ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT xXCV 
Aztec ruins, and the suggestion of this designation is just in so 
far as it implies relationship with the aborigines of moderately 
advanced culture in Mexico and Central America, though it 
would be misleading if regarded as indicating essential differ- 
ence between the ancient villagers and their modern descend- 
ants and neighbors still occupying the pueblos. The kiva of 
the cliff village corresponds with the kiva of the pueblo, and 
is the homologue of the Mexican, Central American, and 
Peruvian temple on the one hand (as with the prytaneum of 
classical history), and of the medicine lodge of the plains on 
the other hand; and in other respects the products of activity 
among the cliffs of Canyon de Chelly are identical with those 
found elsewhere on both American continents. Thus this me- 
moir also serves, in one of its several aspects, to indicate the 
demotic unity of the aborigines of the Western Hemisphere. 
DAY SYMBOLS OF THE MAYA YEAR 
Most of the American tribes had advanced to the stage of 
graphic symbolism, and were thus on the threshold of writing, 
when the new world was discovered by Columbus. Among: 
many of the tribes the art was rudimentary, and limited to crude 
pictography. The pictographs were painted or sculptured on 
cliff faces, bowlders, the walls of caverns, and other rock 
surfaces, and even more frequently, though less permanently, 
on trees, as well as on skins, bark, and various artificial objects. 
These crude autographic records of the Indians of the United 
States have been studied with care, and many of them have 
been illustrated and interpreted in earlier reports. Among 
certain Mexican tribes, also, autographic records were in use, 
and some of them were much better differentiated than any 
within the present area of the United States. The records were 
not only painted and sculptured on stone and molded in stucco, 
but were inscribed in books or codices of native parchment and 
paper; while the characters were measurably arbitrary, i. e., 
ideographic rather than pictographic. The various records 
fall into a series representing several early stages in the devel- 
opment of writing, and throw a clear light on the origin of one 
of the most beneficial among human arts. 
