500 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSOISTIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



used in isolation, except as day signs, the word ahaw is not written 

 with sign No. 5 {haw) alone, except when it means the day Ahau. 



Thus we arrive at our final translation : "Our lord Itzamna kindles 

 his fire by drilling." 



The importance of this decipherment and translation is quite inde- 

 pendent of the interest or lack of interest of the subject matter. As 

 far as concerns the information which this translation gives us about 

 the Maya, or about its own subject matter, it is quite trivial ; it is no 

 more than we could have gathered from the pictures alone. Its im- 

 portance is linguistic and philological — linguistic because it gives 

 information about the structure of a language, as far as the writing 

 can express it, at a certain period of past time, philological because 

 it is precedent to the study of a literature and of culture as reflected 

 in this literature, at a period of past time and in a historical context 

 and perspective. From this one short sentence can be gathered a host 

 of linguistic and philological data, only a small fraction of which 

 has been discussed in this paper, data which can be tested and cor- 

 related, and employed heuristically in further investigations, of 

 progressive difficulty. A very few of these further ramifications of 

 this sentence are barely hinted at in the footnotes, which the 

 exigencies of space have kept relatively brief. Each such footnote 

 actually represents an extensive study. In this way the decipher- 

 ment establishes itself upon a constantly growing enlacement of sen- 

 tences, their translations controlled by sets of pictures, which 

 sentences mutually give rise to a growing grammar, syntax, 

 vocabulary, and sign list. 



There are two main wrong ways of trying to read the Maya 

 codices. One wrong way is to attempt a clean sweep of the job — to 

 retire into seclusion and eventually emerge with a book — a book 

 which "tells all," which reels off, interprets, explains, epitomizes, and 

 comments on everything from page 1 of the Tro-Cortesianus to the 

 last page of the Dresden. There have been several such books in the 

 past hundred years. Usually such books proclaim the discovery of a 

 key. This key is then applied at the author's sweet will, and the 

 trick is turned as easily as a magician lifts a rabbit out of a hat. 

 Often, moreover, such an author has exposed his slight acquaintance 

 with the Maya language and with linguistic procedures in general. 

 Historical writings are not to be read with keys; there is never any 

 key but research. The amateur decipherer is prone to make a false 

 analogy between straightforward writing and a cipher. Actually the 

 very word "decipher" which I have employed so profusely in this 

 essay, embodies a misconception. Why have I used it? I suppose 

 because it is simple and vivid, it has been generally used for this sort 

 of research, and I have succumbed to usage. But really one does not 



