VALUE OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS TOZZER. 495 



It is not, however, the ideas expressed in these documents but the 

 methods used in expressing them, not what is written, but how it is 

 written, not the content, but the means employed that the present 

 paper aims to consider. The manuscripts form only a part of the 

 available material for the study of the writing of the peoples of 

 Mexico and Central America. The extensive use of stone carving on 

 the facades of buildings, on altars and stelae, and on the lintels opens 

 up another extensive source from which examples might be drawn. 

 It is only in one case, however, that an illustration will be taken from 

 the stone bas-reliefs. 



The early history of writing has been curiously alike over the greater 

 part of the world. The preliminary step is in the use of reminders or 

 mnemonics. These signs convey no message in themselves, but serve 

 only as an aid in bringing to mind some event. They are not uni- 

 versally useful as are many specimens of picture writing. They can 

 usually be employed only by those who possess the previous knowledge 

 which the reminders serve to recall. Notched sticks and tallies of va- 

 rious kinds are well-known examples of this class. The Roman rosary 

 immediately suggests itself as belonging to the same type. The 

 Peruvian quipu or knotted string is usually cited as the best repre- 

 sentative of the class of reminders. Boturini (1746) in his "Idea de 

 una nueva historia general" states that the natives of Mexico used a 

 knotted string for recording events before the invention of a hiero- 

 glyphic writing. Its native name was nepohual tzitzin, "cordon de 

 cuenta y numero." l Lumholtz (1902, vol. 2, p. 12S) states that the 

 Huichols of north-central Mexico in setting out on a journey prepare 

 two strings of bark fiber and tie as many knots in them as there are 

 days in the journey. One string is left behind in the temple with one 

 of the principal men and the other is carried on the trip. A knot is 

 untied in each string each day. As the travelers always camp in the 

 same places, they are protected from accidents in each place by the 

 prayers of those at home. Lumholtz cites a second instance of the 

 use of the knotted string as a reminder. In the Hikuli rite there is a 

 general confession made by the women. "In order to help their 

 memories each one prepares a string made out of strips of palm leaves 

 in which she has tied as many knots as she has had lovers. This 

 twine she brings to the temple and standing before the fire she men- 

 tions aloud all the men she has scored on her string, name after name. 

 Having finished, she throws her list into the fire and when the god has 



i Boturini, 1746, p. 85: "Naci6 assimismo en esta Edad un raro modo de historiar y fue con unos Cordones 

 largos, en los quales se entretexian otros delgados, que pendian de el Cordon principal con nudos de diferentes 

 colores. Llamabanse estas Historias Funiculares en los Reynos del Peru Quipu, y en los de la Nueva Espafia 

 Ncpohualtzitzin, derivando su denominacion de el adverbio Nepohuhlli, que quiere decir Ochenta, 6 como si 

 dixeramos, Cordon de cuenta, y numero, en que se referian y numeraban las cosas dignas de memoria, assl 

 Pivinas, como Humanas." 



