[5-*] Read before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of
Philadelphia, at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, January 5th, 1882.
[5-+] Of the numerous authorities which could be quoted on this point, I
shall give the words of but one, Father Alonso Ponce, the Pope's
Commissary-General, who travelled through Yucatan in 1586, when many
natives were still living who had been born before the Conquest (1541).
Father Ponce had travelled through Mexico, and, of course, had learned
about the Aztec picture-writing, which he distinctly contrasts with the
writing of the Mayas. Of the latter, he says: "_Son alabados de tres
cosas entre todos los demas de la Nueva Espana, la una de que en su
antiguedad tenian caracteres y letras, con que escribian sus historias y
las ceremonias y orden de los sacrificios de sus idolos y su calendario,
en libros hechos de corteza de cierto arbol, los cuales eran unas tiras
muy largas de quarta o tercia en ancho, que se doblaban y recogian, y
venia a queder a manera de un libro encuardenada en cuartilla, poco mas
o menos. Estas letras y caracteres no las entendian, sino los sacerdotes
de los idolos, (que en aquella lengua se llaman 'ahkines,') y algun
indio principal. Despues las entendieron y supieron leer algunos frailos
nuestros y aun las escribien._"--("_Relacion Breve y Verdadera de
Algunas Cosas de las Muchas que Sucedieron al Padre Fray Alonso Ponce,
Comisario-General en las Provincias de la Nueva Espana_," page 392). I
know no other author who makes the interesting statement that these
characters were actually used by the missionaries to impart instruction
to the natives; but I learn through Mr. Gatschet, of the Bureau of
Ethnology, Washington, that a manuscript written in this manner by one
of the early _padres_ has recently been discovered.
[5-++] "_Se les quemamos todos_," he writes, "_lo qual a maravilla
sentian y les dava pena._"--"_Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_," page
316.
[7-*] "_Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_," page 160.
[7-+] "The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths of Central America."
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. XIX., 1881. The
terminal letter in both these words--"_chilan_," "_balam_,"--may be
either "_n_" or "_m_," the change being one of dialect and local
pronunciation. I have followed the older authorities in writing "_Chilan
Balam_," the modern preferring "_Chilam Balam_." Senor Eligio Ancona, in
his recently published "_Historia de Yucatan_," (Vol. I., page 240,
note, Merida, 1878,) offers the absurd suggestion that the name
"_balam_" was given to the native soothsayers by the early missionaries
in ridicule, deriving it from the well-known personage in the Old
Testament. It is surprising that Senor Ancona, writing in Merida, had
never acquainted himself with the Perez manuscripts, nor with those in
the possession of Canon Carrillo. Indeed, the most of his treatment of
the ancient history of his country is disappointingly superficial.
[10-*] For example, in the "_Registro Yucateco_," _Tome III._;
"_Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geografia_," _Tome VIII._ (Mexico,
1855); "_Diccionario Historico de Yucatan_," _Tome I._ (Merida, 1866);
in the appendix to Landa's "_Cosas de Yucatan_" (Paris, 1864), etc. The
epochs, or _katuns_, of Maya history have been recently again analyzed
by Dr. Felipe Valentini, in an essay in the German and English
languages, the latter in the "Proceedings of the American Antiquarian
Society, 1880."
[11-*] The Abbe's criticism occurs in the note to page 406 of his
edition of Landa's "_Cosas de Yucatan_."
[14-*] It is described at length by Don Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona, in
his "_Disertacion sobre la Historia de la Lengua Maya_" (Merida, 1870).
[14-+] "_Je dois declarer que l'examen dans tous leurs details du 'Codex
Troano' et du 'Codex Peresianus' m'invite de la facon la plus serieuse a
n'accepter ces signes, tout au moins au point de vue de l'exactitude de
leur trace, qu'avec une certaine reserve._"--Leon de Rosny's "_Essai sur
le Dechiffrement de l'Ecriture Hieratique de l'Amerique Centrale_," page
21 (Paris, 1876). By the "_Codex Peresianus_," he does not mean the
"_Codice Perez_," but the Maya manuscript in the Bibliotheque[TN-4]
Nationale. The identity of the names is confusing and unfortunate.
[15-*] "The Manuscript Troano," published in _The American Naturalist_,
August, 1881, page 640. This manuscript or codex was published in
chromo-lithograph, Paris, 1879, by the French Government.
[18-*] "_Declarar las necesidades y sus remedios._"--"_Relation de las
Cosas de Yucatan_," page 160. Like much of Landa's Spanish, this use of
the word "_necesidad_" is colloquial, and not classical.
[18-+] A "_Medicina Domestica_," under the name of "Don Ricardo Ossado,
(alias, _el Judio_,)" was published at Merida in 1834; but this appears
to have been merely a bookseller's device to aid the sale of the book by
attributing it to the "great unknown."
[19-*] In his "_Disertacion sobre la Historia de la Lengua Maya o
Yucateca_" (Merida, 1870).