& 
504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
A flag (fig. 15) pantli suggests pa. <A picture of a stone, etl, 
highly conventionalized, stood for ter, making Pater. A prickly 
pear, nochtli, the fig of the castus opuntia, was used for recalling the 
syllable nos and another stone, éetl, the ter, making noster. In the 
same way (fig. 16) water, atl, stood for an a sound and agave, mett, 
for men making amen. 
The attempt made by Bishop Diego de Landa‘ to furnish an 
alphabet for the interpretation of the Maya 
hieroglyphics, as shown by Valentini (1880), 
is a “Spanish fabrication’ and entirely un- 
workable when applied to the decipherment 
of the hieroglyphic writing. The “‘alphabet”’ 
illustrates exactly the same method as that 
© just pointed out. Here Landa chose a native 
word beginning with the initial sound he 
desired to write. A picture or symbol was 
then drawn to represent this word and this came to stand for the initial 
sound of the word. The picture of a man’s footprint stood for one 
of the sounds for b, the Maya word for road being be. 
The hieroglyphic writing of the Mayas, however, does not serve 
as well as that of the Nahuas to illustrate the various steps in the 
development of writing as a whole. There is far less known in regard 
to the phonetic components of the Maya glyphs. 
In view of the higher devel- 
opment of the calendar system 
found among the Mayas, we le eN3 ANE 
might naturally presuppose a 
corresponding higher develop- 
ment of the art of writing and yet Férstemann (1886, p. 2), Schell- 
has (1886, p. 77), Brinton (1886, a), and Seler (1888) all seem to 
agree that the Maya hieroglyphics are essentially ideographic, with 
a number of constant phonetic elements which are used only to a 
comparatively slight extent. Up to the present time a correspond- 
ing development among the Mayas of the rebus form of writing 
Fig. 14. 
Fig. 15. 
que avian de tomar de Coro, y lo mismo usavan algunos, que no confiavan de su Memoria en las Confesiones 
para acordarse de sus Pecados, llevandolos pintados con sus Caractéres (como los que de nosotros se con- 
fiesan por escrito) que era cosa de vér, y para alabar & Dios, las invenciones, que para efecto, de Jas cosas 
de su salvacion buscaban, y usaban.”’ 
Las Casas in his Apologetica Historia de las Indias, a new edition of which is available (1909), chap. 
CCXXXV, writes: ‘‘Y no sabiendo leer nuestra escritura, escribir todo la doctrina ellos por sus figuras y 
caracteres muy ingeniosamente, poniendo la figura que corresponderé en la vox y sonidaa nuestro vocablo; 
asi como dijésemos amen, ponian pintada una como fuente, y luego y un maguey, que en su lengua 
frisaba con amen, porque ll4manlo ametl, y asi de todo lo demas; yo he visto mucha parte de la doctrina 
cristiana escripta por sus figuras e imagines que la leian por ellas como yo Ia leia per nuestra letra en una 
carta, y esto no es artificio de ingenio poco admirable. 
1 See Landa, 1864, p. 320. 
