32 



NATURE 



[September 12, 1912 



THE STORY OF "EIGHT DEER." 



The Story of "Eight Deer" in Codex Colombino. 

 By J. Cooper Clark. Pp. 33 + plates A-J 

 (coloured). (London : Taylor and Francis, 

 1912.) Price 215. net. 



AMONG the papers presented to the Inter- 

 national Congress of Americanists during 

 the session held in London at the end of last June 

 was a pamphlet by Mr. J. Cooper Clark entitled 

 " The Story of ' Eight Deer ' in the Codex Colom- 

 bino." This is an attempt to throw some light 

 into the obscurity of the pre-Columbian American 

 manuscripts. 



Mr. Cooper Clark commenced his researches 

 with a careful examination of the Codex Colom- 

 bino, a picture-writing painted on prepared deer- 

 skin, folded like a screen, and measuring 6'8o 

 metres in length when spread open, now preserved 

 in the National Museum in the City of Mexico. In 

 this manuscript Mr. Cooper Clark traced the 

 history of a warrior chieftain named " Eight 

 Deer." .-Ml the personages identified by Mr. 

 Cooper Clark in this codex are named after days 

 of the month, and the name "Eight Deer" is ex- 

 pressed by a deer's head with the numeral eight 

 (that is, by eight round discs) attached to it, a 

 deer's head (Macatl) being one of the twenty day 

 signs of the Nahua month, and according to the 

 Nahua method of noting time, this date would 

 occur only once in a cycle of fifty-two years. It 

 is not, however, explained why this particular day 

 was chosen as the name of the warrior, although 

 it is stated that it was not the day of his birth. 



The life-history of Eight Deer is most inge- 

 niously traced through the pages of the codex, 

 but the most interesting fact established by Mr. 

 Cooper Clark is that the history of the same 

 individual is atso told in five of the other extant 

 pre-Columliian codices, namel}', the Zouche 

 (British Museum), the Vienna, the Bodleian, the 

 Baker, and the Selden. By a careful comparison 

 of these codices, Mr. Cooper Clark has not only 

 been able to show that in part they tell the same 

 story, but to supply incidents in the history of 

 Eight Deer which are missing from the Codex 

 Colombino owing to the destruction of a part of 

 the manuscript. 



Mr. Cooper Clark has further come to the con- 

 clusion that Eight Deer can be identified as the 

 glyph attached to the figure of a warrior carved 

 on one of the stone slabs from Monte Alban in 

 Oaxaca (in the Zapotec country), now exhibited 

 in the National Museum of Mexico, and from 

 this he argues that the codices dealing with the 

 story of Eight Deer must be of Zapotec and not 

 Aztec origin, adding, "Not many Nahua codices 

 NO. 2237, VOL. 90] 



are likely to have survived the destruction by Arch- 

 bishop Zumdrraga of the temple libaries of 

 Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and the other cities around 

 the lakes, whereas, warned by the example of 

 Mexico, the Zapotecs would have had ample time 

 to secrete their records." 



There is no difficulty in fixing the dates men- 

 tioned in the Codex Colombino within the fifty-two 

 year cycle; the difficulty arises in determining in 

 which cycle of fifty-two years the dates occur. If 

 the events depicted are placed in the next cycle 

 before the arrival of the Spaniards, the birth of 

 Eight Deer would have taken place in the year 

 1 49 1 A.D. ; but Mr. Cooper Clark thinks that it 

 more probably took place in the previous cycle, 

 when the date would correspond to 1439 a.d. 



The pamphlet is illustrated with plates most care- 

 fully drawn and coloured from the original manu- 

 scripts, showing how the same events in the life 

 of Eight Deer are depicted in the Colombino, 

 Zouche, Bodleian, and Becker codices. 



Mr. Cooper Clark is to be heartily congratulated 

 on his most painstaking achievement. The 

 pamphlet was written for the few who are 

 interested in ancient American civilisations, and 

 can only be fully appreciated by those who have 

 access to copies of the codices discussed ; but even 

 to the general reader it must be of interest as 

 showing a native American method of recording 

 historical events, and, moreover, as demonstrating 

 how, by careful and intelligent examination and 

 comparison, order and meaning may be evolved 

 from the most obscure and unpromising material. 



SUBMERGED RIVER-VALLEYS. 

 Monograph on the Suh-Oceanic Physiography of 

 the North Atlantic Ocean. By Prof. Edward 

 Hull, F.R.S. With a Chapter on the Sub- 

 Oceanic Physical Features off, the Coast of 

 North America and the West Indian Islands, 

 by Prof. J. W. W. Spencer. Pp. viii + 4H-xi 

 plates. (London : E. Stanford, 191 2.) Price 

 21S. net. 



THIS is a folio publication with eleven excel- 

 lent maps and nine short chapters of ex- 

 planatory text, and an additional chapter by Prof. 

 J. W. W^inthrop Spencer. The author has based 

 the work on a detailed study of the Admiralty 

 charts showing the soundings over the continental 

 shelf and the upper part of the continental 

 slope off the western coasts of Europe and Africa, 

 and this leads up to a statement of his views as to 

 the cause of the Glacial Period. 



It is pointed out that there are two principal 

 schools of geographical evolution, the one believ- 

 ing that the ocean basins and the position of the 

 chief continental areas retain traces of their 



