is apparent, viz, that the Mexican symbols could never have grown out of the Maya hieroglyphics. That the latter might have grown out of the former is not impossible.

If we accept the theory that there was a Toltec nation preceding the advent of the Aztec, which, when broken up and driven out of Mexico, proceeded southward, where probably colonies from the main stock had already been planted, we may be able to solve the enigma.

If this people were, as is generally supposed, the leaders in Mexican and Central American civilization, it is possible that the Aztecs, a more savage and barbarous people, borrowed their civilization from the former, and, having less tendency toward development, retained the original symbols and figures of the former, adding only ornamentation and details, but not advancing to any great extent toward a written language.

Some such supposition as this, I believe, is absolutely necessary to explain the facts mentioned. But even this will compel us to admit that the monuments of Yucatan and Copan are of much more recent date than has generally been supposed, and such I am inclined to believe is the fact.

At any rate, I think I may fairly claim, without rendering myself chargeable with egotism, that my discovery in regard to the two plates so frequently mentioned will throw some additional light on this vexed question.

NOTE.--Since the foregoing was printed, my attention has been called by Dr. Brinton to the fact that the pa.s.sage quoted from Sahagun (see pages 41 and 54), as given in Bustamente's edition, from which it was taken, is incorrect in combining _Cetochtli_ and _Acatl_ into one word, when in fact the first is the end of one sentence and the second the commencement of another. I find, by reference to the pa.s.sage as given in Kingsborough, the evidence of this erroneous reading. The argument on page 54, so far as based upon this incorrect reading, must fall.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Study Ma.n.u.script Troano, pp. 69-74.

[15] Les. Doc. Ecrit. l'Antiq. Ameriq.

[16] Zeits. fur Ethn., 1879.

[17] Study Ma.n.u.script Troano, pp. 68-70.

[18] Vol. III, p. 471.

[19] P. 234.

[20] P. 209.

[21] P. 82.

[22] P. 209.

[23] See also hisDechiff.[TN-20] Ecrit. Hierat., p. 42.

[24] Relacion, p.208.[TN-21]

[25] _Des couleurs consideres comme Symboles des Points de l'Horizon chez des Peuples du Noveau Monde_, in _Actes de la Societe Philologique_, tome VI. See also his _Recherches sur les Noms des Points de l'Es.p.a.ce_, in. _Mem. Acad. Nat. Sci. et Arts et Belles Lettres de Caen_, 1882.

Since the above was written I have received a copy of his _Ages ou Soleils_, in which he gives the Mexican custom of a.s.signing the colors as follows: blue to the south, red to the east, yellow to the north, and green to the west.--P. 40.

[26] Hist. Gen. de las Cosas de Nueva Espana, tome 2, p. 256.

[27] Hist. Ant. Mex., vol. 1, p. 42.

[28] Churchill's Voyages, vol. IV, pp. 491, 492.

[29] Hist. Mex. Cullen's Transl., I, 292.

[30] _Idea de Una Nueva Historia General de la America Septentrional_, pp. 54-56.

[31] Hist. Amer. Dec. II, B. 10, Chap. 4. Transl. vol. 3, pp. 221-222.

[32] _Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana, Mexico_, 1880. Tom. II., pp[TN-22] 252-253.

[33] Trat^o. 3 Lam 1.

[34] Zeit. fur Ethnologie, 1879.

[35] a.n.a.les Mus. Mex., I, Entrag. 7, p. 299.

[36] Monarq. Indiana, lib. X, cap. 36.

[37] Tom. 1, Entrag. 7, tom. II, and continued in tom. III.