PICTURE-WRITING AND WORD-WRITING. 93" 



of Asiaj forms the strongest point of HumlDoldt's argument for 

 tlie connexion of the Mexicans with Eastern Asia, and the re- 

 markable character of the coincidence is greatly enforced by 

 the fact, that this complex arrangement answers no useful pur-r 

 pose whatever, inasmuch as mere counting by numbers, or by 

 signs numbered in regular succession, would have been a far 

 better arrangement. It may perhaps have been introduced for 

 some astrological purpose. 



The historical picture-writings of the Mexicans seem for the 

 most part very bare and didl to us, who know and care so little 

 about their history. They consist of records of wars, famines, 

 migrations, sacrifices, and so forth, names of persons and places 

 being indicated by symbolic pictures attached to them, as King 

 Itzcoatl, or " knife-snake,'^ by a serpent with stone knives on 

 its back ; Tzompanco, or " the place of a skull," now Zum- 

 pango, by a picture of a skull skewered on a bar between two 

 upright posts, as enemies' skulls used to be set up; Chapulte- 

 pec, or " grasshopper-hill," by a hill and a grasshopper, and so 

 on, or by more properly phonetic characters, such as will be 

 presently described. The positions of footprints, arrows, etc.j 

 serve as guides to the direction of marches and attacks, in very 

 much the same way as may be seen in Catlin's drawing of the 

 pictured robe of Ma-to-toh-pa, or " Four Bears." The mystical 

 paintings which relate to religion and astrology are seldom 

 capable of any independent interpretation, for the same rea- 

 sons which make it impossible to read the pictured records of 

 songs and charms used further north, namely, that they do not 

 tell their stories in full, but only recall them to the minds of 

 those who are already acquainted with them. The paintings 

 which represent the methodically arranged life of the Aztecs 

 from childhood to old age, have more human interest about 

 them than all the rest put together. In judging the Mexican 

 picture-writings as a means of record, it should be borne in 

 mind that though we can understand them to a considerable 

 extent, we should have made veiy little progress in deciphering 

 them, were it not that there are a number of interpretations 

 made in writing from the explanations given by Indians, so 

 that the traditions of the art have never been wholly lost. Some 



