NOTES ON CERTAIN MAYA AND MEXICAN MANU- 

 SCRIPTS. 



By Cyrus Thomas. 



"TABLEAU L>ES BACAB. " 



Having recently come into possession of Leon de Rosny's late work 

 entitled "Les Documents ecritsde VAntiquite Americaine," 1 I find in it a 

 plioto-litbograpbic copy of two plates (or rather one plate, for tbe two are 

 but parts of one) of the Maya Manuscript known as the Codex Corte- 

 sianus. This plate (I shall speak of the two as one) is of so much impor- 

 tance in the study of the Central American symbols and calendar systems 

 that I deem it worthy of special notice ; more particularly so as it fur- 

 nishes a connecting link between the Maya and Mexican symbols and 

 calendars. 



This plate (Nos. 8 and 9 in Rosny's work), is entitled by Rosny " Tab- 

 leau des Bacab" or "Plate of tbe Bacabs," he supposing it to be a rep- 

 resentation of the gods of the four cardinal points, an opinion I believe 

 to be well founded. 



As will be seen by reference to our Plate No. 1, which is an exact 

 copy from Rosny's work, this page consists of three divisions : First, 

 an inner quadrilateral space, in which there are a kind of cross or sacred 

 tree ; two sitting figures, one of which is a female, and six characters. 

 Second, a narrow space or belt forming a border to the inner area, from 

 which it is separated by a single line ; it is separated from tbe outer 

 space by a double line. This space contains the characters for the twenty 

 days of the Maya month, but not arranged in consecutive order. Third, 

 an outer and larger space containing several figures and numerous 

 characters, the latter chiefly those representing the Maya days. This 

 area consists of two distinct parts, one part containing day characters, 

 grouped together at the four corners, and connected by rows of dots 

 running from one group to the other along the outer border; the other 

 part consisting of four groups of figures, one group opposite each of the 

 four sides. In each of the four compartments containing these last- 

 mentioned groups, there is one of the four characters shown in Fig. 1 

 (a b cd), which, in my "Study of the Manuscript Troano," I have con- 

 cluded represent the four cardinal points, a conclusion also reached in. 

 dependently by Rosny and Scbultz Sellack. 



1 Published in 1332, as a memoir of the Socifite' d'Ethnographie of Paris. 



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