In the selection of the following texts I have been guided principally by the desire to illustrate Mayan palÆography as presented on different surfaces, paper, stone, earthenware, etc., and as it is found in the various regions occupied by tribes of Mayan culture and affinity. Some of the examples have not been previously published, and for this reason have a special value.

Fig. 68 I would explain as the god of time bringing in the dead year. It is part of the ceremonies depicted as belonging to the close of the year. That the wolf-headed figure represents time, the Devourer, I infer from its relations in the early pages of the Ferjevary Codex, where it is shown eating a string of days, etc. (in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities).

These ceremonies are represented in the Cod. Troano, pp. 20–23, and the Cod. Dres., pp. 25–28. The recognition of their significance is principally due to Prof. Cyrus Thomas.

The god arrives in the vase of the heavenly waters. In his left hand he holds the rattle, in his right the magic wand, or magician’s staff, caluac, and the medicine bag (Maya chimil, Nahuatl, xiquipilli); around his waist is the broad carrying-band, in the loop of which he has the dying year, kan.

In Fig. 69 is another scene from the same ceremonies. The person on the right is the celebrant, holding a beheaded fowl in his right hand, while his left strews grain. Before him is a haunch of venison and a turkey. Above the latter is the moon symbol with the number 15. To the left of these stands the statue of Mam, the Grandfather, a log folded in a robe and surmounted by the leaves of the Tree of Life.^[148] In front are seen the serpent’s head, the sign of Time; below this are footprints, to indicate that time is gone; and beneath the form of the god is the sign pax, with the meaning, “it is ended.”

In interesting contrast to these two is Fig. 70, showing the beginning of a time-period. On the left, two dogs, back to back beneath the same canopy, indicate the closing of one period and the beginning of another. On the right, the serpent of time, resting on the earth, brings to the heavens the new sun. The youthful god between the serpent’s jaws carries the world-sign for an eye, and holds in his hand the symbol yax kin, “new sun.” Above are appropriate hieroglyphs, the tenor of which the diligent student of my previous pages will have little difficulty in catching.

In Fig. 71 the God of Growth and Fertility holds an elaborate caluac surmounted by a bird, its apertures filled with shells. Behind him is seated the God of Death, his caluac tipped with a formidable spear-head. The God of Growth has not his own monogram, but that of the old Cuculcan.

When we recall that the shell is the sign for “nought,” the indication seems that the God of Death with his spear will bring to nought the efforts of the God of Fertility.

We see in Fig. 72 the North Star in a series of relations to other celestial bodies or divinities. Beginning at the left, he is seated on his own sign which is surrounded by rays; next, he is upon the sign of the four winds and four quarters of the earth; in the third he is suspended in a sling from the “constellation band” between the sun and a planet; and fourth, he is above the clouds, which rest upon a canopy protecting a pile of kans, money or food emblems.

The three figures in Fig. 73 present the beneficent deities, each bearing in the hand the food symbol, kan.

The group copied in Fig. 74, show the God of Death followed by Kin ich, who seems remonstrating with him, who in turn is followed by the God of War with a wrathful visage. The positions of the hands are especially noteworthy. The sign mol leads each of the cartouches.

In Fig. 75 Cuculcan is making fire from the friction of two pieces of wood. On his head is the moan symbol, on his thigh the kin. Each of the three cartouches begins with the drum sign. His own monogram is the third member of the second cartouche.

In Fig. 76 the text is the same in each of the three cartouches except the monograms of the three divinities represented.

In Fig. 77 each cartouche begins with mol, and is immediately followed by the monogram of the god. The lower glyphs differ materially.

All the above specimens of texts have been photographed from the Codices, without restoration. They show, therefore, not only the general character of those documents, but also their state of preservation. In many instances the pages have been defaced, and portions of the inscriptions upon them injured. Sometimes it is possible to restore the obliterations by a comparison of parallel passages, and this has been done successfully by various scholars.

The extracts have been selected also with the object of showing the representations of the most prominent deities, Itzamna, Kin ich, Cuculcan, the God of Death, etc., in the manner in which we find them in the Codices.

In this interesting inscription from Central Yucatan, we recognize familiar signs, as the medicine-drum and the cloud-signs at the bottom, and cauac, chikin, yax, etc., within the square area. It is sufficient to prove that at Kabah the same writing was in use.^[149]

There is some reason to suppose, however, that in this part of the Mayan territory there had been a development of this writing until it had become conventionalized into a series of lines and small circles enclosed in the usual square or oval of the katun. I have seen several examples of this remarkable script, and give one, Fig. 79, part of an inscription on a vase from Labna, Yucatan, now in the Peabody Museum.^[150]

The tablets at Palenque are too extensive a study for me to enter upon in the present work. The engraving, Fig. 80, is merely to show the character of the writing and to present the “initial glyphs,” upon which, in Copan and elsewhere, Mr. Maudslay lays so much stress (see above, p. 23).

Incidentally, they seem to me to prove that the proper reading of the tablet is to begin at the top of the two right-hand columns, read them together downward (as Thomas suggested), then the next two to the left in a similar manner; but the last two on the left, those headed by the great pax, should be read from below upward. This differs from any scheme yet proposed, but alone corresponds with the natural sequences of the groups of glyphs. The terminal (upper left) glyph shows the pax surmounted by the xihuitl and this by the “trinal” signs. The student of the preceding pages will not be at a loss to explain their purport.

I have already referred (above, p. 54) to the singular “bas-reliefs of Chiapas.” They are covered with elaborate designs carved in low relief on the argillaceous slate of which they consist. Nearly all have hieroglyphics of a decorative Mayan character. For the sake of comparison I add Fig. 81, a tracing of the four glyphs which are placed in front of the tapir on the “tapir tablet.”

The interesting group, Fig. 82, is the most complete example of the ancient writing I know of, from the region of the Zotzils. The original, formerly in the possession of Don Secundino Orantes, in the city of Chiapas, measures 26 by 17 inches. The front is badly injured, but the back well preserved. We find in this cartouche of twenty glyphs enough familiar forms to convince us of the identity of the graphic method. Pax, chuen, the iguana, etc., are soon recognized. The copy was made by the late Dr. C. H. Berendt.

ToninÁ is about 80 miles south of Palenque and near Ococingo, whence Mr. Squier obtained the amulet bearing the neat inscription shown in Fig. 83. The original is now in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

The beautiful inscription, Fig. 84, hitherto unpublished, is on a burial vase from the Quiche district of Guatemala, near Huehuetenango. It is not only the longest and most perfect example known of Quiche palÆography, but it is also the most extensive inscription I have seen on pottery from any part of the Mayan territory. The original, a vase of high artistic merit, is in the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. Again we see familiar signs, the imix, the pax, the numerals, the bean subfix, etc.

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The limits which I have prescribed for this work do not permit me to add further comparisons in Mayan palÆography. Fortunately, the student can find ready access to abundant examples. The inscriptions of Copan and QuiriguÁ, of Chichen Itza, and Palenque, are or will be represented with admirable fidelity in Mr. Maudslay’s work already referred to; others from Tikal have been made accessible by the labors of Berendt, Charnay and de Rosny; and we are justified in believing that before many years the intelligent explorations of competent archÆologists will add hundreds of texts from the relics in stone, clay, and wood which still exist to attest the character of ancient Mayan literature.

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The most urgent duty resting upon the present generation of students interested in this subject is to collect and accurately reproduce as many of these texts as possible, before they are destroyed or lost. Extended comparisons will ultimately reveal their meaning, as will readily be seen from the advances in that direction chronicled in the preceding pages.