Aboriginal American Authors and their Productions | Page 8

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 Abb�� Brasseur de Bourbourg as the _Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan_, The Records from Tecpan