120 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
Cyrus Thomas, and some other students, but so far absolutely without 
success. What is true of the codices is also true of the stone inscriptions 
found at Palenque, in Chiapas, at Copan, on the borders of Honduras 
and Guatemala, and at Chichen Itza and other parts of Yucatan. They 
have so far defied the art of the epigrapher. 
The materials with which these students of the hieroglyphics have 
attacked the codices and inscriptions are those provided by Bishop 
Landa. They area so-called alphabet, and figures denoting the Maya 
months and days. There are thirty-three characters in his alphabet, 
twenty signs for the days, and eighteen for the months as represented in 
the plate. The phonetic values of no fewer than seventy-one characters 
being given, and the Maya language being known, it might be supposed 
a simple task to read a Maya document. All that investigators have 
succeeded in accomplishing, however, has been to point out a character 
here and there, and suggest a probable signification for it. The most 
careful and laborious comparison and analysis of the signs for months 
and days has failed to connect them in any way with the supposed 
alphabet, which Dr. Felipe Valentini characterized as a Spanish fabri- 
cation. Dr. Brinton comes to Landa’s defence, stating that the Bishop 
did not affirm the possession by the Mayas of an alphabet, but merely 
wrote that, if they had occasion to express in their writing the sounds of © 
the Spanish alphabet, they would do so by these characters." The 
alphabet then must be given up. Turning to the signs for days and 
months, no principle can be found to govern their phonetics. The day 
character Cauac enters into the composition of the month hieroglyphics 
Yax, Zac and Ceh; the day character Ymix is nearest in form to the 
month sign Mol; and the day figure Chuen forms part of the month 
symbol Tzec. The first day is Kan, and the fourteenth month is 
Kankin, but the sign of the former has no part in that for the latter. 
Were the meanings of the words for days and months certainly known, 
the student might proceed to analyze the hieroglyphics by this aid, but 
the significations suggested are more than doubtful in almost all cases. 
Of the days, Chiechan, Lamat, Cauac, and Ymix have defied all inter- 
pretation, as have Tzec and Yaxkin among the months. Those 
acknowledged to be exceedingly doubtful are the day signs Manik, a 
wind passing; Muluc, reunion; Chuen, a board; and Ben, economical dis- 
tribution. The remaining are Kan, yellow, or a string of twisted hemp; 
Cimi, dead; Oc, the contents of the palm of the hand; Eb, a ladder; Ix, 
fish skin or roughness; Men, a buiider; Cib, gum copal; Caban, heaped 
up; Ezanab, flint; Ahau, a king or period of twenty-four years; Ik, wind, 
spirit; and Akbal, the approach of night. The other month names are 
