With the possible relations which Mexican and Maya culture may bear to those of the outer world I do not propose to deal at all. The past has shown the futility of speculating upon insufficient evidence, and it is sad to note how large a proportion of the literature dealing with American archæology serves only as a monument to wasted energy and misplaced zeal. It is impossible to deny a certain superficial similarity, often surprising, between the Maya ruins and those of south-east Asia, but these disappear for the most part upon closer analysis. Mere similarity of ornament means nothing when the ornament in question is found to symbolize beliefs of an entirely different character; from the constructional point of view the buildings differ essentially; while the absolute gulf which separates the American language, calendrical system and vegetable means of sustenance from those of Asia provides difficulties which must be explained before any theory suggesting contact in any form can legitimately be put forward. The question of the ultimate origin of the American population lies beyond the scope of this book, but it is an evident fact that the Americans physically stand in comparatively close relation to the Asiatics. That being so a somewhat similar psychology is natural, and this would lead, subject to modifications produced by environment, to the evolution of a culture and art in which certain analogies might be expected to appear. But what I have elsewhere written of Peruvian culture applies with equal force to that of the Mexicans and Maya. The _onus probandi_ must necessarily be upon those who wish to prove that contact with the external world existed, and the evidence which we possess points rather to the undisturbed evolution of Mexican and Mayan civilization on American soil, and that civilization may therefore be regarded as in every sense American. APPENDIX I NAMES OF THE DAYS IN THE MEXICAN AND MAYA CALENDARS MAYA MEXICAN | /-------------/ \--------------\ Tzental Quiché and Yucatan (Chiapas) Kakchiquel Aztec