Conquest of Mexico
Page 58 (2).—Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 31. Warburton, with his usual penetration, rejects the idea of mystery in the figurative hieroglyphics. (Divine Legation, b. 4, sec. 4.) I there was any mystery reserved for the initiated, Champollion thinks it may have been the system of the anaglyphs. (Précia, p. 360.) Why may not this be true, likewise, of the monstrous symbolical combinations which represented the Mexican deities?
Page 58 (3).—Boturini, Idea, pp. 77-83.—Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 34-43. Heeren is not aware, or does not allow, that the Mexicans used phonetic characters of any kind. (Hist. Res., vol. V. p. 4;.) They, indeed, reversed the usual order of proceeding, and, instead of adapting the hieroglyphic to the name of the object, accommodated the name of the object to the hieroglyphic. This, of course, could not admit of great extension. We find phonetic characters, however, applied, in some instances, to common, as well as proper names.
Page 58 (4).—Boturini, Idea, ubi supra.
Page 59 (1).—Clavigero has given a catalogue of the Mexican historians of the sixteenth century,—some of whom are often cited in this history,—which bears honourable testimony to the literary ardour and intelligence of the native races.—Stor. del Messico, tom. i., Pref.—Also, Gama, Descripcion, Parte i, passim.
Page 59 (2).—M. de Humboldt's remark, that the Aztec annals, from the close of the eleventh century, "exhibit the greatest method and astonishing minuteness" (Vues des Cordilléres, p. 137), must be received with some qualification. The reader would scarcely understand from it, that there are rarely more than one or two facts recorded in any year, and sometimes not one in a dozen or more. The necessary looseness and uncertainty of these historical records are made apparent by the remarks of the Spanish interpreter of the Mendoza Codex, who tells us that the natives, to whom it was submitted, were very long in coming to an agreement about the proper signification of the paintings.—Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 87.
Page 59 (3).—According to Boturini, the ancient Mexicans were acquainted with the Peruvian method of recording events, by means of the quippus,—knotted strings of various colours,—which were afterwards superseded by hieroglyphical painting.—(Idea, p. 86.) He could discover, however, but a single specimen, which he met with in Tlascala, and that had nearly fallen to pieces with age. M'Culloch suggests that it may have been only a wampum belt, such as is common among our North American Indians. (Researches, p. 201.) The conjecture is plausible enough. Strings of wampum, of various colours, were used by the latter people for the smiilar purpose of registering events. The insulated fact, recorded by Boturini, is hardly sufficient—unsupported, as far as I know, by any other testimony—to establish the existence of quippus among the Aztecs, who had but little in common with the Peruvians.
Page 59 (4).—Pliny, who gives a minute account of the papyrus reed of Egypt, notices the various manufactures obtained from it, as ropes, cloth, paper, etc. It also served as a thatch for the roofs of houses, and as food and drink for the natives.—-(Hist. Nat., lib. 11, cap. 20-22.) It is singular that the American agave, a plant so totally different, should also have been applied to all these various uses.
Page 60 (1).—Lorenzana, Hist, de Nueva España, p. 8.—Boturini, Idea, p. 96.—Humboldt, Vues des Cordilléres, p. 52.—Peter Martyr Anglerius, De Orbe Novo (Compluti, 1530), dec. 3, cap. 8; dec. 5, cap. 10.—Martyr has given a minute description of the Indian maps, sent home soon after the invasion of New Spain. His inquisitive mind was struck with the evidence they afforded of a positive civilisation. Ribera, the friend of Cortés, brought back a story, that the paintings were designed as patterns for embroiderers and jewellers. But Martyr had been in Egvpt, and he felt little hesitation in placing the Indian drawings in the same class with those he had teen on the obelisks and temples of that country.
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