MEXICAN HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY. 3 



and Mexico did not protect these simple archives, flimsy as they were, from destruc- 

 tion by an ignorant soldiery and their superstitious companions. The Mexican 

 "picture writing" consisted of several elements: an arbitrary system of symbols to 

 denote years, months, days, seasons, the elements, and events of frequent occur- 

 rence; an effort to delineate persons and their acts by rude drawings; and a 

 phonetic system, which, through objects, conveyed sounds that, singly or in com- 

 bination, expressed the facts they were designed to record. This imperfect and 

 mixed process of painting and symbolizing thought, was stopped at this stage, for it 

 was the extent of Aztec invention at the period of the conquest, and it is difficult 

 to judge, from the known character of the people, whether further progress would 

 have been made. But this inquiry is of comparatively small importance, as the 

 archives of Mexico and Tezcoco, containing " picture writings" which were regarded 

 by the Spaniards as the " symbols of a pestilent superstition," were piled in a heap 

 by order of Zumarraga, the first archbishop of Mexico, and reduced to ashes. 1 This 

 species of literary auto da fe was imitated by other Spanish authorities, so that 

 every painted paper or graven image they found was soon annihilated by the 

 invaders. Still, a few of these relics escaped the general wreck, and were deposited 

 in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; the Imperial Library of 

 Vienna ; the Museum and Vatican at Borne ; the library of the Institute at Bologna ; 

 and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 



In summing up the character of the most important of these relics, Mr. Gallatin 

 observes that, " whatever may have been the value of the Mexican paintings 

 destroyed by the Spanish clergy, it has now been shown that those which have 

 been preserved contain but a meagre account of the Mexican history for the one 

 hundred years preceding the conquest, and hardly anything that relates to prior 

 events." 2 The consequence of this is, that the antecedent history of the aboriginal 

 nations inhabiting the territory of modern Mexico must rest upon the reports of 

 early Spanish writers, their monumental remains, and, perhaps mainly, on the 

 questionable authority of Ixtlilxochitl. 3 



1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, I, 101. See his authorities. 

 3 Am. Ethnological Soc. Trans., I, 145. 



s The sources of information in regard to early Mexican history and antiquity are the following : — 



/The Codex Vaticanus, No. 3176. 



Yaticanus, No. 3738. 



Borgianus, of Yeletri. 



Bologna. 



Pess Hungary, of Mr. Fejervari. 



Oxford, Arbp: Laud. 



Yienna. 



Oxford, Bodleian. 



Oxford, Selden. 



Berlin, of Humboldt. 



Dresden. 



Boturini. 

 > Paris, Tell; 



Tellurianus Remensis. 



Oxford, Mendoza Collection. 



(Continued over Page.) 



No. 1. The Mexican Paintings, &c. 

 These are engraved in Lord 

 Kingsborough's 1st, 2d, and 3d/ 

 volumes of Mexican Antiqui- 

 ties. 



