Of all forms of sustained discourse, we may reasonably suppose that of narration to have been the earliest. The incidents of the hunt were related at the return; the experiences of the past were told as a guide to the present; and the first efforts of the imagination are the depicting of fictitious occurrences, tradition and myth, story and history; these make up most of the entertainment of conversation to simple minds.

Hence, in this primitive literature which I am describing, the narrative portion is the most abundant. There was a natural aspiration on the part of the natives, as soon as they had learned the art of writing, to preserve in permanent form the records, more or less authentic, of their tribes and ancestors. This desire of preserving the national history is shown by the works of Copway, Jones, Cusick, Ixtlilxochitl, and others, to whom I have already referred, who wrote in European tongues.

If we begin our survey at the extreme north, we find the Eskimo, amid his depressing surroundings of eternal frost and months-long nights, an unwearied chatterbox, reciting his own and his ancestors' adventures, and weaving from his fancy the most extraordinary web of fictitious experiences. Once taught to write, hundreds of these tales were committed to paper by native hands. The manuscript collection of such in the possession of the learned and indefatigable Dr. Heinrich Rink contains considerably over two thousand pages, and the charming rendering into English, which has been published by his efforts, is a storehouse of weird conceptions and partly historic traditions about the past of Greenland and Labrador. What adds to their interest is that most of the illustrations are wood-cuts by native artists, truthfully setting forth their own mental pictures.[13]

Another Eskimo composition, in the dialogue style, is before me as I write. It is the description by Pok, a Greenlander, of his journey to Europe and his return. The narrative forms a pamphlet of eighteen pages, with several quaint colored illustrations, and it is one of the rare products of the Godthaab press in Greenland to which we can assign a genuine native origin.[14]

Another, which reveals still more distinctly the artistic and imaginative capacities of that strange race, was published at Godthaab, in 1860. Mr. Field remarks of it:—"An Esquimau of Greenland, with his pencil, has, in this work, attempted to give representations of the traditions, manners, weapons and habits of life of his own race."[15]

Among the tribes of the eastern United States there were a few individuals who attempted to compose somewhat extensive records in their native languages.

One of the most curious examples is that known as the Walum Olum, a short account of the early history of the Delaware tribe, written in that idiom, with mnemonic symbols attached. Its history is not very complete. A "Dr. Ward, of Indiana" is said to have obtained it from a member of the nation, in 1822. From him it passed into the hands of Prof. C.S. Rafinesque, an eccentric and visionary Frenchman, who passed the later years of his life in Philadelphia. He undertook to translate it, and after his death the translation, together with the original, came into the possession of Mr. E.G. Squier. By him it was first published, but in a partial and incomplete manner, much of the original text and many of the mnemonic symbols being omitted, and no effort being made to improve Rafinesque's translation.[16]

The Book of Rites[17] of the Iroquois or Six Nations, lately edited by Mr. Horatio Hale, is one of the most remarkable native productions north of Mexico. Its authenticity and antiquity are indisputable. The rites it describes are the ceremonies and set speeches, the chants and formulas, of what is called "The Council of Condolence," whose function is to express the national sense of loss at the death of a chief, and to conduct the inauguration of his successor. The publication of this ritual, supported as it is with the learned notes of Mr. Hale, and an introduction by him, on the history, formation and purpose of the famous League of the Iroquois, has thrown a remarkable light, not merely on the ethnology of the district where the Iroquois were located, but on the mental characteristics of the red race in general. It is a refutation of the unscientific assumptions of a good many would-be scientific men, who are self-blinded by their theories of development to obvious facts in the mental powers of uncultivated tribes.

Of less general importance, but admirable also for competent editorship, is the short narrative of the Nipissing Chief, Francois Kaondinoketc, which was published a few years ago, both in the original and with a French translation, by a Canadian missionary, eminent alike for his piety and his learning. It recites the journey of a half-breed Christian Indian into the country of the heathen tribe of Beaver Indians, and the miraculous interposition by which his life was saved when these Pagans had caught him. They told him he must kill an eagle flying far above them; at his prayer, the bird descended and came within the reach of his sabre. In turn, he asked them to shoot their arrows into a tree; but by rubbing it with holy water, the bark was so hardened that not one of their shafts could pierce it. So they confessed the greatness of the Christian's God.[18]

This charmingly naive narrative makes us doubly regret that the editor's projected Chrestomathie Algonquine has not been carried out in full.

The southern Atlantic coast of the United States was principally occupied by the Muskokee or Creek tribe, who occupied the territory as far west as the Mississippi. Their language was first reduced to writing in the Greek alphabet, by the Moravian missionaries, about 1733; but at present a modified form of the English alphabet is in use. They had a very definite and curious tribal history, full of strange metaphors and obscure references. It was, according to old authorities, "written in red and black characters, on the skin of a young buffalo," and was read off from this symbolic script by their head-chief, Chekilli, to the English, in 1735, and skin and translation were both sent to London, and both lost there. But, luckily, the Moravian missionaries preserved a faithful translation of it, and this, some years ago, I brought to the notice of students of these matters.[19]

Its authenticity is beyond question, and to this day the chiefs of the Creeks recollect many of the points it contains, and have repeated it to the eminent linguist, Mr. A.S. Gatschet, who has taken it down afresh from their lips, and is preparing it for publication. Collateral evidence is also furnished by "General" Milfort, a French adventurer, who lived among the Creeks several years, toward the close of the last century, and testifies that they preserved, "by beads and belts," the memory of the adventures of their ancestors, and recited to him a long account of them, which he repeats with that negligence which everywhere marks his carelessly prepared volume.[20]

Their northern neighbors, the Cherokees, use an alphabet invented by Sequoyah, one of themselves, in 1824. It is syllabic, of eighty-five characters, and is used for printing. Sequoyah had no intention of aiding the missionaries; he preferred the "old religion," and when he saw the New Testament printed in his characters, he expressed regret that he had ever invented them. What he wanted was to teach his people useful arts, and to preserve the national traditions. I have little doubt they were written down; but here, again, I have failed of success in my inquiries.

This is a poor showing of native literature for all the tribes in the vast area of the United States. But, except some orations and poems, hereafter to be mentioned, it is almost all that I can name. Passing southward the harvest becomes richer. When Bishop Landa, in Yucatan, and Bishop Zumarraga, in Mexico, made bonfires, in the public squares of Mani and Tlaltilulco, of the priceless literary treasures of the Mayas and Aztecs, their maps, their parchment rolls, their calendars on wood, their painted paper books, their inscribed histories, it is recorded that the natives bewailed bitterly this obliteration of their sciences and their archives.[21] Some of them set to work to recover the memories thus doomed to oblivion, and to write them out, as best they could.

Most fertile of these were those who wrote in the Nahuatl tongue, otherwise known as the Aztec or Mexican, this being most widely spoken in Mexico, and the first cultivated by the missionaries. Many of these memoirs were short descriptions of towns or tribes, with their traditional histories. Others narrated the customs and mythologies of the race before the arrival of the whites. None were printed, and little or no care was taken to collect or preserve the manuscripts, so that probably most of them were destroyed. At length, in 1736-45, an enthusiastic Italian archaeologist, the Chevalier Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci, devoted nearly ten years to collecting everything of the kind which would throw light on ancient Mexican history. He was quite successful, and his library, had it been preserved intact, would have been to-day an invaluable source of information. But the jealous Spanish government threw Boturini into prison; his library was scattered and partly lost, and he died of chagrin and disappointment. Yet to him we probably owe the preservation of the writings of Ixtlilxochitl, Tezozomoc, and others who wrote in Spanish, and whose volumes have since seen the light in the collections of Bustamente, Lord Kingsborough, Ternaux-Compans, and elsewhere.

The Nahuatl MSS. have remained unedited. Few took an interest in their contents, fewer still in the language. The science of linguistics is very modern, and that even so perfect an idiom as the Nahuatl could command the attention of scholars for its own sake, had not dawned on the minds of patrons of learning.

Boturini catalogues some forty or fifty more or less fragmentary anonymous MSS. in Nahuatl, which he had gathered together.[22] I shall recall only those whose authors he names. Some three or four historical works were written in Nahuatl by Don Domingo de San Anton Munon Chimalpain, whom I have already mentioned as an author in Spanish also. Of his Nahuatl works his Cronica Mexicana, which traces the history of his nation from 1068 to 1597, would be the most worthy an editor's labors. It is now in the possession of M. Aubin.

The Cronica de la muy noble y leal Ciudad de Tlaxcallan, by Don Juan Ventura Zapata y Mendoza, cacique of Quiahuiztlan, extends from the earliest times to the year 1689. A copy of it, I have some reason to think, is in Mexico. Boturini possessed the original, and it should, by all means, be sought out and printed.

The ancient history of the same city was also treated of by one of the earliest native writers, and his work, in Nahuatl, alleged to have been translated by the interpreter Francisco de Loaysa, was obtained from the latter by Boturini.

An account of Tezcuco and its rulers, after the Conquest until 1564, was the work of a native, Juan de San Antonio; while Don Gabriel de Ayala, a native noble of that city, composed a history of the Tezcucan and Mexican events, extending from 1243 to 1562.[23]

Of the anonymous MSS. in Boturini's list, I shall mention only one, as it alone, of all his Nahuatl records, has succeeded in reaching publication. He called it a History of the Kingdoms of Culhuacan and Mexico. A copy of it passed to Mexico, where it was translated by the Licentiate Faustino Chimalpopocatl Galicia, but in a very imperfect and incorrect manner. The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg copied the original and the translation, and bestowed on the document both a new name, Codex Chimalpopoca, and a whimsical geological signification. In 1879, the Museo Nacional of Mexico began in their Anales the publication of the original text, this time under still another title, the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, with two translations, that of Galicia, and a new one by Profs. G. Mendoza and Felipe Sanchez Solis. Up to the present time, 1883, the work is not completed; but its signal importance to ancient history and mythology is amply indicated by the part in type.

Doubtless there were many MSS. which Boturini did not find, and there are, probably, to this day, going to dust in private and public libraries in Spain, valuable documents in the Nahuatl tongue.[24] For a long time it was supposed that the Nahuatl original of Father Bernardino de Sahagun's History of New Spain was lost; but at the meeting of the Congres des Americanistes, in Madrid, in 1881, a part of it, at least, was exhibited. This work almost belongs to aboriginal literature, for a considerable portion of it, notably the third, sixth and twelfth books, treating, respectively, of the origin of the gods, the Aztec oratory, and their ancient history, are mainly native narratives and speeches, taken down, word for word, in the original tongue. Spanish scholars could not render a greater service to American ethnology and linguistics than in the publication of this valuable monument.

There is, also, or, at any rate, there was, in the Royal Library at Madrid, a Mexican hieroglyphic work, "all painted," with a translation apparently into the Nahuatl tongue.[25] I would inquire of the learned linguists of Spain whether that document cannot be unearthed. And further, I would ask whether all trace has been lost of the writings of Don Gabriel Castaneda, Chief of Colomocho, who wrote, in Nahuatl, an account of the conquest of the Chichimecs by the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, in 1541. That Manuscript was last heard of in the library of the Convent of San Ildefonso, in Mexico.[26] Perhaps it would tell us who the Chichimecs were, about which there is disagreement enough among ethnologists.

Of the strictly hieroglyphic records I shall not take account. Their interpretation is yet uncertain, and, as linguistic monuments, they have, at present, no standing.

Equal, or superior, in culture, to the Aztecs were the Maya tribes. Their chief seat was in Yucatan, but they extended thence southwardly to the shores of the Pacific, and westward along the Gulf coast to the River Panuco. The language numbered about sixteen dialects, none very remote from the parent stem, which linguists identify as the Maya proper of the Yucatecan peninsula. While there are a number of verbal similarities between Maya and Nahuatl, the radicals of the two idioms and their grammatical structure are widely asunder. The Nahuatl is an excessively pliable, polysyllabic and highly synthetic tongue; the Maya is rigid, its words short, of one or two syllables generally, and is scarcely more synthetic than French. This contrast is carried out in the style of their writers. Those in Nahuatl were lovers of amplification, of flowing periods, of Ciceronian fullness; the Mayas cultivated sententious brevity, they are elliptical, often to obscurity, and may be compared rather to Tacitus, in his Annals, than to Cicero.

All the Maya tribes had strong literary tastes, but with characteristic tenacity they clung entirely to their native tongues; and I know not a single instance where one has left compositions in Spanish. Their language is easy to learn; to a stranger to both, Maya comes easier than Spanish, as intelligent writers in Yucatan have testified; and this aided its survival. Their passion for learning to read and write was strong, and had it been fed, instead of rigidly suppressed, there is little doubt but that they would have become a highly enlightened nation. The wretched system which smothered free thought in Spain killed it in Yucatan.[27]

The principal literary monument in the pure Maya is the collection known as "The Books of Chilan Balam." I have described this collection at length in previous publications, and shall content myself with a brief reference to it.[28] The title "Chilan Balam" means, in this connection, "the interpreting priest;" that is, the sacred official who, in the ancient religion, revealed the will of the gods. There are at least sixteen collections under this name in Maya, copies, probably, in part, of each other. Their contents may be classified under four headings:—

1. Chronology, calendars, and history, before and after the Conquest.

2. Prophecies and astrology.

3. Medical recipes and directions.

4. Christian narratives.

Of these, the last two are modern. The Christian portions are lives of saints, and prayers. The medical directions are often found separate, under the title "The Book of the Jew." Its language is modern and corrupt—mestizado, as the Spaniards express it.

The "Prophecies" are alleged to have been delivered one or several generations before the Conquest. Their style is extremely obscure, and many of the forms are archaic. If not genuine originals, they are unquestionably very early and faithful imitations of the oracular deliveries of the ancient Maya priests.

The historical portions include rude annals since the Conquest, and a series of Chronicles, extending back to about the third century of the Christian era. There are five versions of these, all of which I have published, with translations and copious notes, as the first volume of my "Library of Aboriginal American Literature."

Another class of Maya historical documents embraces the surveys and land titles, many of which date from the sixteenth century. I have in my possession a copy of one as far back as 1542, unquestionably the oldest monument of the Maya language extant. Sometimes these titles were accompanied by a family history. Such is "The Chronicle of Chac Xulub Chen," written by the Chief Nakuk Pech, in 1562, which I have published. It gives, in a confused style, a history of the Conquest, and throws light on the methods by which the Spaniards succeeded in overcoming the various native tribes.[29]

We owe the preservation of most of the Maya MSS. to the enlightened labors of Don Juan Pio Perez, a distinguished Yucatecan scholar, and the compiler of the best printed dictionary of the Maya tongue.[30] The most complete collection now in existence is that of the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona, a learned archaeologist, and author of an excellent history of Maya literature.[31]

After the Maya, the most important of these associated dialects was the Cakchiquel. It was, and still is, spoken in Guatemala; and the Kiche (Quiche), also current there, is so nearly allied to it that they may be treated as one idiom. The Cakchiquel possesses an extensive Christian literature, as it was cultivated assiduously by the early missionaries. Indeed, there was, for many years, a chair in the University of Guatemala created for teaching it, and it is often referred to as the lengua metropolitana, Guatemala having been the see of an archbishop. There are in existence extensive lexicons of Cakchiquel, and in it, besides various collections of sermons, was written the once celebrated work of Father Domingo de Vico, the Theologia Indorum, probably the most complete theological treatise ever produced in a native American tongue.[32]

The most notable aboriginal production in Cakchiquel is one frequently referred to by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg as the Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, The Records from Tecpan Atitlan.[33] It is an historical account of his family and tribe, written in the sixteenth century by a member of the junior branch of the ruling house of the Cakchiquels. His name was Don Francisco Ernantez Arana Xahila, and a passage of the MS. informs us that he was writing in 1581. After his death the work was continued by Don Francisco Tiaz Gebuta Queh. The style is familiar and often vivid, and the work is addressed to his children. It begins with the earliest myths and traditions of the tribe, and follows their fortunes to the lifetime of the writer. In respect both to mythology, history and language, it is one of the most noteworthy monuments of American antiquity. A loose paraphrase of it was made by Brasseur de Bourbourg, based upon which, a Spanish rendering was published by the "Sociedad Economica de Guatemala," under the auspices of Senor Gavarrete. Neither the original nor any correct translation has been printed.

A copy of this MS. is in my collection, and both the original and a second copy are in Europe; but there were a number of similar historical accounts, committed to writing by this people and their immediate neighbors, of which we know little but the titles and a few extracts. Thus, the historian of Guatemala, Don Domingo Juarros, quotes from the MSS. of Don Francisco Gomez, Ahzib Kiche, or Chief Scribe of the Kiches, of Don Francisco Garcia Calel Tzumpan, of Don Juan Macario, nephew, and Don Juan Torres, son, of the Chief Chignavincelut, and "the histories written by the Quiches, Cakchiquels, Pipils, Pocomans, and others, who learned to write their tongues from their Spanish teachers." These MSS. gave the genealogies of their families and the migrations of their ancestors "from the time when the Toltecs, from whom they trace descent, first entered the territory of Mexico, and found it inhabited by the Chichimecs."[34]

One of the motives prompting to the composition of these works was to vindicate the claims of families to the sovereignty, or to the possession of land. They were, in fact, a sort of briefs of titles to real estate. One such is preserved, in the original, in the Brasseur collection, and is catalogued as "The Royal Title of Don Francisco Izquin, the last Ahpop Galel, or King, of Nehaib, granted by the lords who invested him with his royal dignity, and confirmed by the last King of Quiche, with other sovereigns, November 22, 1558."[35] A Spanish translation of the title of a female branch of this same family was printed at Guatemala in 1876, but the original text has never been put to press, although it is said to be still preserved in one of the ancient families of the Province of Totonicapam.[36]

Another Kiche work, which has excited a lively but not very intelligent interest among European scholars, is the Popol Vuh, National Book, a compendious account of their mythology and traditional history. A Spanish translation of it by Father Francisco Ximenez was edited in Vienna, in 1857, by Dr. Carl Scherzer.[37] The Abbe Brasseur followed, in 1861, by a publication of the original text, and a new translation into French.[38] This text fills 173 octavo pages, so that it will be seen that it offers an ample specimen of the tongue.

Neither of these translations is satisfactory. Ximenez wrote with all the narrow prejudices of a Spanish monk, while Brasseur was a Euhemerist of the most advanced type, and saw in every myth the statement of a historical fact. There is need of a re-translation of the whole, with critical linguistic notes attached. A few years ago, I submitted the names and epithets of the divinities mentioned in the Popol Vuh to a careful analysis, and I think the results obtained show clearly how erroneous were the conceptions formed regarding them by both the translators of the document.[39] I shall not here go into the question of its age or authorship, about which diverse opinions have obtained; but I will predict that the more sedulously it is studied, the more certainly it will be shown to be a composition inspired by ideas and narratives familiar to the native mind long before the advent of Christianity.

I have been told that there are other versions of the Popol Vuh still preserved among the Kiches, and it were ardently to be desired that they were sought out, as there are many reasons to believe that the copy we have is incomplete, or, at any rate, omits some prominent features of their mythology.

One branch of the Maya race, the Tzendals, inhabited a portion of the province of Chiapas. One of their hero-gods bore the name of Votan, a word from a Maya root, signifying the breast or heart, but from its faint resemblance to "Odin," and its still fainter similarity to "Buddha," their myth about him has given rise to many whimsical speculations. This myth was written down in the native tongue by a Christianized native, in the seventeenth century. The MS. came into the possession of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, who quotes from it in his Constituciones Diocesanas, printed in Rome, in 1702. The indefatigable Boturini tells us that he tried in vain to find it, about 1740, and supposed it was lost.[40] But a copy of it was seen and described by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, in 1790.[41] Possibly it is still in existence, and there are few fragments of American literature which would better merit a diligent search. As to the meaning of the Votan myth, I have ventured an explanation of it in another work.[42]

In South America, the only native historical writers who employed their own tongue appear to have been of the Peruvian Qquichua stock. None of their productions have been published, but one or more are in existence and accessible. Prominent among them and deserving of early editing by competent hands, is an anonymous treatise, partly translated by Dr. Francisco de Avila, in 1608, on the "Errors, False Gods, Superstitions and Diabolical Rites" of the natives of the provinces of Huarochiri, Mama and Chaclla. The original text is in Madrid, and Avila's translation, as far as it goes, has been rendered into English by Mr. Clements R. Markham, and published in one of the Hackluyt Society's volumes.[43]

A member of the Inca family, already referred to, Don Luis Inca, is reported to have written a series of historical notes, Advertencias, "with his own hand and in his own tongue;" but what became of his manuscript is not known.[44]

There is another class of historical documents, which profess to be the production of native hands, and which are moderately numerous. These are the official letters and petitions drawn up by the chiefs in their own tongues, and forwarded to the Spanish authorities. Of these, two interesting specimens, one in the "Abolachi" tongue (a dialect of Muskokee), and the other in Timucuana, were published in fac-simile by the late Mr. Buckingham Smith, but in a very limited number of copies (only fifty in all). Others in Nahuatl and Maya, also in fac-simile, appear in that magnificent volume, the Cartas de Indias, issued by the Spanish Government in 1880. Doubtless more examples could be found in the public Archives in Spain, and they should all be collected into one volume. They were probably prompted by the Spanish local authorities; but it is likely that they show the true structure of the language, and, of course, they have a positive historical value.

It is related in the Proceedings of the Municipal Council of Guatemala that, in 1692, the Captain Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman laid before the Council seven petitions, written in the native language, on the bark of trees.[45] Whatever of interest they contained was, no doubt, extracted by that laborious but imaginative writer, and included in his History, which has never been published, though several manuscript copies of it are in existence.

It will be seen that some of the so-called historical literature I have mentioned rests uncertain on the border line between fact and fancy. These old stories may be vague memories of past deeds, set in a frame of mythical details; or they may be ancient myths, solar or meteorological, which came to receive credence as actual occurrences. The task remains for special students of such matters to sift and analyze them, and settle this debateable point.

There is another class of narrations, about which there can be no doubt as to their purely imaginative origin. These are the animal myths, the fairy stories, the fireside tales of giants and magicians, with which the hours of leisure are whiled away. Several collections of these have been made, the words and phrases taken down precisely as the native story-teller delivered them, and thus they come strictly within the lines of aboriginal literature. They are the spontaneous outgrowth of the native mind, and are faithful examples of native speech.

Over a hundred such tales have been collected by Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, as narrated by the Tupis of Brazil, and many of them have been published with all desirable fidelity, and with a philosophical introduction and notes, in a volume issued by the Brazilian government, under his editorial care.[46]

A similar collection of Tupi stories was made by the late Prof. Charles F. Hartt, whose early death was a loss to more than one branch of science. It was his intention to edit them with the necessary notes and vocabularies; but, so far as I know, the only specimens which appeared in print were those he laid before the American Philological Association, in 1872.[47] The inquiries I have instituted about his MSS. have not been successful.

Numerous texts of this description have been obtained from the Klamath Indians by Mr. A.S. Gatschet, and from the Omaha by the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, both of which collections are in process of publication by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington. Scattered specimens of stories of this kind have also been obtained by a number of travelers, and they are always a welcome aid to the study both of the psychology and language of a tribe.

The more civilized American tribes had made considerable advances in some of the natural sciences, and in none more than in practical astronomy. By close observation of the heavenly bodies they had elaborated a complicated and remarkably exact system of chronology. They had determined the length of the year with greater accuracy than the white invaders; and the different cycles by which they computed time allowed them to assign dates to occurrences many hundreds of years anterior.

Although there are local differences, the calendars in use in Central and Southern Mexico and in Central America were evidently derived from one and the same original. A great deal has been written upon them, but for all that many questions about them remain unanswered. We do not know the Maya method of intercalation; we do not understand the uses of the shorter Mexican year, of 260 days; we are at a loss to explain the purpose of doubling the length of certain months, as prevailed among the Cakchiquels; we are in the dark about the significance of the names of many days and months; we cannot see why the nations chose to begin the count of the year at different seasons; and there are ever so many more knotty problems about this remarkable system and its variations.

What we imperatively need is a supply of authentic aboriginal calendars, accurately reproduced, for purposes of comparison. Boturini collected a number of these, which he describes, and long before his day some specimens had been published by Valades and Gemelli Carreri.[48] They were, in ancient times, usually depicted by circular drawings, called by the Spaniards, Wheels (ruedas). After the Conquest they were written out, more in the form of our almanacs. One such, in the Maya tongue, with a translation, was contributed to Mr. Stephens' Travels in Yucatan, by the eminent Maya scholar, Don Juan Pio Perez.[49] Several others were in his collection, and are accessible. Dr. Berendt succeeded in securing fac similes of Kiche and Cakchiquel calendars, written out in the seventeenth century, and these are now in my possession. I fear we have no perfect examples of the Zapotec calendar, nor of that of the Tarascos of Michoacan, although an anonymous author, most of whose MS. has been preserved, reduced the latter to writing, and it may some day turn up.[50] The Aztec calendars collected by Boturini would, were they published, give us sufficient material, probably, to understand clearly the methods of that tribe.

One momentous purpose which the calendar served was for supplying omens and predictions; another was for the appointment of fasts and festivals, for the religious ritual. The calendar arranged for these objects was called, in the Nahuatl, tonalamatl, "the book of days," and in Maya tzolante, "that by which events are arranged." So intimately were all the acts of individual and national life bound up with these superstitions, that an understanding of them is indispensable to a successful study of the psychology and history of the race.

After the Conquest some of the notions about judicial astrology, then prevalent in Europe, crept into the native understanding, and notably, in the Books of Chilan Balam we find forecastes of lucky and unlucky days, and discussions of planetary influence, evidently borrowed from the Spanish almanacs of the seventeenth century.

Most of the Aborigines of the Continent possessed a keen sense of locality, and often a certain rude skill in cartography. The relative position of spots and proportionate distances were approximately represented by rough drawings. They knew the boundaries of their lands, the courses of streams, the trend of shores, and could display them intelligently. These maps, as they are called, present a very different appearance from ours. Those of the Aztecs are rather pictured diagrams, something like those we find in fifteenth century books of travel. A fair specimen, though of date later than the Conquest, was published not long since, in Madrid.[51]

The Maya maps are even more conventional. A central point is taken, usually a town, around which is drawn either a circle or a square, on the four sides of which are placed the figures of the four cardinal points, and within the figures are the various symbols which denote the villages, wells, ponds, and other objects which are to be designated. Specimens of some of these, all after the Conquest, however, have been published by Mr. Stephens and Canon Carrillo,[52] and others are found in the various Books of Chilan Balam.

Very few strictly scholastic works seem to have been produced by the natives. Nearly all those which I have seen for use in the Mission schools appear to be the productions of the white instructors, generally, of course, aided by some intelligent native. I have in my possession an Ortografia en Lengua Kekchi, picked up by Dr. Berendt in Vera Paz, which was the work of Domingo Coy, an Indian of Coban (MS. pp. 32). But on examination it proves to be merely an adaptation of a Manual de Ortografia Castellana, in use in the schools, and not an original effort. For all that, it is not without linguistic value. In Mexico a useful little book of instruction in Nahuatl has been prepared by the licentiate Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia, a scholar of indigenous extraction.[53] An older work, of a similar character, by Don Antonio Tobar, a descendant of the Montezumas, is mentioned by bibliographers, but never was printed, and has probably perished.[54]

It has always been part of the policy of both Catholic and Protestant missions to permit the natives to enter the career of the church; in the territories of both confessions instances are moderately numerous of priests and preachers of half or full Indian blood. Most of these educated men, however, rather shunned the cultivation of their maternal tongues, and preferred, when they wrote at all, to choose that of their white brethren, the Spanish, Portuguese or English. The extensive theological literature which we possess, printed or in manuscript, in American tongues, and in many it is quite ample, is scarcely ever the result of the efforts of the Christian teachers of indigenous affiliations.

A notable exception was the licentiate Bartolome de Alva, a native
Mexican, descended from the Tezcucan kings, who composed, in Nahuatl and
Spanish, a Confessionario, which was printed at Mexico in 1634.
It contains some interesting references to the mythology and
superstitions of the natives.[55]

The Indian Elias Boudinot and other Cherokees have printed many essays and tracts in that tongue, but whether original or merely translated I do not know. The sermons of the native Protestant missionaries to their fellows were probably extempore addresses. At any rate, I have not seen any in manuscript or print. A volume of the kind exists, however, in manuscript, in the Library of the Instituto Historico of Rio Janeiro, which it would be very desirable to have printed. It is the Sermones e Exemplos em lengua Guarani, by Nicolas Japuguay, cura of the Parish of San Francisco in 1727.[56] But when it is edited, let us hope that it will be a more favorable example of critical care than the Crestomathia da Lingua Brasilica, edited by Dr. Ernesto Ferreira Franca (Leipzig, 1859), which, according to Professor Hartt, is "badly arranged, carelessly edited, and disfigured by innumerable typographical errors."[57]

A curious variety of religious literature is what are called the Passions, Las Pasiones, which are found among the natives of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. These prose chants took their rise at an early period among the sodalities (cofradias), organized under the name of some particular saint. Each of these societies possessed a volume, called its Regulations (Ordenanzas), containing, among other matters, a series of invocations, founded on the history of the Passion of Christ. During Holy Week, certain members of the fraternity, called fiscales, gather in the church, around one of their number, who reads a sentence in a loud voice. The fiscales repeat it in a chanting tone, with a uniform and monotonous cadence. It is probable that these chants are the compositions of the Indians themselves. Dr. Berendt obtained several copies of these, some in the Chapaneca of Chiapas, and others in the Zoque of the Isthmus, which are now in my hands.