Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts

Notes on Certain Maya and
Mexican
by Cyrus Thomas

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Title: Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts Third Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, 1881-82, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884,
pages 3-66
Author: Cyrus Thomas
Release Date: January 27, 2007 [EBook #20456]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's Note
This book was originally published as a part of:
Powell, J. W. 1884 Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to
the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1881-'82. pp. 3-66.
Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
The index included in this version of the book was extracted from the
overall volume index.
A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies have been
maintained in this version of this book. Typographical errors have been
marked with a [TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list
found at the end of the text. A list of words that have been
inconsistently spelled is found at the end of the present text.
Tables II and XV were lists printed in four columns. The contents have
been rearranged by month in this version.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY
NOTES
ON CERTAIN
MAYA AND MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS.
BY
PROF. CYRUS THOMAS.

CONTENTS.

Page. Tableau des Bacab 7 Plate 43 of the Borgian Codex 23 Plate 44
of the Fejervary Codex 30 Symbols of the cardinal points 36
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE I.--Fac-simile of the Tableau des Bacab 7 II.--The Tableau des
Bacab restored 12 III.--Fac-simile of Plate 44 of the Fejervary Codex
32 IV.--Copy of Plates 65 and 66 of the Vatican Codex B 56
FIG. 1.--The four cardinal symbols 8 2.--Scheme of the Tableau des
Bacab 13 3.--Copy from Plates 18 and 19, Codex Peresianus 19
4.--Copy of Plate 43, Borgian Codex 24 5.--Copy of Plates 51 and 52,
Vatican Codex, B 27 6.--Scheme of Plate 44, Fejervary Codex 34
7.--Symbols of the four cardinal points 36 8.--Calendar wheel, as given
by Duran 44 9.--Calendar wheel, from book of Chilan Balam 59
10.--Engraved shells 61 11.--Withdrawn

[Illustration: PL. I
"TABLEAU DES BACAB" CODEX]

NOTES ON CERTAIN MAYA AND MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS.
BY CYRUS THOMAS.
"TABLEAU DES BACAB."
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.
This plate (Nos. 8 and 9 in Rosny's work), is entitled by Rosny
"Tableau des Bacab" or "Plate of the Bacabs," he supposing it to be a
representation of the gods of the four cardinal points, an opinion I
believe to be well founded.
As will be seen by reference to our Plate No. 1, which is an exact copy
from Rosny's work, this page consists of three divisions: First, an inner
quadrilateral space, in which there are a kind of cross or sacred tree;
two sitting figures, one of which is a female, and six characters. Second,
a narrow space or belt forming a border to the inner area, from which it
is separated by a single line; it is separated from the outer space by a
double line. This space contains the characters for the twenty days of
the Maya month, but not arranged in consecutive order. Third, an outer
and larger space containing several figures and numerous characters,
the latter chiefly those representing the Maya days. This area consists
of two distinct parts, one part containing day characters, grouped
together at the four corners, and connected by rows of dots running
from one group to the other along the outer border; the other part
consisting of four groups of figures, one group opposite each of the
four sides. In each of the four compartments containing these
last-mentioned groups, there is one of the four