66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



an independent origin in many respects. The traditions of the 

 Mayas point to the east as the region whence their forefathers came 

 to America ; and their antiquity pi-ecludes all possibility of a recent 

 oi-igin from Asia. But it is in the philology of Mexico and Central 

 America that we find the strongest evidence against such an origin. 

 The pictorial (or as Zelia Nuttall would have it, the phonetic) writ- 

 ing of the Aztecs, and the phonetic, perhaps even alphabetical, system 

 of the Mayas, bear upon them the proofs of their essentially Ameri- 

 can origin. Speaking of the phonetic aspect of some of the Mexican 

 writings Tylor says " There is no sufficient reason to doubt that this 

 purely phonetic writing was of native Mexican oiigin " (Eai'ly His- 

 tory of Mankind p. 96). And the ablest writers upon the subject 

 agree that the Maya system of writing is of independent growth, and 

 not an importation fi'om the Old World. The length of time requi- 

 site for the development of the sixteen languages of the Maya-Quiche 

 family must take us back to a vast antiquity ; add to this the period 

 necessary to allow the development through its various stages of the 

 Maya phonetic system, and we reach an age in the primeval past that 

 may vie with the most ancient civilizations of the other hemisphere. 

 When we read that from five cities alone on one occasion the Spanish 

 governor obtained no less than 16,000 volumes or scrolls, it is but 

 reasonable to su[)pose that America had a literature as well as an 

 alphabet ; and we impatiently wait for the appearance of the Ameri- 

 can ChampoUion who shall unlock for us the stone records of Palen- 

 que and Copan, and I'ead for iis the few volumes of ancient American 

 history that priestly intolerance has permitted to escape the flames. 

 That late migrations fi-om Asia have had any appreciable effect (if 

 they ever took place at all) upon American civilizations, I do not for 

 one moment believe. 



Di\ E. F. Hamy lately (Nov. 9th, 1886) i-ead a paper before the 

 Anthropological Institute " On an Interpretation of one of the Copan 

 Monuments," in which he claims to have found upon one of the stone 

 figures at Copan, the Chinese sign Tai-Ki ; from this he obtains " fresh 

 proofs of the influence of Asiatic upon American civilization." Re- 

 ferring to such views in terms of disapprobation, W. H. Dall says (in 

 Science Nov, 5th 1886) : " We believe that the very wide hypothesis 

 thus broached (i. e. of early Chinese voyages to Amei'ica) and which 

 in one form or other has had a certain currency for more than a cen- 

 tuary, I'ests upon a totally insufficient basis Mr. Wol- 



