540 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



lections). I shall pass over the difficult and much discussed Cukulcan 

 question, which has been touched upon in both the first and third 

 essays, for I do not like to venture upon mvthologic ground. 



In reference to the Vase of Chama, both Seler and Dieseldortl' have 

 taken exceptions to my attempted explanation of it, and in this they 

 may not be wholly wrong. But it is never safe to attack certain 

 details, if other details which, in connection with the former, both 

 pictorially and in wi'iting, tend to establish the general fundament d 

 idea of the representation ai'e passed over in sih^nce. 



While writing this I have received from Mr Philipp J. J. Valen- 

 tini, of New York, the second part of his "'Analysis of the Pictorial 

 Text Inscribed on Two Palenque Tablets ", reprinted from the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., 

 1896. The author, whom since 1878 we have esteemed as an earnest 

 investigator in this field, continues to discuss the two sides of the 

 inscription on the so-called cross monument. He offers many obser- 

 vations, which certainly contain nmch of lasting W'Orth, from the 

 store of knowledge gathered chiefly during his long stay in the states 

 of Central America. But it is all the more to be regretted that, con- 

 trary to the method prevailing on almost all Maya monuments, he 

 persists in reading every colunni separately from top to bottom, 

 instead of always taking two columns together. Consequently, his 

 ccmception of many of the details, as well as of the whole, is incorrect. 

 It is necessary to become cognizant of the Avhole framework of this 

 inscription, which consists of a number of calendar dates, with their 

 intervals stated in numbers. Only then will it be possible to recog- 

 nize more clearly the remaining signs, by means of which the events 

 occurring in the intervals must be deterndned. 



In the articles mentioned thus far the authors express themselves 

 variously on the question actually underlying all these investigations, 

 namely, the relation to each other of the two civilizations that are 

 here under consideration, the Aztec (Nahua) on the one side, and 

 the Maya on the other. In his article Altertiimer aus Guateriiahi 

 Doctor Seler adopts the theory of a movement of the Maya southward 

 (page 24), while (page 46) he speaks of a southward migration of the 

 Nahuas (as far as Nicaragua) from Tabasco, and even suggests that 

 they may have migrated to Yucatan. Mr Dieseldorff (page 774), on 

 the contraiy, holds the theory that Maya art was developed independ- 

 ently, and that the connecting link between the two civilizations indi- 

 cates an exchange of cultural influences between them in which the 

 Maya race was the giver and the Nahua was the receiver. He is of 

 the opinion that the unfortunate downfall of the Maya power one or 

 two centuries before the Conquista was directly caused by the Nahuas. 

 On page 776 he advances the idea that the Nahua received their deity 

 Quetzalcoatl, from the Toltecs, and that the Toltecs were a Maya 



