OF TUB NATIVE EACES OF AMEEICA, 21 



authorities, and soon after it was purchased by the Spanish government for the Archœolo- 

 gical Museum of Madrid. In 1880, M. de Rosny went to that city to study it and he was 

 permitted to make two photographic copies of it. In his opinion, it and the Codex Troano 

 belong to the same original document. 



In 1863, an event occurred which gladdened the hearts of all Americanists. The inde- 

 fatigable Brasseur de Bourbourg found, in the archives of the Royal Academy of Madrid, 

 a Spanish manuscript styled " lielacion de las cosas de Yucatan," of which the author was 

 said to be the Bishop Landa already mentioned. This churchman had lived in Mexico 

 for thirty years (from 1549 to 15ld), and his name was a familiar one ia the annals of 

 Central America. Yet this Relacion had hitherto, like many another, doubtless, escaped 

 notice. Among the most interesting contents of the book was nothing less than a key to 

 to the Maya symbols. " Eureka ! " was the cry that echoed through the antiquarian 

 world. The mysterious epigraphy which had heretofore baffled the most obstinate ques- 

 tioning would now stand revealed. But Bishop Landa had been unable or had not chosen 

 to be very clear in dealing with the alphabet that bears his name, and, though the appear- 

 ance of the Relacion set many a scholar to work at it, the mysterious manuscript is still 

 undeciphered. M. de Rosny, Mr. Cyrus Thomas, Dr. Brinton and other gentlemen are, 

 however, still earnestly engaged in the endeavoiir to interpret it and a complete key, it is to 

 be hoped, will soon be discovered. Dr. Philipp Valentini, after careful study, has come to 

 the conclusion that the so-called alphabet is not an alphabet at all. He closes an able 

 pamphlet written to prove that it is a Spanish contrivance, with the remark that, though 

 " Landa's alphabet," had been in the hands of students for seventeen years (that is, in 

 1880), it had proved of no avail whatever for purposes of decipherment. He, therefore, 

 believes it to be merely a device of the missionaries and not, as has been claimed, an 

 ancient product of the native intellect. ( The Landa Alphabet a Spanish fabrication. Proc. 

 Am. Ant. Soc, 1880). 



Many books in the Aztec picture-writing, which differs from the Maya, were also 

 destroyed on the ground of idolatry — some of them, like the annals of the Mexican State 

 committed to the flames by Zumarraga, being extremely valuable. They were mostly 

 printed on cotton cloth, prepared skins and maguey paper, and were put up iu the same 

 fashion as those of the Mayas. Documents written since the Conc|uest, some of them with 

 a Spanish translation, are numerous, a fine collection of them being preserved iu the 

 museum of the University of Mexico. The series of pictures in the Codex Mendoza, repre- 

 senting the practical home educational curriculum of the ancient Mexicans, is considered 

 a good instance of the Aztec symbolic writing. The Maya and Nahua calendar systems 

 are highly interesting and have suggested analogies with almost every nation in the 

 old world. 



Leaving the civilized races of Mexico and Central Ameria and directing our steps 

 northward, we meet with no system of writing or iuscriiîtion comparable with theirs. 

 Dightou Rock, the markings on which Profeissor Rafn claims to have deciphered, the 

 Cincinnati Tablet, by some considered a calendar stone, and the " Cremation Tablet " 

 found at Davenport, Iowa, and which Professor J. Campbell believes he has interpreted by 

 means of Landa's alphabet, are the most remarkable of northern epigraphic " finds." But 

 of anything like an alphabet in the accepted meaning of the term, evidently or even pro- 

 bably purposed to serve as such, the only instance as yet known is a modern one, that of 



