VALUE OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS—TOZZER. 495 
It is not, however, the ideas expressed in these documents but the 
methods used in expressing them, not what is written, but how it is 
written, not the content, but the means employed that the present 
paper aims to consider. The manuscripts form only a part of the 
available material for the study of the writing of the peoples of 
Mexico and Central America. The extensive use of stone carving on 
the facades of buildings, on altars and stele, and on the lintels opens 
up another extensive source from which examples might be drawn. 
It is only in one case, however, that an illustration will be taken from 
the stone bas-reliefs. 
The early history of writing has been curiously alike over the greater 
part of the world. The preliminary step is in the use of reminders or 
mnemonics. These signs convey no message in themselves, but serve 
only as an aid in bringing to mind some event. They are not uni- 
versally useful as are many specimens of picture writing. They can 
usually be employed only by those who possess the previous knowledge 
which the reminders serve to recall. Notched sticks and tallies of va- 
rious kinds are well-known examples of this class. The Roman rosary 
immediately suggests itself as belonging to the same type. The 
Peruvian quipu or knotted string is usually cited as the best repre- 
sentative of the class of reminders. Boturini (1746) in his ‘‘Idea de 
una nueva historia general’’ states that the natives of Mexico used a 
knotted string for recording events before the invention of a hiero- 
glyphic writing. Its native name was nepohual tzitzin, ‘‘cordon de 
cuenta y numero.” * Lumbholtz (1902, vol. 2, p. 128) states that the 
Huichols of north-central Mexico in setting out on a journey prepare 
two strings of bark fiber and tie as many knots in them as there are 
days in the journey. One string is left behind in the temple with one 
of the principal men and the other is carried on the trip. A knot is 
untied in each string each day. As the travelers always camp in the 
same places, they are protected from accidents in each place by the 
prayers of those at home. Lumbholtz cites a second instance of the 
use of the knotted string as areminder. In the Hikuli rite there is a 
general confession made by the women. ‘‘In order to help their 
memories each one prepares a string made out of strips of palm leaves 
in which she has tied as many knots as she has had lovers. This 
twine she brings to the temple and standing before the fire she men- 
tions aloud all the men she has scored on her string, name after name. 
Having finished, she throws her list into the fire and when the god has 
1 Boturini, 1746, p. 85: “‘Nacid assimismo en esta Edad un raro modo de historiar y fué con unos Cordones 
largos, en los quales se entretexian otros delgados, que pendian de el Cordon principal con nudos de diferentes 
colores. Llamabanseestas Historias Funiculares en los Reynos del Peri Quipu, y enlos dela Nueva Espafia 
Nepohualtzitzin, derivando su denominacion de el adverbio Nepohudlli, que quiere decir Ochenta, 6 como si 
dixeramos, Cordon de cuenta, y numero, en que se referian y numeraban las cosas dignas de memoria, assi 
Divinas, como Humanas,”’ 
