Mexico] were manufactured after the Conquest, not with the intention of fraud, but with a view to a compromise between the new method of recording and the old one, which the new teachers were loath to comprehend and which they refused to adopt.” Powell classifies all the picture-writings as: (1) Mnemonic—songs, traditions, treaties, war, and time; (2) Notification—departure, direction, condition, warning, guidance, geographic features, claim or demand messages, and communications and record of expeditions; (3) Totemic—tribal, gentile, clan, and personal designations, insignia, tokens of authority, personal names, property marks, status of individuals, signs of particular achievements; (4) Religious—mythic personages, shamanism, dances, ceremonies, mortuary practices, grave-posts, charms, fetiches; (5) Customs, habits; (6) Tribal history; (7) Biographic. [Illustration: LANDA’S MAYA ALPHABET AFTER BRASSEUR From Bancroft’s _Native Races_ ] On this continent no true alphabet, so far as now known, was produced, unless we accept that recorded by Bishop Landa, and ascribed to the Mayas. Landa was the second bishop of Yucatan, and he did his best to destroy the Maya records and everything else that in his estimation linked them with the devil. But he did construct an alphabet after theirs, for the purpose, no doubt, of putting before them the Holy Gospel, and it is this alphabet that has been preserved. It has been the basis of many vain attempts to decipher the few ancient Maya documents that are known, and the failure of these attempts has caused some investigators to consider the alphabet a pure fabrication, but the identity of the characters with many of those in the ancient writing completely disproves this charge. Besides the alphabet, Landa left some other information concerning the Mayas, and Goodman thus presents his respects to his memory[50]: “It is a signal instance of the irony of fate that this bigoted destroyer of the fruits of Maya science and art—the pietist whose zeal rendered him avid of the obliteration of every vestige of their impious learning—should have been the only one to leave a clue by which the mysterious codices and inscriptions will yet be deciphered. Nevertheless he left such a clue—slight and vague, it is true; but, when carefully followed up, it broadens and leads into an open way where everything will presently become self-evident.” The alphabet was probably modified by a desire to make it conform to the Spanish, and it is this foreign element possibly that has led to the unfavourable opinion expressed in some quarters concerning it. [Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF THE LORD’S PRAYER IN MICMAC HIEROGLYPHS From Le Clercq ] [Illustration: SEQUOYAH’S CHEROKEE SYLLABARY]