Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
Beside the tribute-rolls,[1119] which make one part of it, the MS.
covers the civil history of the Mexicans, with a third part on the
discipline and economy of the people, which renders it of so much
importance in an archæological sense.[1120] The second reproduction
in Kingsborough’s first volume is what he calls the _Codex
Telleriano-Remensis_, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris,
and formerly owned by M. Le Tellier.[1121] The rest of this initial
volume is made up of facsimiles of Mexican hieroglyphics and paintings,
from the Boturini and Selden collections, which last is in the Bodleian.
The second Kingsborough volume opens with a reproduction of the _Codex
Vaticanus_ (the explanation[1122] is in volume vi.), which is in the
library of the Vatican, and it is known to have been copied in Mexico
by Pedro de los Rios in 1566. It is partly historical and partly
mythological.[1123] The rest of this volume is made up of facsimiles of
other manuscripts,—one given to the Bodleian by Archbishop Laud, others
at Bologna,[1124] Vienna,[1125] and Berlin.
The third volume reproduces one belonging to the Borgian Museum at
Rome, written on skin, and thought to be a ritual and astrological
almanac. This is accompanied by a commentary by Frabega.[1126]
Kingsborough gives but a single Maya MS., and this is in his third
volume, and stands with him as an Aztec production. This is the
_Dresden Codex_, not very exactly rendered, which is preserved in the
royal library in that city, for which it was bought by Götz,[1127] at
Vienna, in 1739. Prescott (i. 107) seemed to recognize its difference
from the Aztec MSS., without knowing precisely how to class it.[1128]
Brasseur de Bourbourg calls it a religious and astrological ritual. It
is in two sections, and it is not certain that they belong together.
In 1880 it was reproduced at Dresden by polychromatic photography
(Chromo-Lichtdruck), as the process is called, under the editing of
Dr. E. Förstemann, who in an introduction describes it as composed of
thirty-nine oblong sheets folded together like a fan. They are made of
the bark of a tree, and covered with varnish. Thirty-five have drawings
and hieroglyphics on both sides; the other four on one side only. It is
now preserved between glass to prevent handling, and both sides can be
examined. Some progress has been made, it is professed, in deciphering
its meaning, and it is supposed to contain “records of a mythic,
historic, and ritualistic character.”[1129]
Another script in Kingsborough, perhaps a Tezcucan MS., though having
some Maya affinities, is the _Fejérvary Codex_, then preserved in
Hungary, and lately owned by Mayer, of Liverpool.[1130]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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