GRAPHIC SYSTEMS AND LITERATURE.
INTRODUCTORY.
The intellectual development of a nation attains its fullest expression
in language, oral or written. This “divine art” as Plato calls it,
claims therefore from the student of man in the aggregate a prolonged
attention and the most painstaking analysis. Too frequently one hears
among anthropologists the claims of linguistics decried, and the many
blunders and over-hasty generalizations of philologists quoted as good
reasons for the neglect or distrust of their branch.
The real reason of this attitude I believe to be not so much the
mistakes of the linguists, as a strong aversion which I have noticed in
many distinguished teachers of physical science to the study of language
and the philosophy of expression. The subject is difficult and
distasteful to them. Having no aptitude for it, nor real acquaintance
with it, they condemn it as of small value and of doubtful results. I
have never known a scientific man who was really a well-read philologist
who thus under-estimated the position of linguistics in the scheme of
anthropology; but I have known many who, not having such thorough
knowledge, depreciated its value in others.
The third and fourth parts of this volume are devoted to language, the
third as it appears especially in its written forms, the fourth
particularly to the profounder questions of linguistic philosophy. Here
again I shall be found in opposition to the majority who have written on
these subjects. The claim I make for the largely phonetic character of
the Mexican and Maya hieroglyphs is not generally accepted; and the
poetical spirit which I argue exists in many productions of the
aboriginal muse will not be favored by those who deny the higher
sentiments of humanity to uncivilized man.
I have endeavored by frequent illustration, and reference to the best
sources of information, to put the reader in the position to judge for
himself; and I shall feel highly gratified if he is prompted to such
investigations by what I may say, whether his final conclusions agree
with mine or not.
THE PHONETIC ELEMENTS IN THE GRAPHIC SYSTEMS OF THE MAYAS AND
MEXICANS.[201]
All who have read the wonderful story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico
and Central America will remember that the European invaders came upon
various nations who were well acquainted with some method of writing,
who were skilled in the manufacture of parchment and paper, and who
filled thousands of volumes formed of these materials with the records
of their history, the theories of their sciences, and the traditions of
their theologies. Aiming at greater permanence than these perishable
materials would offer, they also inscribed on plinths of stone, on slabs
of hard wood, and on terra cotta tablets, the designs and figures which
in the system they adopted served to convey the ideas they wished to
transmit to posterity.
In spite of the deliberate and wholesale destruction of these records at
the conquest, and their complete neglect for centuries afterwards, there
still remain enough, were they collected, to form a respectably large
_Corpus Inscriptionum Americanarum_. Within the present century many
Mexican and Maya MSS. have for the first time been published, and the
inscriptions on the temples of southern Mexico and Yucatan have been
brought to the tables of students by photography and casts, methods
which permit no doubt as to their faithfulness.
Nor have there been lacking diligent students who have availed
themselves of these facilities to search for the lost key to these
mysterious records. It is a pleasure to mention the names of Thomas and
Holden in the United States, of De Rosny, Aubin and de Charencey in
France, of Förstemann, Seler and Schellhas in Germany, of Ramirez and
Orozco in Mexico. But it must frankly be confessed that the results
obtained have been inadequate and unsatisfactory. We have not yet passed
the threshold of investigation.
The question which forces itself upon our attention as demanding a reply
at the very outset, is whether the Aztec and Maya systems of writing
were or were not, in whole or in part, _phonetic_ systems? Did they
appeal, in the first instance, to the _meaning_ of the word, or to the
_sound_ of the word? If to the latter—if, in other words, they were
phonetic, or even partially phonetic—then it is vain to attempt any
interpretation of these records without a preliminary study of the
languages of the nations who were the writers. These languages must
moreover be studied in the form in which they were spoken at the period
of the conquest, and the course of native thought as expressed in the
primitive grammatical structure must be understood and taken into
account. I hasten to add that we have abundant materials for such
studies.
This essential preliminary question, as to the extent of the phonetic
element in the Mexican and Maya systems of writing, is that which I
propose to put at present, and to answer it, so far as may be. Hitherto,
the greatest diversity of opinion about it has prevailed. Some able
writers, such as Valentini and Holden, have questioned the existence of
any phonetic elements; but most have been willing to concede that there
are such present, though their quantity and quality are by no means
clearly defined.
We may assume that both systems under consideration are partly
ideographic. Every system of phonetic writing introduces ideograms to
some extent, our own among the number. The question is, to what extent?
But before we are prepared to answer this question about the extent of
the phonetic element, we must seek to ascertain its character. We are
all aware that a phonetic symbol may express the sound either of a whole
word of several syllables, or of a single syllable, or of a simple
acoustic element. Again, a single phonetic symbol may express several
quite diverse sounds, as is familiarly exemplified in the first letter
of the English alphabet, which represents three very different sounds;
and, on the other hand, we may find three, four or more symbols, no wise
alike in form or origin, bearing one and the same phonetic value, a fact
especially familiar to Egyptologists.
We must further bear in mind that the arrangement to the eye of phonetic
symbols is altogether arbitrary. Because a prefix is pronounced first in
the order of time and a suffix last, it by no means follows that the
order in space of their corresponding symbols shall bear any analogous
relation. The idea awakened by the sound of the word is a whole, and
one; and so that this sound is represented, the disposition of its
component parts is, philosophically speaking, indifferent. When it is
remembered that in most American languages, and notably in the Mexican
or Nahuatl, there is a tendency to consolidate each phrase into a single
word, the importance of this consideration is greatly increased.
As the position of the phonetic parts of the phrase-word may thus be
disregarded, yet more indifferent is the order of sequence of the
symbols. There is no _a priori_ reason why this should be from left to
right as in English, or from right to left as in Hebrew; alternately, as
in the Boustrophedon of the Greek; or from top to bottom, as in Chinese.
In such an examination as the present one, we must rid our minds of the
expectation of finding the phonetic elements in some familiar form, and
simply ask whether they are to be found in any form.
We are not without a trustworthy guide in this quest. It is agreed among
those who have most carefully studied the subject that there is but one
path by which the human mind could have originally proceeded from
picture-writing or thought-writing to phonetic or sound-writing. This
was through the existence of homophones and homoiophones in a language,
of words with the same or similar sounds, but with diverse
significations. The deliberate analysis of a language back to its
phonetic elements, and the construction upon those of a series of
symbols, as was accomplished for the Cherokee by the half-breed
Sequoyah, has ever been the product of culture, not a process of
primitive evolution.
In this primitive process the sounds which were most frequently
repeated, or were otherwise most prominent to the ear, would be those
first represented by a figure; and the same figure would come to be
employed as an equivalent for this sound and others closely akin to it,
even when they had other connections and bore other significations.
Hence affixes, suffixes, and monosyllabic words, are those to which we
must look as offering the earliest evidences of a connection of figure
with sound.
According to the theory here very briefly indicated, I shall examine the
Maya and Nahuatl systems of writing, to ascertain if they present any
phonetic elements, and of what nature these are.
Turning first to the Maya, I may in passing refer to the disappointment
which resulted from the publication of Landa’s alphabet by the Abbé
Brasseur in 1864. Here was what seemed a complete phonetic alphabet,
which should at once unlock the mysteries of the inscriptions on the
temples of Yucatan and Chiapas, and enable us to interpret the script of
the Dresden and other Codices. Experience proved the utter fallacy of
any such hope. His work is no key to the Maya script; but it does
indicate that the Maya scribes were able to assign a character to a
sound, even a sound so meaningless as that of a single letter.
The failure of the Landa alphabet left many scholars total skeptics as
to the phonetic values of any of the Maya characters. To name a
conspicuous and recent example, Prof. Leon de Rosny, in his edition of
the Codex Cortesianus, published in 1883, appends a Vocabulary of the
hieratic signs as far as known; but does not include among them any
phonetic signs other than Landa’s.
But if we turn to the most recent and closest students of these records,
we find among them a consensus of opinion that a certain degree, though
a small degree, of phoneticism must be accepted. Thus our own able
representative in this branch, Prof. Cyrus Thomas, announced in 1882, in
his _Study of the MS. Troano_,[202] that several of the day and month
characters are, beyond doubt, occasionally phonetic.
Prof. Förstemann, of Dresden, whose work on the Dresden Codex has
appeared quite recently, announces his conclusion that the Maya script
is essentially ideographic;[203] but immediately adds that the numerous
small figures attached to the main sign are to be considered phonetic,
and no matter in what local relation they may stand to this sign, they
are to be regarded either as prefixes or suffixes of the word. He does
not attempt to work out their possible meaning, but, as he says, leaves
that to the future.
Almost identical is the conclusion of Dr. Schellhas, whose essay on the
Dresden Codex[204] is a most meritorious study. His final decision is in
these words: “The Maya writing is ideographic in principle, and probably
avails itself, in order to complete its ideographic hieroglyphs, of a
number of fixed phonetic signs.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 1.—The Maya Hieroglyph of the Firmament.
]
Some of these signs have been so carefully scrutinized that their
phonetic value may be considered to have been determined with reasonable
certainty. An interesting example is shown in Fig. 1, for the analysis
of which we are indebted to Dr. Schellhas. The quadrilateral figure at
the top represents the firmament. One of the squares into which it is
divided portrays the sky in the day time, the other, the starry sky at
night. Beneath each are white and black objects, signifying the clouds,
from which falling rain is indicated by long zigzag lines. Between the
clouds on the left of the figure is the well-known ideogram of the sun,
on the right that of the moon. In the Maya language the sun is called
_kin_, the moon _u_, and these figures are found elsewhere, not
indicating these celestial bodies, but merely the phonetic values, the
one of the syllable _kin_, the other of the letter _u_. The two signs
given in Landa’s alphabet for the letter _u_ are really one, separated
in transcription, and a variant of the figure for the moon with the wavy
line beneath it. The word _u_ in Maya is the possessive adjective of the
third person, and as such is employed in conjugating verbs, the Maya
verbal being really a possessive.
A very common terminal syllable in Maya is _il_. It is called by
grammarians “the determinative ending,” and is employed to indicate the
genitive and ablative relations. Dr. Schellhas considers that this is
represented by the signs affixed to the main hieroglyphs shown on Fig.
2.[205]
[Illustration:
FIG. 2.—Maya Phonetic Terminals.
]
The upper figure he reads _kinil_, the lower _cim-il_. The two signs are
the title to a picture in the Codex Troano representing a storm with
destruction of human life. The two words _kin-il cim-il_ maybe
translated “At the time of the killing.” The syllable _cim_ is expressed
in several variants in the Codices, examples of two of which, from the
Dresden Codex, are presented in Fig. 3.
[Illustration:
FIG. 3.—Maya Phonetic Terminals.
]
The signs for the four cardinal points appear to be expressed
phonetically. They are represented in Figs. 4 and 5. The words are for
North, _xaman_, East, _lakin_, South, _nohil_, West, _chikin_. Of these
the syllable _kin_ appears in _lakin_ and _chikin_, and is represented
as above described. The word for North has not been analyzed; that for
South has been translated by Prof. Londe Rosny as _ma ya_, the word _ma_
meaning hands or arms, the lower as either a fruit or the masculine
sign, in either case the phonetic value being alone intended. Both the
name and the etymology are, however, doubtful, resting upon late and
imperfect authorities.
By pursuing the plan here indicated, that is, by assuming that a figure
whose representative value is known, has also a merely phonetic value in
other combinations, a certain number of phonetic elements of the Maya
tongue have been identified. Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in an article published
in one of our prominent journals, states that he has “interpreted
satisfactorily to himself twelve or fifteen compound characters which
appear to be phonetic.”[206]
[Illustration:
FIGS. 4 and 5.—Signs of the Cardinal Points in Maya.
]
It is obvious, however, that small progress has been made in this
direction compared to the labor expended. By far the greater number of
the fixed symbols of the Maya are yet undeciphered. It is acknowledged
by all recent students that they cannot be representative, as they recur
too frequently. To explain them, there is but one sure course, and that
is, by a close analysis of the Maya language to get at the relations of
ideas in the native mind as expressed in their own phonetic system.
When we turn to the Mexican system of writing, much more definite and
extensive information as to its phonetic elements awaits us. It is
possible that at bottom it has really no higher phonetic character, but
several facts have combined to give us a better understanding of its
structure. In the first place, more examples of it have been preserved,
some of these with more or less accurate translations. Again, the
earlier writers, those whom we look upon as our historical authorities,
have been more explicit and ample in their description of Mexican native
literature than of that of Yucatan. Finally, and most important, the
Mexican language, the Nahuatl, was studied at an early date, and with
surprising thoroughness, by the Catholic priests. Within a generation
after the conquest they had completed a quite accurate analysis of its
grammatical structure, and had printed a Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary
containing more words than are to be found in any English dictionary for
a century later.
These intelligent missionaries acquainted themselves with the principles
of the Mexican script, and to a limited extent made use of it in their
religious instructions, as did also the Spanish scriveners in their
legal documents in transactions with the natives. They found the native
phonetic writing partly syllabic and partly alphabetic; and it was easy
for the priests to devise a wholly alphabetic script on the same plan.
An interesting example of this is preserved in the work of Valades,
entitled _Rhetorica Christiana_, written about 1570. Familiar objects
are represented, chiefly of European introduction. Each has the phonetic
value only of the first letter of its Nahuatl name. The plan is
extremely simple, and indeed the forms and names of the Hebrew letters
seem to indicate that they arose in the same way. Applying it to
English, we should spell the word _cat_ by a picture of a chair, of an
axe, and of a table, each of these being the recognized symbol of its
first phonetic element or initial letter. Often any one of several
objects whose names begin with the same letter could be used, at choice.
This is also illustrated in Valades’ alphabet, where, for instance, the
letter _E_ is represented by four different objects.
As I have observed, the native genius had not arrived at a complete
analysis of the phonetic elements of the language; but it was distinctly
progressing in that direction. Of the five vowels and fourteen
consonants which make up the Nahuatl alphabet, three vowels certainly,
and probably three consonants, had reached the stage where they were
often expressed as simple letters by the method above described. The
vowels were _a_, for which the sign was _atl_, water; _e_ represented by
a bean, _etl_; and _o_ by a footprint, or path, _otli_; the consonants
were _p_, represented either by a flag, _pan_, or a mat, _petl_; _t_, by
a stone, _tetl_, or lips, _tentli_; and _z_, by a lancet, _zo_. These
are, however, exceptions. Most of the Nahuatl phonetics were syllabic,
sometimes one, sometimes two syllables of the name of the object being
employed. When the whole name of an object or most of it was used as a
phonetic value, the script remains truly phonetic, but becomes of the
nature of a rebus, and this is the character of most of the phonetic
Mexican writing.
Every one is familiar with the principle of the rebus. It is where a
phrase is represented by pictures of objects whose names bear some
resemblance in sound to the words employed. A stock example is that of
the gallant who to testify his devotion to the lady of his heart, whose
name was Rose Hill, had embroidered on his gown the pictures of a rose,
a hill, an eye, a loaf of bread, and a well, which was to be
interpreted, “Rose Hill I love well.”
In medieval heraldry this system was in extensive use. Armorial bearings
were selected, the names of the elements of which expressed that of the
family who bore them. Thus Pope Adrian IV, whose name was Nicolas
Breakespeare, carried the device of a spear with a broken shaft; the
Boltons of England wear arms representing a cask or _tun_ pierced by a
cross-bow shaft or _bolt_; etc. Such arms were called _canting_ arms,
the term being derived from the Latin _cantare_, to sing or chant, the
arms themselves chanting or announcing the family surname.
We have, so far as I am aware, no scientific term to express this manner
of phonetic writing, and I propose for it therefore the adjective
_ikonomatic_, from the Greek _eikon_, a figure or image, and _onoma_
(genitive, _onomatos_) name,—a writing by means of the names of the
figures or images represented. The corresponding noun would be
_ikonomatography_. It differs radically from picture-writing
(_Bilderschrift_,) for although it is composed of pictures, these were
used solely with reference to the sound of their names, not their
objective significance.
[Illustration:
FIG. 6.—Mexican Phonetic Hieroglyphics of the name of Montezuma.
]
The Mexicans, in their phonetic writing, were never far removed from
this ikonomatic stage of development. They combined, however, with it
certain clearly defined monosyllabic signs, and the separate alphabetic
elements which I have already noted. An examination of the MSS. proves
that there was no special disposition of the parts of a word. In other
words, they might be arranged from right to left or from left to right,
from below upwards or from above downwards; or the one may be placed
within the other. It will easily be seen that this greatly increases the
difficulty of deciphering these figures.
As illustrations of the phoneticism of Mexican writing I show two
compounds, quoted by M. Aubin in his well-known essay on the subject.
The first is a proper noun, that of the emperor Montezuma (Fig. 6). It
should be read from right to left. The picture at the right represents a
mouse trap, in Nahuatl, _montli_, with the phonetic value _mo_, or
_mon_; the head of the eagle has the value _quauh_, from _quauhtli_; it
is transfixed with a lancet, _zo_; and surmounted with a hand, _maitl_,
whose phonetic value is _ma_; and these values combined give
_mo-quauh-zo-ma_.
[Illustration:
FIG. 7.—Mexican Phonetic Hieroglyphics of the name of a Serpent.
]
The second example is a common noun, the name of a serpent
_tecuhtlacozauhqui_ (Fig. 7). It is also read from right to left; the
head with the peculiar band and frontal ornament is that of one of the
noble class, _tecuhtli_; at the base of the left figure is a familiar
sign for _tla_, and represents two teeth, _tlantli_; they are surmounted
by a jar, _comitl_ with the value _co_; and this in turn is pierced by a
lancet, which here has only its alphabetic value _z_. The remainder of
the word was not expressed in the writing, the above signs being deemed
sufficient to convey the idea to the reader.
In presenting these examples I do not bring forward anything new. They
are from an essay which has been in print nearly forty years.[207] Many
other examples are to be seen in the great work of Lord Kingsborough,
and later in publications in the city of Mexico. The learned Ramirez
undertook a dictionary of Nahuatl hieroglyphics which has in part been
published; Orozco y Berra in his “History of Ancient Mexico” gathered a
great many facts illustrative of the phonetic character of the Mexican
script; and within a year Dr. Peñafiel has issued a quarto of
considerable size giving ancient local Mexican names with their phonetic
representations.[208]
With these aids at command, why has not our progress in the
interpretation of the ancient records on stone and paper been more
rapid? Why do we stand now almost at the same point as in 1850?
There can be but one answer, and that will immediately suggest itself
from the nature of the phoneticism in the Mexican writing. What I have
called the _ikonomatic_ system of writing can be elucidated only by one
who has a wide command of the vocabulary of the language. Consider, for
a moment, the difficulty which we experience, with all our knowledge of
our native tongue, in solving one of the rebuses which appear in the
puzzle columns of periodicals for children; or in interpreting the
canting arms in armorial bearings. Not only must we recall the various
names of the objects represented, and select from them such as the sense
of the context requires, but we must make allowance for extensive
omissions, as in one of the examples above quoted (Fig. 7), and for mere
similarities of sound, often quite remote, as well as for the
abbreviations and conventionalisms of practiced scribes, familiar with
their subject and with this method of writing the sounds of their
language.
Such difficulties as these can only be overcome by long-continued
application to the tongues themselves, and by acquainting one’s self
intimately with the forms, the methods, and the variations of this truly
puzzling graphic system. Every identification is solving an enigma; but
once solved, each illustrates the method, confirms its accuracy, and
facilitates the learner’s progress, and at the same time stimulates him
with the joyous sense of difficulties conquered, and with the vision of
discovered truth illuminating his onward path.
Although, as I have stated, the general principles of this method were
pointed out forty years ago, the prevailing ignorance of the Nahuatl
language has prevented any one from successfully deciphering the Mexican
script. This ignorance has had even a worse effect. Men who did not know
a dozen words of Nahuatl, who were unable to construe a single sentence
in the language, have taken upon themselves to condemn Aubin’s
explanations as visionary and untrue, and to deny wholly the phonetic
elements of the Mexican writing. Lacking the essential condition of
testing the accuracy of the statement, they have presumed blankly to
condemn it!
THE IKONOMATIC METHOD OF PHONETIC WRITING.[209]
All methods of recording ideas have been divided into two classes,
Thought Writing and Sound Writing.
The first, simplest and oldest is Thought Writing. This in turn is
subdivided into two forms, Ikonographic and Symbolic Writing. The former
is also known as Imitative, Representative or Picture Writing. The
object to be held in memory is represented by its picture, drawn with
such skill, or lack of skill, as the writer may possess. In Symbolic
Writing, a single characteristic part or trait serves to represent the
whole object; thus, the track of an animal will stand for the animal
itself; a representation of the peculiar round impression of the wolf’s
foot, or the three-lined track of the wild turkey, being amply
sufficient to designate these creatures. Even the rudest savages
practice both these forms of writing, and make use of them to scratch on
rocks, and paint on bark and hides, the record of their deeds.
It will be observed that Thought Writing has no reference to spoken
language; neither the picture of a wolf, nor the representation of his
footprint, conveys the slightest notion of the sound of the word _wolf_.
How was the enormous leap made from the thought to the sound—in other
words, from an ideographic to a phonetic method of writing?
This question has received considerable attention from scholars with
reference to the development of the two most important alphabets of the
world, the Egyptian and the Chinese. Both these began as simple picture
writing, and both progressed to almost complete phoneticism. In both
cases, however, the earliest steps are lost, and can be retraced only by
indications remaining after a high degree of phonetic power had been
reached. On the other hand, in the Mexican and probably in the Maya
hieroglyphics, we find a method of writing which is intermediate between
the two great classes I have mentioned, and which illustrates in a
striking manner the phases through which both the Egyptian and Semitic
alphabets passed somewhat before the dawn of history.
To this method, which stands midway between the ikonographic and the
alphabetic methods of writing, I have given the name _ikonomatic_,
derived from the Greek εικων-ονος, an image, a figure; ονομα-ατος, a
name. That which the figure or picture refers to is not the object
represented, but the _name_ of that object—a _sound_, not a _thing_. But
it does not refer to that sound as the name of the object, but precisely
the contrary—it is the sound of the name of some other object or idea.
Many ideas have no objective representation, and others are much more
simply expressed by the use of figures whose names are familiar and of
similar sound. Thus, to give a simple example, the infinitive “to hide”
could be written by a figure 2, and the picture of a skin or hide. It is
this plan on which those familiar puzzles are constructed which are
called _rebuses_, and none other than this which served to bridge over
the wide gap between Thought and Sound writing. It is, however, not
correct to say that it is a writing by _things_, “_rebus_;” but it is by
the _names_ of things, and hence I have coined the word _ikonomatic_, to
express this clearly.
I shall select several illustrations from two widely diverse sources,
the one the hieroglyphs of Egypt, the other the heraldry of the Middle
Ages, and from these more familiar fields obtain some hints of service
in unraveling the intricacies of the Mexican and Maya scrolls.
The general principle which underlies “ikonomatic writing” is the
presence in a language of words of different meaning but with the same
or similar sounds; that is, of _homophonous_ words. The figure which
represents one of these is used phonetically to signify the other. There
are homophones in all languages; but they abound in some more than in
others. For obvious reasons, they are more abundant in languages which
tend toward monosyllabism, such as the Chinese and the Maya, and in a
less degree the ancient Coptic. In these it is no uncommon occurrence to
find four or five quite different meanings to the same word; that is,
the same sound has served as the radical for that many different names
of diverse objects. The picture of any of these objects would, to the
speaker of the language, recall a sound which would have all these
significations, and could be employed indifferently for any of them.
This circle of meanings would be still more widely extended when mere
similarity, not strict identity, was aimed at.
Such was plainly the origin of phoneticism in the Egyptian hieroglyphic
inscriptions. Take the word _nefer_. Its most common concrete
signification was “a lute,” and in the picture writing proper the lute
is represented by its figure. But _nefer_ had several other
significations in Coptic. It meant, a _colt_, a _conscript soldier_, a
_door_, and the adjective _good_. The picture of the lute therefore was
used to signify every one of these.
It will be observed that this is an example of a pure ikonograph—the
picture is that of the object in full, a lute; but precisely in the same
way the second class of figures in picture writing, those which are
wholly symbolic, may be employed. This, too, finds ample illustration in
the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Instead of the picture of a house, the
figure of a square was employed, with one side incomplete. Phonetically,
this conveyed the sound _per_, which means _house_, and several other
things.
It will readily be seen that where a figure represents a number of
homophonous words, considerable confusion may result from the difficulty
of ascertaining which of these is intended. To meet this, we find both
in Egyptian and Chinese writing series of signs which are written but
not pronounced, called “determinatives.” These indicate the class to
which a word has reference. They are ideographic, and of fixed meaning.
Thus, after the word _nefer_, when used for conscript, the determinative
is the picture of a man, etc.[210]
There is little doubt but that all the Egyptian syllabic and alphabetic
writing was derived from this early phase, where the governing principle
was that of the rebus. At the date of the earliest inscriptions, most of
the phonetics were monosyllabic; but in several instances, as _nefer_,
above given, _neter_, which represents a banner, and by homophony, a
god, and others, the full disyllabic name was preserved to the latest
times. The monosyllabic signs were derived from the initial and the
accented syllables of the homophones; and the alphabet, so-called, but
never recognized as such, by the Egyptians, either from monoliteral
words, or from initial sounds. At no period of ancient Egyptian history
was one sound constantly represented by one sign. In the so-called
Egyptian alphabet, there are four quite different signs for the _M_,
four for the _T_, three for the _N_, and so on. This is obviously owing
to the independent derivation of these phonetic elements from different
figures employed ikonomatically.
There are other peculiarities in the Egyptian script, which are to be
explained by the same historic reason. For instance, certain phonetic
signs can be used only in definite combinations; others must be assigned
fixed positions, as at the beginning or at the end of a group; and, in
other cases, two or more different signs, with the same phonetic value,
follow one another, the scribe thinking that if the reader was not
acquainted with one, he would be with the other. I note these
peculiarities, because they may be expected to recur in other systems of
ikonomatic writing, and may serve as hints in interpreting them.
Evidently, one of the earliest stimuli to the development of phonetics
was the wish to record proper names, which in themselves had no definite
signification, such as those drawn from a foreign language, or those
which had lost through time their original sense. In savage conditions
every proper name is significant; but in conditions of social life, as
developed as that of the Egyptians of the earlier dynasties, and as that
of the Mayas and Mexicans in the New World, there are found many names
without meaning in the current tongue. These could not be represented by
any mode of picture writing. To be recorded at all, they must be written
phonetically; and to accomplish this the most obvious plan was to select
objects whose names had a similar sound, and by portraying the latter,
represent to the ear the former. The Greek names, _Alexander_ and
_Alexandria_, occurring on the Rosetta Stone, were wholly meaningless to
the Egyptian ear; but their scribes succeeded in expressing them very
nearly by a series of signs which in origin are rebuses.
This inception of the ikonomatic method, in the effort to express
phonetically proper names, is admirably illustrated in mediæval
heraldry. Very early in the history of armorial bearings, we find a
class of scutal devices called in Latin _arma cantantia_, in English
_canting arms_, in French _armes parlantes_. The English term _canting_
is from the Latin _cantare_, in its later sense of _chanting_ or
_announcing_. Armorial bearings of this character present charges, the
names of which resemble more or less closely in sound the proper names
of the family who carry them.
Some writers on heraldry have asserted that bearings of this character
should be considered as what are known as _assumptive arms_, those which
have been _assumed_ by families, without just title. Excellent
authorities, however, such as Woodham and Lower, have shown that these
devices were frequent in the remotest ages of heraldry.[211] For
instance, in the earliest English Roll of Arms extant, recorded in the
reign of the third Henry, about the year 1240, nine such charges occur,
and still more in the Rolls of the time of Edward the Second. They are
also abundant in the heraldry of Spain, of Italy and of Sweden; and
analogous examples have been adduced from ancient Rome. In fact, the
plan is so obvious that instances could be quoted from every quarter of
the globe. In later centuries, such punning allusions to proper names
became unpopular in heraldry, and are now considered in bad taste.
To illustrate their character, I will mention a few which are of ancient
date. The well-known English family of _Dobells_ carry a _hart passant_,
and three bells _argent_, thus expressing very accurately their name,
_doe-bells_. The equally ancient family of Boltons carry a device
representing a cask or _tun_, transfixed by a cross-bow or _bolt_. Few
canting arms, however, are so perfect as these. The Swinburnes, who are
among those mentioned on the Roll of 1240, already referred to, bear
three boar-heads, symbolical of _swine_; the Boleynes carry three bulls’
heads, which reminds us of Cardinal Wolsey’s pronunciation of the name
in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, _Bullen_:
“Anne Bullen? No; I’ll no Anne Bullens for him;
There’s more in’t than fair visage.—Bullen!
No, we’ll no Bullens.”—_King Henry VIII, Act III._
Not rarely the antiquity of such bearings is evidenced by the loss of
the allusion in the current language, and recourse must be had to
ancient and obsolete words to appreciate it. The English Harrisons
display in their shield a hedge-hog, which is to be explained by the
French _hérisson_, and testifies to their Norman origin. The Sykes of
the north of England show a fountain in their shield, whose significance
is first ascertained on learning that in the Northumbrian dialect _syke_
means a flowing spring or stream. The celebrated _fleurs-de-lys_ of the
royal house of France are traced back to the first Louis, whose name was
pronounced _Loys_, and from the similarity of this to the common name of
the flower, the latter was adopted as the charge on his shield.
Hundreds of such examples could be adduced, and the task of examining
and analyzing them would not be an altogether vain one, as the
principles upon which they were applied are the same which control the
development of ikonomatic writing wherever we find it. But I pass from
the consideration of these facts of general knowledge to the less known
and much misunderstood forms of this writing which are presented in
American archæology.
These are best exemplified in the so-called Mexican picture writing. For
many years scholars have been divided in opinion whether this was purely
ikonographic or partly phonetic. About forty years ago M. Aubin wrote an
essay maintaining that it is chiefly phonetic, and laid down rules for
its interpretation on this theory. But neither he nor any who undertook
to apply his teachings succeeded in offering any acceptable renderings
of the Aztec Codices. I am persuaded, however, that the cause of this
failure lay, not in the theory of Aubin, but in the two facts, first,
that not one of the students who approached this subject was well
grounded in the Nahuatl language; and, secondly, that the principles of
the interpretation of ikonomatic writing have never been carefully
defined, and are extremely difficult, ambiguous and obscure, enough so
to discourage any one not specially gifted in the solution of enigmas.
At first, every identification is as puzzling as the effort to decipher
an artificial rebus.
There are, indeed, some able scholars who still deny that any such
phoneticism is to be found in Mexican pictography. To convince such of
their error, and to illustrate the methods employed by these native
American scribes, I will present and analyze several typical examples
from Aztec manuscripts.
Beginning with proper names drawn from other languages, we find that the
Nahuas had a number of such, which, of course, had no meaning in their
own tongue. One of their documents speaks of the town of the Huastecas,
called by that tribe _Tamuch_, which means in their tongue “near the
scorpions,” and by the Aztecs, in imitation, _Tamuoc_.[212] As the
Huasteca is a Maya dialect, totally distinct from the Nahuatl, this word
had no sense to the ears of the Aztecs. To convey its sound, they
portrayed a man holding in his hands a measuring stick, and in the act
of measuring. Now, in Nahuatl, the verb “to measure” is _tamachina_; the
measuring stick is _octocatl_; and to make the latter plainer, several
foot-prints, _xoctli_, are painted upon the measuring stick, giving an
example of the repetition of the sound, such as we have already seen was
common among the Egyptian scribes.
[Illustration:
FIG. 1.—Tamuoc.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 2.—Mapachtepec.
]
In another class of proper names, in their own tongue, although they had
a meaning in the Nahuatl, the scribe preferred to express them by
ikonomatic instead of ikonographic devices. Thus, _Mapachtepec_, means
literally, “badger hill,” or “badger town,” but in place of depicting a
badger, the native writer made a drawing of a hand grasping a bunch of
Spanish moss, the _Tillandsia usneoides_. The hand or arm in Nahuatl is
_maitl_, the moss _pachtli_; and taking the first syllables of these two
words we obtain _ma pach_: the word _tepec_, locative form of _tepetl_,
hill or village, is expressed by the usual conventional ideographic or
determinative sign.
In other names, the relative _positions_ of the objects are significant,
reminding us of the rebus of a well-known town in Massachusetts,
celebrated for its educational institutions:
&
Mass.
which is to be read, “Andover, Massachusetts;” so in the Aztec scrolls,
we have _itzmiquilpan_ represented by an obsidian knife, _itztli_, and
an edible plant, _quilitl_, which are placed above or over (_pan_), the
sign for cultivated land, _milli_, thus giving all the elements of the
name, the last syllable by position only.
[Illustration:
FIG. 3.—Itzmiquilpan.
]
In one respect I believe the ikonomatic writing of the Mexicans is
peculiar; that is, in the phonetic value which it assigns to _colors_.
Like the Egyptian, it is polychromatic, but, so far as I know, the
Egyptian polychromes never had a phonetic value; they were, in a general
way, used by that people as determinatives, from some supposed
similarity of hue; thus green indicates a vegetable substance or bronze,
yellow, certain woods and some animals, and so on. In heraldry the
colors are very important and have well-defined significations, but very
seldom, if ever, phonetic ones. Quite the contrary is the case with the
Mexican script. It presents abundant instances where the color of the
object as portrayed is an integral phonetic element of the sound
designed to be conveyed.
To quote examples, the Nahuatl word for yellow is _cuztic_ or _coztic_,
and when the hieroglyphics express phonetically such proper names as
_Acozpa_, _Cozamaloapan_, _Cozhuipilcan_, etc., the monosyllable _coz_
is expressed solely by the yellow color which the scribe lays upon his
picture. Again, the name _Xiuhuacan_, “the place of grass,” is
represented by a circle colored pale blue, _xiuhtic_. The name of this
tint supplies the phonetic desired. The name of the village _Tlapan_ is
conveyed by a circle, whose interior is painted red, _tlapalli_,
containing the mark of a human foot-print. Such examples are sufficient
to prove that in undertaking to decipher the Mexican writing we must
regard the color as well as the figure, and be prepared to allow to each
a definite phonetic value.
[Illustration:
FIG. 4.—Acozpa. (A yellow center surrounded by water drops, _atl_,
_a_.)
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 5.—Tlamapa.
]
It must not be understood that all the Aztec writing is made up of
phonetic symbols. This is far from being the case. We discover among the
hundreds of curious figures which it presents, determinatives, as in the
Egyptian inscriptions, and numerous ideograms. Sometimes the ideogram is
associated with the phonetic symbol, acting as a sort of determinative
to the latter. An interesting example of this is given at the beginning
of the “Manuscrito Hieratico,” recently published by the Spanish
government.[213] It is the more valuable as an example, as the picture
writing is translated into Nahuatl and written in Spanish characters.
The date of the document, 1526, leaves no doubt that it is in the same
style as the ancient Codices. The page is headed with the picture of a
church edifice; underneath is the outline of a human arm, and the legend
in Nahuatl is:
_In Altepetl y Santa Cruz Tlamapa._
These words mean, “the town of Santa Cruz Tlamapa.” The name “_tlamapa_”
means “on the hill-side,” and doubtless originally referred to the
position in which the village was situated. But the prefix “_tlama_”
usually signifies, “to do something with the arms or hands,” derived
from _maitl_, hand or arm. Hence, the figure of the extended arm gives
this disyllable, _tlama_, which was sufficient to recall the name of the
town.
The Aztecs by no means confined the ikonomatic system to proper names.
They composed in it words, sentences, and treatises on various subjects.
In proportion as it is applied to these connected and lengthy
compositions, its processes become more recondite, curious and difficult
of interpretation. Without a knowledge of the spoken language
considerably more than rudimentary, it would be hopeless for the student
to attempt to solve the enigmas which he meets at every step. Yet every
well-directed effort will convince him that he is on the right track,
and he will constantly be cheered and stimulated to further endeavor by
the victories he will win day by day.
The analogy which is presented in so many particulars between Mexican
and Maya civilization would lead us to infer that the Maya writing, of
which we have a number of examples well preserved, should be unlocked by
the same key which has been successfully applied to the Aztec Codices.
The latest writers on the Maya manuscripts, while agreeing that they are
in part, at least, in phonetic characters, consider them mostly
ideographic. But it is to be noted that not one of these writers had any
practical acquaintance with the sounds of the Maya language, and
scarcely any with its vocabulary. From this it is evident that even were
these codices in ikonomatic writing, such investigators could make very
little progress in deciphering them, and might readily come to the
conclusion that the figures are not phonetic in any sense. Precisely the
same position was taken by a number of students of Egyptian antiquity
long after the announcement of the discovery of Champollion; and even
within a few years works have been printed denying all phoneticism to
the Nilotic inscriptions.
What induces me to believe that much of the Maya script is of the nature
of the Mexican is the endeavor, undertaken for a very different purpose,
of Professor Valentini to explain the origin of the so-called Maya
alphabet, preserved by Bishop Landa, and printed in the editions of his
celebrated “Description of Yucatan.”[214] Professor Valentini shows by
arguments and illustrations, which I think are in the main correct, that
when the natives were asked to represent the sounds of the Spanish
letters in their method of writing, they selected objects to depict,
whose names, or initial sounds, or first syllables, were the same, or
akin, to the sounds of the Spanish vowel or consonant heard by them.
Sometimes they would give several words, with their corresponding
pictures, for the same sound; just as I have shown was the custom of the
ancient Egyptians. Thus, for the sound _b_ they drew a foot-print, which
in their tongue was called _be_; for the sound _a_ an obsidian knife, in
Maya, _ach_, etc. Valentini thinks also that the letter _e_ was
delineated by black spots, in Maya _eek_, meaning black, which, if
proved by further research, would show that the Mayas, like the
Mexicans, attributed phonetic values to the colors they employed in
their painted scrolls.
Outside of the two nations mentioned, the natives of the American
continent made little advance toward a phonetic system. We have no
positive evidence that even the cultivated Tarascas and Zapotecs had
anything better than ikonographs; and of the Quiches and Cakchiquels,
both near relatives of the Mayas, we only know that they had a written
literature of considerable extent, but of the plan by which it was
preserved we have only obscure hints. Next to these we should probably
place the Chipeway pictography, as preserved on their _meda_ sticks,
bark records, and _adjidjiatig_ or grave-posts. I have examined a number
of specimens of these, but have failed to find any evidence that the
characters refer to sounds in the language; however, I might not
consider it improbable that further researches might disclose some germs
of the ikonomatic method of writing even in these primitive examples of
the desire of the human intellect to perpetuate its acquisitions, and
hand them down to generations yet unborn.
THE WRITING AND RECORDS OF THE ANCIENT MAYAS.[215]
_1.—Introductory._
One of the ablest living ethnologists has classified the means of
recording knowledge under two general headings—Thought-writing and
Sound-writing.[216] The former is again divided into two forms, the
first and earliest of which is by pictures, the second by
picture-writing.
The superiority of picture-writing over the mere depicting of an
occurrence is that it analyzes the thought and expresses separately its
component parts, whereas the picture presents it as a whole. The
representations familiar among the North American Indians are usually
only pictures, while most of the records of the Aztec communities are in
picture-writing.
The genealogical development of Sound-writing begins by the substitution
of the sign of one idea for that of another whose sound is nearly or
quite the same. Such was the early graphic system of Egypt, and such
substantially to-day is that of the Chinese. Above stands syllabic
writing, this as that of the Japanese, and the semi-syllabic signs of
the old Semitic alphabet; while, as the perfected result of these
various attempts, we reach at last the invention of a true alphabet, in
which a definite figure corresponds to a definite elementary sound.
It is a primary question in American archæology, How far did the most
cultivated nations of the western continent ascend this scale of graphic
development? This question is as yet unanswered. All agree, however,
that the highest evolution took place among the Nahuatl-speaking tribes
of Mexico and the Maya race of Yucatan.
I do not go too far in saying that it is proved that the Aztecs used to
a certain extent a phonetic system of writing, one in which the figures
refer not to the thought, but to the sound of the thought as expressed
in spoken language. This has been demonstrated by the researches of M.
Aubin, and, of late, by the studies of Señor Orozco y Berra.[217]
Two evolutionary steps can be distinguished in the Aztec writing. In the
earlier the plan is that of the rebus in combination with ideograms,
which latter are nothing more than the elements of picture-writing.
Examples of this plan are the familiar “tribute rolls” and the names of
towns and kings, as shown in several of the codices published by Lord
Kingsborough. The second step is where a conventional image is employed
to represent the sound of its first syllable. This advances actually to
the level of the syllabic alphabet; but it is doubtful if there are any
Aztec records entirely, or even largely, in this form of writing. They
had only reached the commencement of its development.
The graphic system of the Mayas of Yucatan was very different from that
of the Aztecs. No one at all familiar with the two could fail at once to
distinguish between the manuscripts of the two nations. They are plainly
independent developments.
We know much more about the ancient civilization of Mexico than of
Yucatan; we have many more Aztec than Maya manuscripts, and hence we are
more at a loss to speak with positiveness about the Maya system of
writing than about the Mexican. We must depend on the brief and
unsatisfactory statements of the early Spanish writers, and on what
little modern research has accomplished, for means to form a correct
opinion; and there is at present a justifiable discrepancy of opinion
about it among those who have given the subject most attention.
_2.—Descriptions by Spanish Writers._
The earliest exploration of the coast of Yucatan was that of Francisco
Hernandez de Cordova, in 1517. The year following a second expedition,
under Juan de Grijalva, visited a number of points between the island of
Cozumel and the Bahia de Terminos.
Several accounts of Grijalva’s voyage have been preserved, but they make
no distinct reference to the method of writing they found in use. Some
native books were obtained, however, probably from the Mayas, and were
sent to Spain, where they were seen by the historian Peter Martyr. He
describes them in general terms, and compares the characters in which
they were written to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, some of which he had
seen in Rome. He supposes that they contain the laws and ceremonies of
the people, astronomical calculations, the deeds of their kings, and
other events of their history. He also speaks in commendation of the
neatness of their general appearance, the skill with which the drawing
and painting were carried out. He further mentions that the natives used
this method of writing or drawing in the affairs of common life.[218]
Although Yucatan became thus early known to the Spaniards, it was not
until 1541 that a permanent settlement was effected, in which year
Francisco de Montejo, the younger, advanced into the central province of
Ceh Pech, and established a city on the site of the ancient town called
_Ichcanziho_, which means “the five (temples) of many oracles (or
serpents),” to which he gave the name _Mérida_, on account of the
magnificent ancient edifices he found there.
Previous to this date, however, in 1534, Father Jacobo de Testera, with
four other missionaries, proceeded from Tabasco up the west coast to the
neighborhood of the Bay of Campeachy. They were received amicably by the
natives, and instructed them in the articles of the Christian faith.
They also obtained from the chiefs a submission to the King of Spain;
and I mention this early missionary expedition for the fact stated that
each chief signed this act of submission “with a certain mark, like an
autograph.” This document was subsequently taken to Spain by the
celebrated Bishop Las Casas.[219] It is clear from the account that some
definite form of signature was at that time in use among the chiefs.
It might be objected that these signatures were nothing more than rude
totem marks, such as were found even among the hunting tribes of the
Northern Mississippi Valley. But Las Casas himself, in whose possession
the documents were, here comes to our aid to refute this opinion. He was
familiar with the picture-writing of Mexico, and recognized in the
hieroglyphics of the Mayas something different and superior. He says
expressly that these had inscriptions, writings, in certain characters,
the like of which were found nowhere else.[220]
One of the early visitors to Yucatan after the conquest was the Pope’s
commissary-general, Father Alonzo Ponce, who was there in 1588. Many
natives who had grown to adult years in heathenism must have been living
then. He makes the following interesting observation:
“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.
[Illustration:
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]