Aboriginal American Authors and their Productions, page 9 by Daniel G. Brinton
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erary composition, and a faculty for it. They were generally, however, an unlettered race. What they composed was for oral use only. This might be carefully arranged, committed to heart, and handed down from generation to generation; but as for recording it in forms which would convey it to the mind through the eye, that was a discovery they had but partially made.
I say, "partially," because graphic methods, of some kind, were widely used. We may as well omit from consideration, in this connection, the merely pictographic signs of the hunting tribes, although they were used for mnemonic purposes. Let us rather proceed, at once, to the highest specimens of the graphic art in ancient America, and inquire their scope. In Mexico, in Yucatan, in Nicaragua, and in one or two districts of South America, the early explorers found systems of writing which seemed to resemble that to which they were accustomed.
The Aztecs manufactured, in large quantities, a useful paper from the leaves of the maguey, and upon it they painted numerous figures and signs, which conveyed ideas, and sometimes also sounds. An early authority informs us that their books were of five kinds. The first detailed their method of computing time; the second described their holy days, festivals and religious epochs; the third gave the interpretation of dreams, omens and signs; the fourth supplied directions for naming children; and the fifth rehearsed the rites and ceremonies connected with matrimony.[9] Besides these, we know they wrote out tribute rolls, the ancient history of their tribes, the fables of their mythology, the genealogy of their sovereigns, and the geographical descriptions of territories. Of all these we have examples preserved, and many of them have been published.
Quite another and a more perfect method of writing prevailed among the Mayas of Yucatan and Central America. Their books were exceedingly neat, and strongly resembled an ordinary quarto volume, such as appears on European bookshelves. I have so lately d