Illustration of Landa Alphabet.------------------

Illustration of Maya T.---------------

He thinks that Bishop Landa, who is the authority for this alphabet, and
who was Bishop of Yucatan from 1549 to 1579, being anxious to assist
the natives in learning the new faith, set about the manufacture of an
alphabet for them. This he did by having the natives paint some native
object which came the nearest to the sound of our alphabet. Thus,
for instance, this symbol there are excellent reasons for supposing
represents the sun, or the word "day." The Maya word for this is _te._
We find that this is the symbol that Landa employs for the letter T,
only, in his drawing, the central dot has fallen into the lower dashes.
Nearly all the other letters can be traced to a similar source.<86> But
the professor's reasoning does not satisfy all. He is believed to be
right in a number of his identifications; but still the characters might
have been used in a phonetic way.<87>

Illustration of Maya Manuscript.-------------

There is no doubt but that the Mayas had a different system than that in
use among the Nahua people. The knowledge how to use it was, probably,
confined to the priests; and, furthermore, the system was, doubtless, a
mixed one. A few phonetic characters might have been used; but they also
used picture-writing. The plate above is a sample of the manuscripts
they left behind. It is in the nature of a religious almanac, and refers
to the feasts celebrated at the end of a year. The line of characters
on the left hand are the days characters Eb and Been. In the lower
division, a priest offers a headless fowl to the idol on the left. In
the middle division, the priest is burning incense to drive away the
evil-spirit. In the upper division, the assistant, with the idol on
his back, is on his march through the village. As yet, we know but
very little about the tables. We know the hieroglyphics of days and of
months.

Illustration of Hieroglyphics--Tablet of the Cross.------

Examining the tablets in the Temple of the Cross, at Palenque,
represented below, we notice a large glyph, at the commencement of the
tablet, something like a capital letter. This, Mr. Valentine thinks,
represents the censers which stood in the temples before the idols,
in which fire was constantly kept.<88> Running through the tablets we
notice glyphs, in front of which are either little dots, or one or more
bars with little dots in fron