be quoted on this point, I
shall give the words of but one, Father Alonso Ponce, the Pope's
Commissary-General, who travelled through Yucatan in 1586, when many
natives were still living who had been born before the Conquest (1541).
Father Ponce had travelled through Mexico, and, of course, had learned
about the Aztec picture-writing, which he distinctly contrasts with the
writing of the Mayas. Of the latter, he says: "_Son alabados de tres
cosas entre todos los demas de la Nueva Espana, la una de que en su
antiguedad tenian caracteres y letras, con que escribian sus historias y
las ceremonias y orden de los sacrificios de sus idolos y su calendario,
en libros hechos de corteza de cierto arbol, los cuales eran unas tiras
muy largas de quarta o tercia en ancho, que se doblaban y recogian, y
venia a queder a manera de un libro encuardenada en cuartilla, poco mas
o menos. Estas letras y caracteres no las entendian, sino los sacerdotes
de los idolos, (que en aquella lengua se llaman 'ahkines,') y algun
indio principal. Despues las entendieron y supieron leer algunos frailos
nuestros y aun las escribien._"--("_Relacion Breve y Verdadera de
Algunas Cosas de las Muchas que Sucedieron al Padre Fray Alonso Ponce,
Comisario-General en las Provincias de la Nueva Espana_," page 392). I
know no other author who makes the interesting statement that these
characters were actually used by the missionaries to impart instruction
to the natives; but I learn through Mr. Gatschet, of the Bureau of
Ethnology, Washington, that a manuscript written in this manner by one
of the early _padres_ has recently been discovered.

[5-++] "_Se les quemamos todos_," he writes, "_lo qual a maravilla
sentian y les dava pena._"--"_Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_," page
316.

[7-*] "_Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_," page 160.

[7-+] "The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths of Central America."
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. XIX., 1881. The
terminal letter in both these words--"_chilan_," "_balam_,"--may be
either "_n_" or "_m_," the change being one of dialect and local
pronunciation. I have followed the older authorities in writing "_Chilan
Balam_," the modern preferring "_Chilam Balam_." Senor Eligio Ancona, in
his recently published "_Historia de Yucatan_," (Vol. I., page 240,
note, Merida, 1878,) offers the absurd suggestion that the name
"_balam_" was given to the native soothsayers by the early missionaries
in ridicule