Aboriginal American Authors and their Productions | Page 7

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 Mu?on 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 Tlaxc��llan, 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 Gabri��l de Ay��la, 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 Abb�� 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 Congr��s des Am��ricanistes, 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 Casta?eda, 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