Read Ebook: Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs by Gates William

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We next come to a color question related directly to decipherment, that of the very difficult numeral columns on pages 15 to 18. There is no practical reason discernable for the use of alternating colors save the avoidance of confusion between bar combinations. Three bars together of different colors stand of course for three 5's; of one color they would make a single number 15. We therefore find here our above black, red and blue-green alternating and clearly marked in places; but we also find many numerals of varying shades of brownish, bistre and grayish. I called for especial care in the examination of these points on the original Codex, and the water-color sheets and explanatory notes show in detail the facts of the present state of the Codex. Prior to the examination I supposed that these faded numerals were a faded red, but this is stated in the report to be certainly not the case; the suggestion is made that they are probably faded blacks.

From the latter conclusion I am inclined in part to dissent, at least as to certain passages, for two reasons. These are, first the actual permanence of the above noted main colors, everywhere else; and second, passages in the second columns of pages 16 and 17. In each of these we find faded brown or gray bars, so placed between or next to plain black bars as would give, were they faded blacks, more than three black bars together.

Another point on page 17 is to be noted. In the top section, first column, are five blue 3's. Some of these blue dots, as shown in the 1887 edition and in my water-colors, have faded to the same light brown seen elsewhere. The brown and the blue 5 in the second column of this page, middle division, as just mentioned, have also an identical chromatic value in the photographs.

My whole conclusion therefore, so far as I can formulate one, is that in these columns we have:

Several instances where the Codex has been rubbed so as to leave only the outlines of original black numerals. These are now gray in the original, and I have left them as black outlines, touched in with gray.

Finally, a number of pale brown numerals which are either faded blue-greens, or else indicate a fourth color in the original. Which of these alternatives is the true one, I cannot say.

The original Codex is still in practically as good condition as when the three editions were taken from it. The material of which it is made is a maguey paper of grayish tinge, and not a yellowish brown as would be inferred from the 1887 edition. This is noteworthy, as the wearing away of the coating with which the paper was surfaced for the writing, does not leave a brownish place which, as in the 1887 edition, might be mistaken for traces of applied color. This coating is indeed better preserved in places than is shown by the 1887 edition; thus the headdress at the extreme left of page 20, just to the right of the restored 8 Ezanab on the present color plates, is shown with the coating all erased and the black writing as if left on the ground-paper--which is incorrect.

THE PAGES IN DETAIL

Coming then to the question of the subject-matter of the Codex, I feel that little is in order beyond a simple analytical description of the different pages, rather than any attempt at an interpretation. The road of general deductions from superficial resemblances between unknown elements and the details of other known things from other times and places, is strewn by the wrecks of too many theories to be attractive traveling. I am firmly convinced of the greatness and importance of the study we have before us, and the exalted civilization which produced it; but I do not know how to interpret these monuments. Indeed the very persistence with which the interpretation still eludes us, is a sufficient proof that we have not yet found the right road. When we do, great doorways to the past of mankind will open of themselves, and we will know more of human life and evolution than we now guess. Until then we can only describe, classify, and try to get rid of some of the mechanical impedimenta of the search.

To sum up the general characteristics of this side of the MS., and without attempting to interpret any separate glyphs, we find the following data:

The Cimi-compound and its sub-compound occurs 25 times.

The numeral-compounded Cauac occurs 20 times.

The glyph occurs 13 times on this side and once on page 23.

The Chuen-compound occurs 19 times and probably oftener--once only on the other side of the MS.

The various Tun-glyphs occur 45 times, on the two sides.

The face-glyph occurs 10 times.

The Kan-Ymix glyph occurs 10 times.

The glyph occurs 37 times on this side and, with a prefix and a changed postfix, once on page 24.

With the exceptions noted, none of the above glyphs occur at all on the reverse side of the MS.

There are finally 19 different Yax compounds, occurring in all 25 times, 16 of them on this side of the MS.

Of month signs used as such I am only satisfied of 12 Cumhu, at 18-b-4 and of 16 Zac, at 4-c-7. The glyph at 7-c-2 may also be 1 Yaxkin.

The only cardinal point sign is that of the West, occurring at 4-b-14 and again at 16-a-6.

There are besides these numeral Cauacs, 15 other Cauac compounds, occurring in all 17 times on this side, and twice on pages 23, 24.

Upon turning over the Codex, we find that whereas on the side we have been considering the scribe limited himself to the conventional red numerals and backgrounds, with here and there a touch of brown, upon this other side we have a wealth of color united with a harmony of composition and structure that marks a very high degree of artistic skill. It is not alone the accuracy of the drawing and the writing, such as we have noted in connexion with the study of the glyphs, but the whole manuscript as it lies open before us shows that sense of proportion, that ability to unify without seeming effort a multitude of details into a perfectly balanced whole, which is the positive mark of developed and genuine culture. When we remember the exceeding difficulty of combining primary colors into a brilliancy that is not garish, and the equal difficulty of achieving artistic mastery in a conventional treatment of forms, we are simply forced to recognize that we have here the evidence of an advanced school of art with full rights of independent citizenship. If the figures look strange and sometimes distorted, we must remember that our whole training has been in the realistic school, by which we are prone to judge all others, but by which they must not be judged. We have no more right to weigh these compositions in the scales of our art motifs than we have to weigh Greek rhythm of quantity or Saxon of alliteration against our weights by which we measure rhythm of rhyme and stress. In fact it is impossible for us even to judge concerning the true harmonic effect of these other measures, and it may well be doubted whether the very soul itself of our meter is not empty and tinny as compared with these others--quality for quality.

There is one great broad line that divides the nations and civilizations of the earth, past and present, in all their arts of expression. We may call it that of the ideographic as against the literal. It controls the inner form of language and of languages; it manifests in the passage of thought from man to man; it determines whether the writing of the people shall be hieroglyphic or alphabetic; it gives both life and form to the ideals of their art. It is a distinction that was clearly recognized by Wilhelm von Humboldt, when he laid down that the incorporative characteristic essential to all the American languages is the result of the exaltation of the imaginative over the ratiocinative elements of mind.

The time has passed when we think that the absence of our perspective drawing in Japanese pictures is due to the fact that these "children of nature" never happened to recognize that a thing looks smaller in proportion to its distance, so that they ought to come to us to learn. We have come, in some measure if not yet fully, to recognize that whereas we show a thing to the eye, these other peoples suggest a thought to the mind, by their pictures. And we should remember, and remember always, that while our modern art having won its technical and artistic skill within the past few hundred years, is now beginning to emancipate itself from the materialism of the eye by efforts towards the "impressionist" methods, these ancient peoples had long since arrived at the ability to convey "impressions" through the medium of harmonious compositions of the most rigid conventional elements--an artistic achievement which those who know its difficulties can alone begin to appreciate.

It may be quite easily forgiven to one trained with Western, modern eyes, who at first sight of these monuments, in total ignorance of their meanings, sees them as strange or grotesque. But when, as their strangeness wears away, one comes to see the unfailing accuracy with which the glyphs are drawn, one's opinion of their makers has to change. And when, with this familiarity gained, one advances to an appreciation of the work in its bearings as a whole, one has to acknowledge himself facing the production of craftsmen who had the inheritance of not only generations, but ages of training. Such a combination of complete mastery in composition, perfect control of definite and fixed forms, and hand technique, can grow up from barbarism in no few hundred years. I would hesitate to think it could even come in a few thousands, unless they were years of greater settledness and peaceful civilization than our two thousand years of disturbed and warring European Christendom have yet had an example of to show us. It is easy enough in the absence of definite historical records, and in our general ignorance of human evolution, to theorize and speculate about it all; but the commonly accepted picture in our minds of a few savage wandering tribes settling and growing up in this country some several hundred or a thousand years after the Christian era, simply will not fit in with the fact of their ability to produce such works a few hundred years later. Had we nothing but the Perez Codex and Stela P at Copan, the merits of their execution alone, weighed simply in comparison with observed history elsewhere, would prove that we have to do not with the traces of an ephemeral, but with the remains of a wide-spread, settled race and civilization, worthy to be ranked with or beyond even such as the Roman, in its endurance, development and influence in the world, and the beginnings of whose culture are still totally unknown. As to the Codex before us, we can only imagine what the beauty, especially of the pages we now come to discuss, must have been when the whole was fresh and perfect.

The second side of the Codex has to be treated in four divisions or chapters, the first of which includes pages 15 to 18. For numerical reasons which will appear, this chapter must probably have begun, however, at least one page further to the left.

At the top of each picture is found a black and a red numeral. These form the consecutive black "counters" or interval numbers, and the corresponding red day numbers of subdivided tonalamatls, so common in Dres. and Tro.-Cort. It is customary to find these tonalamatls divided into fifths or fourths, 52 or 65 days respectively--four or five trecenas. At the 53rd or 66th day the initial red number is again reached, and the calculation is repeated, starting again at the left with a new day-sign below the first. Such a column is seen in the lower part of page 17, where we find 6 Oc, Ik, Ix; these are to be completed by restoring below an erased Cimi and Ezanab, completing the 260 days and bringing us around again to 6 Oc. The total of all the black "counters" in any series must always be some multiple of 13, usually 52 or 65, as stated. And since each "counter" is the interval between its adjoining red numbers, wherever a red and a black number are given, the other red number, whether before or after, can always be filled in.

In 18-a we find black 26, with a small red 8 below, and a large red 13 in the usual place at the side. The red 8 will have to be disregarded, as not part of the series, which requires 13, and nothing else.

We may now possibly set down the series as follows, using small figures above the the line for the black counters, and putting in parentheses all numbers restored:

^9^^7^13^^3^8^^13^10, or else ^9^^7^13^^2^8^^13^10

In the middle of page 17 one tonalamatl ends, with a red 6, and another begins, also with 6. The second starts with the day 6 Oc, is divided into fifths, and the initial column must have been in full: 6 Oc, Ik, Ix, Cimi, Ezanab. The restoration of the series gives: 6^2^^1^6. This however only gives a total of 51 for the black counters. There is space to the right for another section, but whatever may have been written there has entirely disappeared. The last three numbers 1^6 seem unmistakable, the especially so. If we regard the last 6 as an error for 5, and then restore ^6 in section 18-g, it would give the necessary 52. This is the one passage in the Codex where I can see no way but to assume a mistake in the writing; for 1 plus 4 does not equal 6, and unless for some entirely unknown reason the error is clear.

The preceding tonalamatl may have been divided either into 52- or 65-day periods. If the period was 52, it must have begun with an initial column on page 15, right side. In this event it would be restored as follows:

^^5^12^ ^6,

giving 52. In this case a third tonalamatl must have begun somewhere to the left, and ended on the erased right side of page 15.

A different restoration would carry the initial column back to the extreme edge of page 15, when we would have this:

^^3^^^5^ 12^^6

giving 65.

To choose between these two would be mere guessing.

The well-known pages 19 and 20 come next. Together they make four compartments, up and down the full length of the pages, two with red and two with black backgrounds. Each is, or rather was, preceded by a column of 13 "year-bearers." The left column on each page I have restored, although no traces of it are left. But apart from its manifest necessity, as part of the series, if the width of the red ground on page 20 is measured, it will be found to be just the correct proportion, and part of the straight left edge of the red can still be seen, just left of the rod in the hand of the mummy-figure, and leaving just room for the Ezanab column. In the colored plates I have only shown 12 instead of 13 day-signs in each column, but a measurement of the space above and below shows that the missing four are to be placed at the top and not at the bottom. These two pages therefore have application in some way to 52 solar years, beginning with 1 Lamat and ending with 13 Akbal .

These "year-bearers" are those of the Tzental instead of the Yucatecan system, as described by Landa, and on these two pages rests, so far as regards known subject-matter, the assignment of the Codex Perez to the Palenque rather than to the northern Maya district. It is thus to be considered with the Inscriptions of that region, and with the Dresden Codex. And in accord with what is known of the state of the different parts of the country at the time of the Conquest, and of the history of the break-up and extinction of the Maya empire, it must be assigned the greater antiquity on that account.

It is probable that pages 19 and 20 had no text passages.

The green bands divide the middle of the page into six compartments containing, so far as not totally erased, 65 day-signs, in columns of five. All my efforts to relate these signs either to each other or to any other series in the codices, have so far been fruitless. The upper seven columns have each a black numeral beneath, running from right to left, 1 2 3 3 5 6 and the dot of another 6.

Each of the columns of five day-signs forms a closed circuit returning into itself. In the upper row the 1st and 6th columns show successive days 8 apart in order; columns 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are 16 apart in order. The 1st in the lower row is at intervals of 8, the 2nd and 5th at intervals of 16. The 3rd column is, with the 4th, an exception, the intervals being successively 8, 4, 4, 8, 16. That this is probably not a scribal error is shown by the fact that the same series, though beginning with different days, occurs in both columns. The 6th and possible 7th columns of the lower part are indeterminable.

We thus have three rounds of 5 times 8, or 40 days; seven rounds of 5 times 16, or 80 days; two irregular rounds of 40 days. These are not such columns as could form the beginning of a series of tonalamatl fifths, in which the successive days come 12 apart. So that this section must be left unexplained.

At the right of page 21 begins a solid red background which probably extended right across page 22. Two standing spotted green figures appear on page 21; seven seated figures, one green spotted, on page 22.

Page 22 is crossed by a winding dragon whose body is covered by the "constellation band." A narrow green band also winds across the page, inclosing two of the upper figures. Below the dragon and this green band are seen, seated above the open mouths of two erect dragons, two figures in conversation, each bearing various insignia of the death god. A very curious cartouche outline, partly erased, at the lower right, incloses what seems to be 13 Ahau, 3, 6, the right hand dot of the 3 being erased.

On pages 23 and 24 the brilliant backgrounds of the preceding pages disappear, and we have two pages, to be read together, of glyphs, day-signs and small figures, finely and sparingly illuminated with the usual four colors. The body of the dragon is apparently continuous from page 21, and crosses these pages entirely with the constellation band, displayed along its full length.

There are also a few other glyphs on these pages which cannot be regarded as right to left. Such for instance, as at 23-a-19 and 24-a-17. In this glyph the affix at the side is properly a prefix , and I do not recall any instance of its use as a postfix. In the affixes, the superfix and prefix positions may as a general rule be regarded as wholly identical; also the subfix and postfix positions. But also as a general rule the two pairs are I believe not to be interchanged, any more than we interchange prefixes and endings in English; this rule is not universal for all affixes, as some seem able to go anywhere, but it is one I have always regarded in my glyph classifying. As to it is to be noted that this is a symmetrical glyph and as there can be no doubt that these glyphs were equally legible to the Maya reader written in either direction, it may well be regarded as unimportant, and not to be rated even as an error. is a still stronger similar case. Here the wing affix to the right is certainly a postfix, the superfix is in the usual left to right order, and the main element written left to right, as in all its other instances. And is again in point.

Below the constellation band, inscribed on a wavy green band are seven repetitions of or the sun glyph within the shields. Between each appeared probably two black 8's. The sun-shields are about to be seized by different animals, dragon, tortoise, bird, etc., a seeming evident suggestion of either an eclipse, or the passage of the sun into some zodiacal sign. Another series of seven sun-shields, on the green band, separated by numeral 8's, and attacked by animals and a skeleton, crosses the lower part of the pages.

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