Maya script

“ Then the electric telegraph, that we consider the discovery par excellence of the nineteenth century, was known of the ancient Itza sages 5000 or 10,000 years ago. Ah, Nihil novum sub solem! And in that slab we have a clue to the deciphering of the Maya inscriptions,—an American Rosetta stone.
I will now say a few words of that language that has survived unaltered through the vicissitudes of the nations that spoke it thousands of years ago, and is yet the general tongue in Yucatan—the Maya. There can be no doubt that this is one of the most ancient languages on earth. ”

“ When we observe, in the table of alphabets of different European nations which I give herewith, how greatly the forms of the Phœnician letters have been modified, it would surprise us to find any resemblance between the Maya alphabet of two or three centuries since and the ancient European forms. It must, however, be remembered that the Mayas are one of the most conservative peoples in the world. ”

“ Religion was indeed the very fountain-head of their civilization, and on its rites and observances they lavished a devotion rarely equaled in the annals of man. To its great uplifting force was due the conception and evolution of the hieroglyphic writing and calendar, alike the invention and the exclusive property of the priesthood. To its need for sanctuary may be attributed the origin of Maya architecture; to its desire for expression, the rise of Maya sculpture. ”

“ Among those the Nahuatl or Aztec has been appealed to; and the Mayas have been noted as a lettered people whose hieroglyphic records, and later transcripts of written documents, are now the object of intelligent investigation both by European and American philologists. The Maya language strikingly contrasts, in its soft, vocalic forms, with the languages of nations immediately to the north of its native area. It is that which, according to Stephens, was affirmed to be still spoken by a living race in a region beyond the Great Sierra, extending to Yucatan and the Mexican Gulf. ”

“ That we have succeeded in deciphering, up to the present time, only the calendric parts of the inscriptions, the chronological skeleton of Maya history as it were, stripped of the events which would vitalize it, should not discourage the student nor lead him to minimize the importance of that which is already gained. Thirty years ago the Maya inscriptions were a sealed book, yet to-day we read in the glyphic writing the rise and fall of the several cities in relation to one another, and follow the course of Maya development even though we can not yet fill in the accompanying background. ”

“ In Yucatan they had a kind of writing, the Maya writing, of the most curious and elaborate character. So far as we have been able to decipher it, it was used mainly for keeping the exact and complicated calendars upon which the priests expended their intelligence. The art of the Maya civilization came to a climax about 700 or 800 A.D. The sculptured work of these people amazes the modern observer by its great plastic power and its frequent beauty, and perplexes him by a grotesqueness and by a sort of insane conventionality and intricacy outside the circle of his ideas. ”

“ By far 205the greater number of the fixed symbols of the Maya are yet undeciphered. It is acknowledged by all recent students that they cannot be representative, as they recur too frequently. To explain them, there is but one sure course, and that is, by a close analysis of the Maya language to get at the relations of ideas in the native mind as expressed in their own phonetic system.
When we turn to the Mexican system of writing, much more definite and extensive information as to its phonetic elements awaits us. ”

“ The songs introduced have been arranged to the metre of the two or three ancient melodies yet occasionally heard among the natives of Yucatan. The one to the rain gods is a versification (set to the tune even now used in a sun-dance) of an old Maya prayer translated from that language by Dr. Le Plongeon and published in his work “Queen Móo and the Egyptian Sphinx.” The melody to which the Love Song is set is not Maya. In connection with the lines touching upon love and pain it may be remarked that in the Maya language there is but one word to express both. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the shores of the Mediterranean we find nations whose ancestors seem to have been intimate with the Mayas, for the names of their country, of their cities, and of their divinities can be traced to the Maya tongue. Furthermore, their traditions, customs, architecture, mode of dress, weapons, and even their alphabetical letters are like those of the Mayas. From records in stone and MSS. we learn something of the philosophy of the Maya sages; and the same ideas are found among nations living in Asia and Africa.
Nothing could be more significant than the universality of the word Maya. ”

“ The architecture of the Mayas is unlike that of any other people of what is called the Old World. It resembles only itself. And, notwithstanding that Mayapan, from the most remote times, was visited by travellers from Asia and Africa, by the wise and learned men who came from abroad to consult the H-Menes; notwithstanding, also, the invasion of the Nahuas and the visitation of the pilgrims, the Maya art of building remained peculiar and unchanged, and their language was adopted by their conquerors. ”

“ The geographical relations of the members of the Maya stock are in marked contrast to those of the Uto-Aztecan—its only rival in civilization. Except the colony of the Huastecas on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the valley of the Rio Panuco, all its dialects were in contiguity. The true Maya, which is believed to be the purest form of the language, extended over the whole of the peninsula of Yucatan, around Lake Peten, and far up the affluents of the Usumacinta, the dialect of the Lacandons being closely akin to it. ”

“ Having recently come into possession of Leon de Rosny’s late work entitled “Les Documents ecrits de l’Antiquite Americaine,”1 I find in it a photo-lithographic copy of two plates (or rather one plate, for the two are but parts of one) of the Maya Manuscript known as the Codex Cortesianus. This plate (I shall speak of the two as one) is of so much importance in the study of the Central American symbols and calendar systems that I deem it worthy of special notice; more particularly so as it furnishes a connecting link between the Maya and Mexican symbols and calendars. ”

“ The greater number of these exhibit a carved serpent (which in Maya is kan) in their centres and this fact affords a clue to the possible origin of the Maya name for a neck ornament given in the Motul dictionary. It is undeniable that all evidence unites in proving that the ancient peoples of the Mississippi valley were in traffic, if not more intimately connected, with a Maya-speaking people and came under the influence of the ideas and symbolism current in Yucatan. ”

“ The leading authority on Maya grammar is Father Pedro Beltran, who was a native of Yucatan, and instructor in the Maya language in the convent of Merida about 1740. He was thoroughly conversant with the native tongue, and his Arte [74] was reprinted in Merida, in 1859, as the best work of the kind which had been produced.74-1
The eminent antiquary, Don Juan Pio Perez contemplated writing a Maya grammar, and collected a number of notes for that purpose,74-2 as did also the late Dr. Berendt, but neither brought his work to any degree of completeness. ”

“ The contents of the three manuscripts, which undoubtedly pertain to the calendar system and to the computation of time in their relation to the Maya pantheon and to certain religious and domestic functions, admit of the conclusion, that these figures of gods embody the essential part of the religious conceptions of the Maya peoples in a tolerably complete form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ B is falling down from above headfirst. I believe that the numerous footprints below him are only intended to represent swift motion. The descent from above may only be intended here to bring the god into closer relationship with the head of the bird of prey in the fourth sign. That this head is again as usual joined to Kan, may refer merely to the fact that it was the Maya custom to eat bread with animal food. Compare page 27b. The second sign might be the abbreviation for the south. ”

“ The Maya, containing words from almost every language, ancient or modern, is well worth the attention of philologists. And since, as Professor Max Muller said, philology is the shining light that is to illuminate the darkness of ethnology, besides the portraits of the bearded men discovered by me in Chichen, those of the princes and priests, and the beautiful statue of Chac-Mool, which serve to determine the different types, may be a guide to discover whence man and civilization came to America, if the American races can be proved not to be autochthonous. ”

“ In Egyptian texts of any given period the simple phonetic elements or signs are unchanging under all conditions of composition. Like the letters of our own alphabet, they never vary and may be recognized as unfailingly. On the other hand, in Maya texts each glyph is in itself a finished picture, dependent on no other for its meaning, and consequently the various elements entering into it undergo very considerable modifications in order that the resulting composite character may not only be a balanced and harmonious {24}design, but also may exactly fill its allotted space. ”

“ The Maya believed in the immortality of the soul and in a spiritual life hereafter. As a man lived in this world so he was rewarded in the next. The good and righteous went to a heaven of material delights, a place where rich foods never failed and pain and sorrow were unknown. ”

“ Francis said. “I noticed, all the way from the entrance, the steady inclined plane of the floors of the rooms and passages. Those old Mayas were engineers, and they built with an eye on drainage. See how the water rushes away out through the passage.—Well, old man, read your knots, where is the treasure?”
“Where is my son?” the old man counter-demanded in dull and hopeless tones. “Chia has slain my only born. For his mother I broke the Maya law and stained the pure Maya blood with the mongrel blood of a woman of the tierra caliente. ”

“ The recollection of some ancient Maya song steals in upon his mind, and by the aid of a few significant sentences he incorporates the substance with his text. To interpolations of this kind we may attribute such phrases as “the disrespectful 99utterances of Chacxibchac against Hunac-eel.” Of the ancient Maya ballads, it is to be regretted, none are known to exist. Yet there is no reason for relinquishing the hope altogether, that some day, at least, a copy of the painted annals, which our Maya writer evidently consulted, may be discovered, while we can willingly dispense with the ballads. ”

“ In this poem are represented as nearly as possible, the religious ideas of the Mayas, their belief in KU, the Supreme Intelligence; in the immortality of the soul, and in successive lives on earth before returning to the great Source whence all emanate; also their rites and ceremonies as gathered from traditions of the natives of Yucatan, the fresco paintings found at Chicħen, and the books of ancient Maya authors. ”

“ Le Plongeon has shown that in Yucatan and in Egypt the radical MA, of the word Maya, meant earth and place. This word was used by Hindoo sages to indicate matter, the earth, as it is found in their cosmogonic diagram. All matter being regarded as illusion, the word maya, in India, has that meaning. The mother of Buddha was Maya Devi (Beautiful Illusion) . Maya is matter, the feminine energy of Brahma. ”

“ The significations of the Maya word kan are various, as “yellow,” “rope,” “hamac,” etc, and, according to Dr Brinton, the Tzental ghanan is the same word under a slightly different form. However, he contends that the original sense is to be found in the Cakchiquel word k’an, as given by Guzman (in a manuscript work in his possession) , who says it is the name applied to the female iguana, or tree lizard. ”

“ Another invention of great significance is the art of writing. So far as we can tell, no form of writing was practised in South America, that achievement appearing to be a Maya contribution. The codices of Mexico and their official use at the time of the Conquest are a matter of common knowledge, but the more definite extinct Maya system of writing presents one of the great puzzles of our subject. ”

“ This wall displays the spiral which we found also on pages 33b-35b, and which in the treatise, "Zur Maya-Chronologie" (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie XXIII, p. 147) , I regarded as an abbreviation for a serpent and hence as a symbol of time. It is further to be noted that B is wet with rain and with this the third hieroglyph is in keeping, if it is actually intended to denote the rainy season and not the week of 13 days ("Zur Entzifferung" V, 6) ”