2 INTEODUCTIOX. 



great hereditary emperor or merely the elected head of a communal household, and 

 whether the Mayas derived their culture from the Nahuas, or the Nahuas from the 

 Mayas, or whether both inherited it from the Toltecs, or, again, whether the Toltecs 

 themselves are not altogether mythical. 



With regard to Mexico and Central America, Cortez, Bernal Dias, and a few others 

 amongst the early conquerors have left excellent accounts of what actually passed 

 before their eyes, and these records are of inestimable value. The writers who 

 followed during the first century of the Spanish occupation are not so satisfactory : 

 those who were Spaniards were inclined to exaggeration in order to magnify the 

 importance of the conquests and the strength of the resistance overcome by their 

 countrymen ; some, who were of distinguished Indian descent, were led so to define the 

 status of their ancestors as to bring it into accord with Spanish ideas of sovereignty ; 

 whilst nearly all were ecclesiastics, and were constrained to fit all Indian traditions 

 and to trace all native customs to an origin which was in accordance with the accepted 

 Biblical history of the human race. 



But notwithstanding the exaggerated statements made by these writers, and the 

 erroneous interpretation which they put on much that they saw and heard, their 

 writings have a very considerable value. 



It would indeed have been wonderful if the Spanish conquerors could have broken 

 the bonds with which the teaching of the day and the unquestioned religious belief of 

 the age fettered their minds. "When they first landed in America their imaginations 

 were full of the phantasies and imagery of the east ; they looked for fabulous cities and 

 fountains of eternal youth ; but their ideas of government and social life did not range 

 beyond the feudal relationships of Western Europe, and their minds failed to grasp a 

 state of affairs so different from what they looked for, and so unlike that to which 

 they were accustomed, whilst even the most observant and discriminating were at a 

 great disadvantage in having to explain the social, religious, and political systems 

 of the New World in terminology suited only to the Old. 



It is to be hoped that modern criticism will not long leave the information buried in 

 these records in its present unsifted condition, and that a more careful editing of the 

 early Spanish writings, and further research amongst the vast collection of documents 

 relatiug to the Indies which are preserved at Seville, will do much to determine the 

 accuracy of our knowledge and add considerably to its extent. 



It is not, however, only from written records that our knowledge can be increased. 

 Lying scattered over certain portions of the American continent (and especially 

 numerous in the dense tropical forests between the south of Mexico and the 

 northern frontier of Honduras) are remains of buildings and monuments, which 

 were raised by the civilized races of America ages before the arrival of the Spaniards. 

 And it was with the desire to preserve some further record of these remains, 

 and especially to take exact copies of the carved hieroglyphic inscriptions, before the 

 disintegrating effects of a tropical climate and the careless mutilations by man had 



