1898-99. | DECIPHERING HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA, 119 
of the villages of Monte Cristo and Palenque, situated respectively in the 
Mexican provinces of Tobasco and Chiapas. Allied to the Maya are 
the Lacandon and the Peten, pertaining to the tribes so named dwelling 
in Guatemala. The third division is the Guiche of Guatemala, which is 
also spoken in part of Chiapas. Other dialects in Chiapas are the 
Chiapanec, the Chanabal, the Tzendal, the Chol and the Tzotzil. 
Another, the Zoque, extends over parts of Chiapas, Tobasco and Oaxaca. 
Besides the Quiche proper, Guatemala owns the Cachiquel, the Zutuhil, 
the Mame, the Pocoman and the Poconchi. The last of the Quiche 
dialects is the Totonac, which pertains to the Central part of Vera Cruz, 
south of the Huastecs, and to the neighboring part of the province of 
Puebla. Although the continuity of their area has been broken by the 
advent of intrusive tribes of a different origin, all of the above mentioned 
tribes and dialects have a common character, and are quite distinct in 
physical features, in grammar and vocabulary, in writing, in history and 
mythology, from the peoples generally known as Mexicans, Nahuatlac, 
or Aztec." 
Of the Maya-Quiche tribes, those which have left anything in the 
shape of literature are the Mayas and Quiches, the Cachiquels, the 
Tzendals,and the Pocomans,the first three being in this respect the most 
important.” Most of these writings are extant in European characters, 
accompanied with Spanish translations. They are, therefore, transcripts 
from original manuscripts in hieroglyphic character, which, with few 
exceptions, have perished. The destruction of the original documents 
was due to the religious vandalism of Bishop Landa and other Church- 
men, who regarded them as tending to perpetuate native superstition. 
Only three are known to have survived this unhappy exercise of zeal, 
although Dr. Brinton supposes that there may be two in Europe and 
two or three in Mexico which have not been published. Those which 
have seen the light are the Dresden Codex, set forth in Lord Kings- 
borough’s Mexican Antiquities and elsewhere; the Codex Peresianus 
discovered by Professor Léon de Rosny in the National Library at Paris, 
and now in course of publication by him; and the Codex Troano of 
Madrid, published by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg. These codices 
consist respectively of seventy-four, twenty-two and seventy pages, 
between seven and nine inches long, and from four to five and a quarter 
inches wide. Their material is paper made from the leaves of the 
maguey, and the hieroglyphics are executed in black and in colours, 
being accompanied with illustrative paintings in a rude kind of art. 
Attempts have been made to decipher the codices by Brasseur de 
Bourbourg, Léon de Rosny, Hyacinthe de Charencey, William Bollaert, 
