rendt, who combined all the necessary knowledge, botanical, linguistic
and medical, and who has left a large manuscript, entitled "_Recetarios
de Indios_," which presents the subject fully. He considers the
scientific value of these remedies to be next to nothing, and the
language in which they are recorded to be distinctly inferior to that of
the remainder of the "Books of Chilan Balam." Hence, he believes that
this portion of the ancient records was supplanted some time in the last
century by medical notions introduced from European sources. Such, in
fact, is the statement of the copyists of the books themselves, as these
recipes, etc., are sometimes found in a separate volume, entitled "The
Book of the Jew,"--"_El Libro del Judio_." Who this alleged Jewish
physician was, who left so wide-spread and durable a renown among the
Yucatecan natives, none of the archaeologists has been able to find
out.[18-+]

The language and style of most of these books are aphoristic,
elliptical and obscure. The Maya language has naturally undergone
considerable alteration since they were written; therefore, even to
competent readers of ordinary Maya, they are not readily understood.
Fortunately, however, there are in existence excellent dictionaries of
the Maya of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which, were they
published, would be sufficient for this purpose.

A few persons in Yucatan have appreciated the desirability of collecting
and preserving these works. Don Pio Perez was the first to do so, and of
living Yucatecan scholars particular mention should be made of the Rev.
Canon Don Crescencio Carrillo y An cona,[TN-3] who has written a good,
and I believe the only, description of them which has yet appeared in
print.[19-*] They attracted the earnest attention of that eminent
naturalist and ethnologist, the late Dr. C. Hermann Berendt, and at a
great expenditure of time and labor he visited various parts of Yucatan,
and with remarkable skill made _fac-simile_ copies of the most important
and complete specimens which he could anywhere find. This invaluable and
unique collection has come into my hands since his death, and it is this
which has prompted me to make known their character and contents to
those interested in such subjects.

FOOTNOTES:

[5-*] Read before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of
Philadelphia, at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, January 5th, 1882.

[5-+] Of the numerous authorities which could