AETICLE ly. 



THE TRIBUTE ROLL OF MONTEZUMA. 



EDITED BY 



Dr. DANIEL G. BRINTOX, Chairman, 

 HENRY PHILLIPS, Jr., and 

 Dr. J. CHESTON MORRIS, 



A Committee appoiated by the American Philosophical Society, November 16, 



Paht I. 



THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS. 

 BY DANIEL G. BRINTON, M.D., LL.D. 



There are scarcely any tribes, however rude, who do not aid their memory by 

 some objective device. The savage Australians have tally sticks, and in some locali- 

 ties depict figures on the walls of caves in honor of some important event. A hand- 

 ful of sticks of different lengths was the simple mnemonic device of the Iroquois ; 

 while knots tied in strings led in Siberia and Peru to a complicated system of 

 thought recording. 



The arts of drawing and coloring lent themselves with peculiar facility to this 

 purpose. They were by no means late or limited acquisitions of the human intellect. 

 Far back in Palaeolithic times we find evident traces of them, as we also do amongst 

 savage peoples in every continent. The man of the mammoth and the reindeer epoch 

 depicted these animals with singular fidelity by scratching their outlines on bones ; 

 and the paint pots and masses of ochreous earth found on the sites of his dwellings 

 prove that he was also a colorist, though his canvas may have extended little beyond 

 his own skin. On thi^ he probably drew and painted, as does the savage to-day, 



A. r. S. — VOL. XVII. II. 



