How Ancient America Wrote. 223 



resentation of proper names led a step further. Being generally 

 borrowed from objects that strike the senses, from productions of the 

 soil or the occupation of the inhabitants, and composed of several 

 words, they were dissected into their radicals and the emblems of these 

 united to one pictograph. Thus the city of Tenochtitlan (place of 

 fishermen) was represented by an arm holding a fish ; Ixtcoatl, the 

 emperor, by a serpent pierced by obsidian knives. Did no type exist, 

 the full phonetic value of which corresponded exactly with that of 

 the syllable, they selected one, whose initial sound at least was analo- 

 gous to it. For instance Moquauhzoma had as device a mousetrap 

 (rnontli), an eagle (quauhtli), a lacet (zo) and a hand {maitl). Aubin 

 has collected 104 of such syllabic characters, which used to be at- 

 tached to the heads of the sovereigns, to indicate their respective 

 names. As it often happens that a single vowel forms a syllable, like 

 the in Teokaltitlan, it was easy to designate every one of them by a fixed 

 pictograph ; thus a by that of waiter (atl), e by that of the bean {etl), i 

 of the eye (ixtli,) and o of the track or road (ptli). 



In doing this, the Aztecs had gradually mastered the whole series 

 of hieroglyphs. To render their system as perfect as the Egyptian, it 

 was merely required to complete the phonetic variety and to make a 

 more liberal use of it than heretofore. While the children of the Nile 

 relied chiefly on phonetic characters, the sons of Anahuac clung more 

 to the figurative. Considering, however, their .marvelous progress in 

 the brief space of a few centuries, we may justly conclude, that, had 

 they not been disturbed by the Spanish invaders, they would have 

 likewise advanced to the top of the scale. 



The contemplative mind of the Mayas, the Grecians of this con- 

 tinent, seems not alone to have reached this climax of the pictorial art, 

 but even to have broken down the thin barrier that divides it from 

 the alphabet. Indeed the monumental inscriptions in the palaces of 

 Palenque, and in the ancient buildings of Chiapa, Yucatan and Guate- 

 mala are strikingly different from the Aztec pictographs. In the for- 

 mer the large figures have more the looks of ornamental than didactic 

 painting, and the mystic signs, only sparingly met with in the Aztec 

 manuscripts, decidedly predominate. 



It will not do, as some have attempted, to explain this peculiar 

 difference by the mere heterogeneousuess of the material upon which 

 the characters are painted or engraved. This might account for the 

 greater or lesser elegance of execution and correctness of form, but 

 not for the predominance of the significant signs. The frequent 

 occurrence of the latter in different combinations, their arrangement 

 in groups, and the constant repetition of the same dots, lines and 



