not only learned to read these characters, but employed them to instruct the Indians, has been authenticated by a recent discovery of a devotional work written in this way.
The earliest historian of Yucatan is Fr. Bernardo de Lizana.[1] Bat I do not know of a single complete copy of his work, and only one imperfect copy, which is, or was, in the city of Mexico, from which the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg) copied and republished a few chapters. Lizana was himself not much of an antiquary, but he had in his hands the Manuscripts left by Father Alonso de Solana, who came to Yucatan in 1 565, and remained there till his death, in 1599. Solana was an able man, acquired thoroughly the Maya tongue, and left in his writings many notes on the antiquities of the country.[2] Therefore we may put considerable confidence in what Lizana writes on these matters.
The reference which I find in Lizana to the Maya writings is as follows:
"The most celebrated and revered sanctuary in this land, and that to which they resorted from all parts, was this town and temples of Ytzamal, as they are now called; and that it was founded in most ancient times, and that it is still known who did found it, will be set forth in the next chapter.
"III. The history and the authorities which we can cite are certain ancient characters, scarcely understood by many, and explained by some old Indians, sons of the priests of their gods, who alone knew how to read and expound them, and who were believed in and revered as much as the gods themselves," etc.[3]
We have here the positive statement that these hieroglyphic inscriptions were used by the priests for recording their national history, and that by means of them they preserved the recollection of events which took place in a very remote past.
Another valuable early witness, who testifies to the same effect, is the Dr. Don Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, who was cura of Valladolid, in Yucatan,
- ↑ Bernardo de Lizana, Historia de Yucatan. Deviocionario de Nuestra Señora de Izmal, y Conquista Espiritual. 8vo. Pinciæ(Valladolid), 1633.
- ↑ For these facts see Diego Lopez Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, lib. ix, cap. xv. Cogolludo adds that in his time (1650-60) Solana's MSS. could not he found; Lizana may have sent them to Spain.
- ↑ I add the original of the most important passage: "La historia y autores que podemos alegar sou unos antignos caracteres, mal entendidos do muchos, y glossados de unos indios autiguos, que son hijos do los sacerdotes do sus dioses, quo son los que solo sabian leer y adivinar, y a quien ercian reverenciavan como á Dioses destos."
