VALUE OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS TOZZER. 499 



great ability possessed by the natives of Mexico to read by means of 

 pictures. They took advantage of this in several ways in order to 

 disseminate the teachings of the Roman religion. The entire cate- 

 chism was shown by means of pictures. No question of sound entered 

 into tins sort of picture writing. These pictures were painted upon 

 great cloths and hung up before the people. A page of Velades, 1 a 

 Latin account of the activities of the priesthood, dated 1579, shows 

 some of the ways taken by the priests to introduce the new religion 

 into Mexico. * * * Torqumada (1723) 2 and other early writers 

 describe these charts or "lienzos." I know of none of these charts 

 still in existence, but there are several manuscripts which contain 

 the same class of pictures. Leon (1900) illustrates and describes 

 this kind of document. The Peabody Museum has a manuscript 

 winch is slightly more elaborate in its figures than that pictured by 

 Leon, but in all essential particulars they are identical. Both may 

 be considered copies of earlier charts. * * * 



In all these illustrations we have seen pure "thought writing," 3 

 ideas expressed by pictures, conventionalized pictures, symbols, or 

 conventionalized symbols. Up to this time there has been no sug- 

 gestion of the name, or, more exactly, the sound of the name. Ideas 

 have been expressed, but ideas regardless of the sounds which the 

 names would signify. 



The next step to be illustrated by Mexican examples is where 

 sound comes in for the first time as a factor. It is not the object 

 now that is the desired thing, but the name of the object. This 

 marks an intermediate stage between picture writing on the one 

 hand and phonetic writing on the other. It employs the well-known 

 principle of the rebus. It is this step which is illustrated with 

 special clearness in the Nahua manuscripts, perhaps better than in 

 the writing of any other people. ■ 



Much has been written in various places on this phase of the writing 

 of the Mexicans. The phonetic character of the greater part of the 

 various pictures has been known for some time. 4 Brinton (1886 

 and 1886, a) has discussed this method of ■writing and gives it the 

 term "ikonomatic," the "name of the figure or image," referring to 

 the sound of the name rather than to any objective significance as a 



1 Velades, 1579, chap, xxviii, gives a pictorial alphabet which is of no importance. Valentine, 1880, p. 

 74, gives a reproduction of it. 



2 Book xv, chap, xxv, "Tuvieron estos Benitos Padres, un modo de Predicar, no menos trabajoso, que 

 artificioso, y mui provechoso, para estos Indios, por ser conforme al uso, que ellos tenian, de tratar todas 

 las cosas por Pinturas, y era desta manera. Hacian Pintar en un Lienco, los Articulos de la Fe, y en otro, 

 los diez Mandamientos de Dios, y en otro, los siete Sacramentos, y lo demas que querian, de la Doctrina 

 Christiana; y quando el Predicador, queria Predicar de los Mandamientos colgavan junto, de donde se 

 ponia a Predicar el Lienco de los Mandamientos en distancia que podia, con una Vara senalar la parte del 

 Lienco, quequeria. * * * " For further references to this custom, see Leon, 1900. 



* Scler, 1888, uses the term " Gedankenrebus " for this kind of writing. 



* Penafiel, 1885, gives an atlas of the place-names found in the tribute lists in the Codex Mendocino. 



