Brinton] ■^ [Jan. 7, 



satisfaction to have piiblisbed at Madrid, in 1884, under the 

 competent supervision of Don Juan de Dios de la Rada y Del- 

 gado, a literal, faithful copy of the original text. Unfortunately^, 

 it appears simply as an ai)pendix to the Spanish translation of 

 M. Leon de Rosny's work on the hieratic writing of Central 

 America, and is issued to the limited number of 200 copies, all 

 large folio. It is therefore both dilficult to obtain and needlessly 

 expensive. Moreover, the editor, for fear of " distracting the 

 reader," as he tells us, pointed out only a few of the differences 

 between the correct text and that printed by Brasseur, so that 

 the real value of the second edition of the text is not apparent 

 until a long and toilsome comparison has been made. 



The leading position which Landa's Relacion holds with refer- 

 ence to the ancient Maya civilization has led me to examine his 

 words with cai-e, and the notes I have made will, I believe, prove 

 of value to those who are engaged in the study of this remarka- 

 ble people. I shall arrange these notes in three portions, as 

 they refer to the two texts now printed, to the Abbe Brasseur's 

 translation with its notes, and to the hieroglyphic signs, etc., in- 

 serted in the text. 



The Text. 



In Brasseur's edition the text is divided into numbered sec- 

 tions, each with an appropriate heading. No such arrangement 

 is in the original. What is more objectionable, many of the para- 

 graphs and even sections as arranged by Brasseur are entirely 

 arbitrary, and do not correspond at all with the paragraphing of 

 the original. Sometimes they begin in the midst of a phrase, 

 cutting it in two, and destroying its meaning. 



He omits, without a word, fully one-sixth of the whole text. 

 In his edition, p. 346, he concludes with the words, aqui acaba la 

 obra de Landa, "here closes the work of Landa." No such 

 words are in the original. On the contrary, the MS. he copied 

 from continued wiih a number of chapters, one on the reason 

 why the Indians offered human sacrifices, others on the serpents, 

 animals, trees, ^tc, of Yucatan. Of these Brasseur says not a 

 syllable. In copying he occasionally, but rarely, omitted sen- 

 tences, doubtless through haste. An instance of this occurs, p. 

 328, where three lines of the original are dropped immediately 

 after the word escalera^ terminating the sentence. 



