THE VALUE OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS IN 

 THE STUDY OF THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF 

 WRITING. 1 



[With 5 plates.] 



By Alfred M. Tozzer. 

 Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 



The successive stages through which writing has passed have been 

 fairly generally accepted and I do not intend at this time to add any- 

 thing new in regard to this development of writing. 2 Illustrative 

 examples have usually been drawn from various sources in point of 

 time ancl place. It is possible, however, to find in the Mexican 

 manuscripts illustrations of all the steps in the early history of 

 writing. 3 



Mexico is the only part of the new world where there are any 

 appreciable data on the prehistoric life of a people outside of the 

 monuments and objects found in connection with them. In Mexico 

 and Central America we approach even if we do not, by any means, 

 reach that fortunate situation in the old world where the documentary 

 evidence of an ancient culture, a literature, is present as an important 

 aid in the study of the life of a people. 



The manuscripts of Mexico and Central America have, for the most 

 part, been neglected by all except the specialists in this field. These 

 documents furnish important examples of primitive ideas of art and 

 illustration together with minute details of ethnological interest. 



The Mexican manuscripts may be divided into two obvious classes, 

 those written before the advent of the Spaniards at the beginning of 

 the sixteenth century and those written during the early days of the 

 Spanish occupation. Another classification might be based on the 

 distinct localities where the manuscripts are supposed to have been 

 written and the nationality of their authors. The codices of the 



i Reprinted by permission from the proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for April, 1911, 

 Worcester, Mass., published by the society. 



2 For a short account of the development of writing see Clodd, 1907. 



3 A portion of this paper was presented at the Toronto meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, 

 Dec. 28-31, 1908. A brief abstract is published in the American Journal of Archaeology (second series), vol. 

 13, pp. 65-66, 1909. 



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