julia ToT 4 | 
having influenced the present civilisation, which is 
entirely Spanish, certainly. Latin. The natives 
neither know nor care anything about the monu- 
ments of their ancestors, more often than not 
they do not even consider them as ancestral, but 
merely as relics of the olden times. Christianity 
—and they are nearly all nominal Christians— 
has smothered, or ruthlessly destroyed, the old 
life and its traditions. Idolatry being forbidden 
by law, it is practised more or less secretly, and 
many old heathen rites have been cleverly woven 
into the orthodox practices of the Church, especi- 
ally with the celebrations of the numerous feast 
days. 
The ancient eastern civilisations from Egypt to 
India and China are more or less akin, have in- 
fluenced each other, and their effect lasts into our 
own present-day life. Almost any Mesopotamian 
NATURE 
455 
and Yucatan, south of the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec, besides Guatemala and Honduras. To the 
north and west this larger Maya area adjoins those 
of the Zapotecan (Mitla) and Nahoan or Mexican 
civilisations. 
It seems most probable that the mysterious 
Toltecs were those Mayas in a wider sense, who, 
in prehistoric times, had extended on to the plateau 
of Mexico, raising there the great pyramids of 
Wegunwscan: Cholula, ete. Then the Nahoa, 
coming originally from the north and west, drove 
out the Toltecs, and themselves gradually became 
civilised, building upon the inheritance, the longer 
they remained in contact with the Toltec-Maya 
crafts, arts, and science, which continued to 
flourish in the far south-east. Even so late 
as shortly before the Spanish conquest the 
Aztecs or Mexicans proper were sending military 
e ‘*Chuich”’ 
find is sure to throw some light upon the history 
of the European-Asiatic communities. Nothing 
of the kind applies to America. If it had been 
found uninhabited by the Europeans, that would 
in the long run have had no effect upon the culture 
and thoughts of the rest of the world. As it hap- 
pened that there were natives, they have been 
used as beasts of labour. They were sweated, 
but not more than the Aztecs had sweated and 
raided the other tribes. 
Dr. Spinden is a pupil of the active and flourish- 
ing School of American Archeology, under the 
guidance of Dr. Tozzer, at Harvard University. 
His most noteworthy contribution in the present 
volume is the exposition of the archeological 
sequence of the Maya monuments. 
Who are the Mayas? Maya-speaking people 
inhabit the Mexican States of Tabasco, Chiapas, 
- NO. 2331, VOL. 93] 
_ colonies down to Nicaragua. 
at Chichen Itza in Yucatan. 
Spinden accepting 
this view, considers the pre-Aztec monuments on 
the plateau as contemporary with what he desig- 
nates as the brilliant period of building in Maya- 
land; the fine Aztec and Zapotec buildings arose 
later. 
The ethnology is very doubtful; anything be- 
fore 1325, the generally accepted date of the 
foundation of the city of Mexico, is fictitious. 
The Codices, illuminated manuscripts, are picture- 
writings, a compound of idiograph-pictures, and 
phonetic writing, just on the verge of the in- 
vention of an alphabet. It is a highly developed 
art of pun-drawings, or rebus. Whilst the Nahoa 
codices—they were nearly all almanacs, or memo- 
randa of accounts—are easy to read, so far as 
names of places and numbers are concerned, those 
of the Maya had far advanced, the pictures having 
