MANUSCRIPTS OF MEXICO SPINDEN 451 



devised for the undifferentiated use of the Zapotecs, Mixte^s, Mexi- 

 cans, etc., are much less obscure than the highly conventionalized 

 day signs of the ancient Maya time count but correspond rather 

 strikingly in basic significance. 



The concentration of pictures into cartouches (see fig. 14) which 

 are clear enough in the usage of southern Mexico, where the cal- 

 endarial and personal names of both parents are combined with 

 the place name, the mat or palace platform and the footprint, to give 

 the essential facts of genealogy, are enough to suggest that the 

 ancient Mayas proceeded in similar fashion. Only with them the 

 unit characters are so conventionalized that we can no longer inter- 

 pret them without extensive study. After all, ideographic symbolism 

 forms the a-reat original basis of American Indian art. 



72774— 35— ;^0 



