October 6, 1893.] 



SCIENCE 



185 



SCIENCE: 



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COLLECTION OF HIEXIGAN MAGUEY PAINTINGS. 



AiEXANDEB VON HuMBOLDT — America's scientific discov- 

 erer, as he was called after his return to Europe from this 

 continent — when sojourning in the City of Mexico (1803) 

 took care to acquire a certain amount of ancient hiero- 

 glyphic paintings, which, among other relics of Aztec civ- 

 ilization, had once been collected by the Cavalier Boturi- 

 ni Benaducci, yet were confiscated by the government of 

 New Spain, and later on handed over for study to Leon 

 de Gama, a professor of astronomy in whom the learned 

 traveller had found a coadjutor for his manifold scientific 

 prrrsuits. 



In 1806, Humboldt made this precious purchase a pres- 

 ent to the Berlin Royal Library, in the shelves of which 

 the large portfolio had been resting, " not disregarded, 

 but -cinopened," until the year 1868, when it was brought 

 to J I arht for the inspection of the Members of the Con- 

 j^To uj of Americanists assembled in the same year in the 

 city of Berlin. The collection consists of sixteen sheets 

 of maguey paintings in more or less fragmentary condi- 

 tion, the photographic facsimiles of which were published 

 a few months ago at the cost of the Royal Library, to be 

 its special commemorative gift to the Columbus Centen- 

 nial Celebration. Only three copies of it have reached 

 the United States. The sheets are about one foot ten 

 inches wide, and two feet six inches long, with the excep- 

 tion of No. I., which shows the considerable length of fif- 

 teen feet by one foot ten inches. 



The task of interpreting the paintings devolved on Dr. 

 Eduard Seler, Curator of the American Department in the 

 Ethnological Museum of Berlin. The text he wrote forms 

 a book of 137 jiages, octavo, with a carefully arranged in- 

 dex. The headings of the sheets are inscribed as follows : 

 No. I.: A list of tribute extending over nineteen years and 

 paid by trimester to a certain temple. II. : A list of the 

 lots of the Royal Domain Gamaca and of their former 

 usufructuaries. III. and IV.: Fragments of historico- 

 geograjihical contents, originating from Huamautla (Tlax- 

 calla). V. : Fragment of a household ledger, village 

 Tecontepec. VI. : A court proceeding in the city of Tezcuco. 

 VII. : Account of certain victuals furnished by the mayor- 

 domo of Mizquiyauallan. VIII.: Fragment of a cataster- 

 roU, with name of proprietor, area and quality of soil. 

 IX-XII. : Fragments of court-trials (complaints). XIII. : 

 Account given by the mayordomo of Mizquiyauallan of 

 work done weekly by women of the pueblo. XIV. : Ac- 

 count of wood, forage and victuals furnished. XV. : An 



account of turkeys furnished. XVI.: The Articles of 

 Faith and the Ten Commandments, both in hieroglyphics. 



Here, then, at last, some fresh material for study has 

 made its appearance, which the students of Mexicology 

 were a long time yearning for, in view of the scanty and 

 somewhat superannuated stock of Mexican Calendar Cod- 

 ices. If nothing else, the diversity of contents alone 

 must have gladde;ned the heart of the enthusiastic inter- 

 preter, and have paid him richly for the labor bestowed 

 on the work. " I have learned something," he exclaims 

 somewhere. One portion of the sheets (Nos.'X, ITL, IV.), 

 turned out to contain records written in the epoch before 

 the Spanish Conquest ; other records reach as far as the 

 year 1571. This fact is of some importance. For in the 

 former the names of persons and places still apjoear in 

 their primitive ideographic simplicity, whereas in the 

 others the influence of modern syllabic spelling makes 

 itself noticeable — a subject often ventilated with regard 

 to the absolute reliability of certain Codices. On the 

 other hand, some of the sheets afford a graphic insight 

 into the economic comfort of the curas and encomenderos, 

 by exhibiting the quantity and good quality of all those 

 things that were to be supplied by the parishioners and 

 tributaries for the sustenance of the ample households of 

 their taskmasters. Sheet No. II. is of specific historical 

 interest. It shows us Mociezuma II., the Severe, arrayed 

 in file with his successors, generals and other dignitaries, 

 inasmuch as they were authorized by the Sjianish Crown 

 to remain keepers and heirs to certain portions of land, 

 up to the demise of the last blood-relative of the unfortu- 

 nate dynasty. In No. VI. we recognize a painting already 

 published and described by Humboldt himself in his 

 great work : "Vues des Cordilleres et Monuments des 

 Peuples indigenes de I'Amerique." He took it for repre- 

 senting " un proces entre des naturels et des Espagnols," 

 the object of litigation being a farm. We learn from Dr. 

 Seler that the object of the process was not a farm, but a 

 claim about the extent and boundaries of the Royal city 

 of Tezcoco, whose prominent edifices and hieroglyphic 

 name are delineated on the plan, together with her last 

 King Teauilotzin and certain known members of the Royal 

 Audiencia. The last sheet. No. XVI., is a veritable curi- 

 osity. It is one of those pictorial illustrations of the Ro- 

 man Catholic Catechism, which the missionaries used to 

 hang on the walls of the parochial schools for the purpose 

 of helping the natives to learn by heart the principal ten- 

 ets of the Christian religion. These wall jjictures are 

 mentioned by Bemesel and Las Casas. This Humboldt 

 specimen, however, is the first that has cropped out from 

 scores of them that must have existed. 



We cannot help expressing our highest admiration for 

 the skill with which the learned interpreter has solved the 

 riddles laid before him. The sense of each of these six- 

 teen problems is as ingeniously grasped by him in its 

 whole, as it is methodically proved and explained in all 

 its details. In this Dr. Seler has shown that he has mas- 

 tered the true methods of inductive argumentation. But 

 he is also possessed of the great gift, so to speak, of pic- 

 torial intuition and vision. Without the aid of this felici- 

 tous ^alent there is not much chance for the interpreter 

 of ideographic writing either to seize the correct mean- 

 ing of each individual symbol and hieroglyph, or, when 

 he has done so, also to combine the various elements into 

 that text which the native hierophant would have written 

 had he been acquainted with the resources afforded by 

 our alphabet. V- 



— Dr. William Patten has been appointed Professor of 

 Biology at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H. The de- 

 partment is a new one and will be weU equipped. 



