Section 4. Didactic Literature.

The more civilized American tribes had made considerable advances in some of the natural sciences, and in none more than in practical astronomy. By close observation of the heavenly bodies they had elaborated a complicated and remarkably exact system of chronology. They had determined the length of the year with greater accuracy than the white invaders; and the different cycles by which they computed time allowed them to assign dates to occurrences many hundreds of years anterior.

Although there are local differences, the calendars in use in Central and Southern Mexico and in Central America were evidently derived from one and the same original. A great deal has been written upon them, but for all that many questions about them remain unanswered. We do not know the Maya method of intercalation; we do not understand the uses of the shorter Mexican year, of 260 days; we are at a loss to explain the purpose of doubling the length of certain months, as prevailed among the Cakchiquels; we are in the dark about the significance of the names of many days and months; we cannot see why the nations chose to begin the count of the year at different seasons; and there are ever so many more knotty problems about this remarkable system and its variations.

What we imperatively need is a supply of authentic aboriginal calendars, accurately reproduced, for purposes of comparison. Boturini collected a number of these, which he describes, and long before his day some specimens had been published by Valades and Gemelli Carreri.[48] They were, in ancient times, usually depicted by circular drawings, called by the Spaniards, Wheels (ruedas). After the Conquest they were written out, more in the form of our almanacs. One such, in the Maya tongue, with a translation, was contributed to Mr. Stephens' Travels in Yucatan, by the eminent Maya scholar, Don Juan Pio Perez.[49] Several others were in his collection, and are accessible. Dr. Berendt succeeded in securing fac similes of Kiche and Cakchiquel calendars, written out in the seventeenth century, and these are now in my possession. I fear we have no perfect examples of the Zapotec calendar, nor of that of the Tarascos of Michoacan, although an anonymous author, most of whose MS. has been preserved, reduced the latter to writing, and it may some day turn up.[50] The Aztec calendars collected by Boturini would, were they published, give us sufficient material, probably, to understand clearly the methods of that tribe.

One momentous purpose which the calendar served was for supplying omens and predictions; another was for the appointment of fasts and festivals, for the religious ritual. The calendar arranged for these objects was called, in the Nahuatl, tonalamatl, "the book of days," and in Maya tzolante, "that by which events are arranged." So intimately were all the acts of individual and national life bound up with these superstitions, that an understanding of them is indispensable to a successful study of the psychology and history of the race.

After the Conquest some of the notions about judicial astrology, then prevalent in Europe, crept into the native understanding, and notably, in the Books of Chilan Balam we find forecastes of lucky and unlucky days, and discussions of planetary influence, evidently borrowed from the Spanish almanacs of the seventeenth century.

Most of the Aborigines of the Continent possessed a keen sense of locality, and often a certain rude skill in cartography. The relative position of spots and proportionate distances were approximately represented by rough drawings. They knew the boundaries of their lands, the courses of streams, the trend of shores, and could display them intelligently. These maps, as they are called, present a very different appearance from ours. Those of the Aztecs are rather pictured diagrams, something like those we find in fifteenth century books of travel. A fair specimen, though of date later than the Conquest, was published not long since, in Madrid.[51]

The Maya maps are even more conventional. A central point is taken, usually a town, around which is drawn either a circle or a square, on the four sides of which are placed the figures of the four cardinal points, and within the figures are the various symbols which denote the villages, wells, ponds, and other objects which are to be designated. Specimens of some of these, all after the Conquest, however, have been published by Mr. Stephens and Canon Carrillo,[52] and others are found in the various Books of Chilan Balam.

Very few strictly scholastic works seem to have been produced by the natives. Nearly all those which I have seen for use in the Mission schools appear to be the productions of the white instructors, generally, of course, aided by some intelligent native. I have in my possession an Ortografia en Lengua Kekchi, picked up by Dr. Berendt in Vera Paz, which was the work of Domingo Coy, an Indian of Coban (MS. pp. 32). But on examination it proves to be merely an adaptation of a Manual de Ortografia Castellana, in use in the schools, and not an original effort. For all that, it is not without linguistic value. In Mexico a useful little book of instruction in Nahuatl has been prepared by the licentiate Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia, a scholar of indigenous extraction.[53] An older work, of a similar character, by Don Antonio Tobar, a descendant of the Montezumas, is mentioned by bibliographers, but never was printed, and has probably perished.[54]

It has always been part of the policy of both Catholic and Protestant missions to permit the natives to enter the career of the church; in the territories of both confessions instances are moderately numerous of priests and preachers of half or full Indian blood. Most of these educated men, however, rather shunned the cultivation of their maternal tongues, and preferred, when they wrote at all, to choose that of their white brethren, the Spanish, Portuguese or English. The extensive theological literature which we possess, printed or in manuscript, in American tongues, and in many it is quite ample, is scarcely ever the result of the efforts of the Christian teachers of indigenous affiliations.

A notable exception was the licentiate Bartolome de Alva, a native
Mexican, descended from the Tezcucan kings, who composed, in Nahuatl and
Spanish, a Confessionario, which was printed at Mexico in 1634.
It contains some interesting references to the mythology and
superstitions of the natives.[55]

The Indian Elias Boudinot and other Cherokees have printed many essays and tracts in that tongue, but whether original or merely translated I do not know. The sermons of the native Protestant missionaries to their fellows were probably extempore addresses. At any rate, I have not seen any in manuscript or print. A volume of the kind exists, however, in manuscript, in the Library of the Instituto Historico of Rio Janeiro, which it would be very desirable to have printed. It is the Sermones e Exemplos em lengua Guarani, by Nicolas Japuguay, cura of the Parish of San Francisco in 1727.[56] But when it is edited, let us hope that it will be a more favorable example of critical care than the Crestomathia da Lingua Brasilica, edited by Dr. Ernesto Ferreira Franca (Leipzig, 1859), which, according to Professor Hartt, is "badly arranged, carelessly edited, and disfigured by innumerable typographical errors."[57]

A curious variety of religious literature is what are called the Passions, Las Pasiones, which are found among the natives of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. These prose chants took their rise at an early period among the sodalities (cofradias), organized under the name of some particular saint. Each of these societies possessed a volume, called its Regulations (Ordenanzas), containing, among other matters, a series of invocations, founded on the history of the Passion of Christ. During Holy Week, certain members of the fraternity, called fiscales, gather in the church, around one of their number, who reads a sentence in a loud voice. The fiscales repeat it in a chanting tone, with a uniform and monotonous cadence. It is probable that these chants are the compositions of the Indians themselves. Dr. Berendt obtained several copies of these, some in the Chapaneca of Chiapas, and others in the Zoque of the Isthmus, which are now in my hands.

Section 5. Oratorical Literature.

The love of the American Indian for oratorical display has been commented on by almost all writers who have studied his disposition. Specimens of native eloquence have been introduced into school books, and declaimed by many an aspiring young Cicero. Most of them are, doubtless, as fictitious as Logan's celebrated speech, which was exalted by the great Jefferson almost to a level with the outbursts of Demosthenes, to be reduced again to very small proportions by the criticisms of Brantz Mayer.[58]

In fact, in spite of all that has been said about the native oratory, we are in a very inadequate position to judge of it correctly, and this because we have no accurate reports in the original tongues of their speeches. Translations, more or less loose, more or less imaginary, we have in abundance; but, for critical purposes, they are simply worthless.

Yet that even the ruder tribes in both the northern and southern continents, attached great weight to the cultivation of oratory, is amply evident. James Adair, who is competent authority, tells us that the southern Indians studied public speaking assiduously, and that their speeches "abound with bolder tropes and figures than illiterate interpreters can well comprehend or explain."[59] Mr. Howse writes that, among the Crees, those who possess oratorical talent are in demand by the Chiefs, who employ them to deliver the official harangues.[60] Among the Aztecs, the very word for chief, tlatoani, literally means "orator" (from the verb tlatoa, to harangue). In the far south, among the Araucanians of Chili, and their relatives the migratory hordes of the Pampas, no gift is in higher estimation than that of an easy and perspicuous delivery. This alone enables the humblest to rise to the position of chieftain.[61] So it was over the whole continent.

In most of their languages, the oratorical was markedly different from the familiar or colloquial style. The former was given to antithesis, repetition, elaborate figures, unusual metaphors, and more sonorous and lengthened expressions. The Rev. Mr. Byington gives a number of the oratorical affectations in the Choctaw, as akakano for ak, okakocha for ok, etc.[62]

Some genuine specimens of the oratory of the northern tribes are preserved by Mr. Hale, in the Iroquois Book of Rites, to which I have referred on a previous page. The speeches it contains were learned by heart, and transmitted from generation to generation, long before they were committed to writing, and long after some of the words and expressions they contain had become lost to the colloquial language of the tribe.

The ancient Mexicans were much given to this sort of formal speech-making. They had a large number of cut-and-dried orations, which professional rhetoricians delivered on all important occasions in life. The new-born child was harangued at, in good set terms, when it was but a few days old. Betrothals, marriages, festivals, the commencement of puberty and of pregnancy, etc., were all celebrated by the delivery of discourses. Fathers taught their children, teachers their pupils, monarchs their vassals, war chiefs their soldiers, by such declamations. The general name for these speeches was huehuetlatolli, ancient orations.[63]

Many have been preserved, and a tolerably complete collection could be made in the original tongue. To effect this, we should have to have recourse to the original Nahuatl MS. of Sahagun's history, which, I have already said, exists in Madrid; next, to the extremely rare work of the eminent Nahuatl scholar, Father Juan Baptista, Platicas Morales, in which, according to Vetancurt, he gives, in the original, the ancient addresses of fathers to their children, and of rulers to their subjects;[64] and lastly, to the recently published, though very early written, Mexican Grammar, of the Franciscan Andre de Olmos, which contains a number of these discourses, carefully edited and translated by the accomplished scholar, M. Remi Simeon.[65]

The numerous prayers to the heathen gods, preserved by Sahagun, are, doubtless, faithfully recorded, and are accurate examples of the elevated literary style of the ancient Aztecs. They should, by all means, be printed, so that they could be accessible to those who would acquaint themselves with the genius of the language and the psychology of the people.

In the Qquichua of Peru, a few similar prayers to Viracocha have been saved from oblivion, in the pages of Cristobal de Molina. One or more copies of his Relacion are in the United States, but it has only appeared in print through a translation by Mr. Markham, in the Hackluyt Society's publications.[66] Some modern prayers of the Mayas are to be found in the collection of Brasseur,[67] and, doubtless, several of the so-called ancient "prophecies," preserved in the Books of Chilan Balam, are, in fact, specimens of the impassioned and mystic rhapsodies with which the priests of their heathendom entertained their hearers, as Cortes and his followers heard, one day, on the island of Cozumel.[68]

Section 6. Poetical Literature.

Man, remarks Wilhelm von Humboldt, belongs to the singing species of animals. True it is, that wherever found, he has some notion of music, cultivates the accord of sounds by some sort of instrument, and gives expression to his most acute emotions in modulations of vocal tone.

The earliest and simplest poetry is nothing more than such modulated sounds; it is not in definite words, and hence, is not capable of translation; it is but the expression of feeling through the voice, as is the wail of the infant, the rippling laughter of youth, the crooning of senility, the groans of pain or sorrow.

Perhaps this first is also the highest expression of the aesthetic sense. The most admired cantatrices of to-day drown the words in a wealth of vocalization, and the meaning is lost, even were the language one known to their hearers, which it usually is not. I have heard a living poet, himself of no mean eminence, maintain that the harmony of versification is a far higher test of true poetic power than the ideas conveyed.

These principles must be borne in mind when we apply the canons of criticism to the poetry of the ruder races. It is not composed to be read, or even recited, but to be sung; its aim is, not to awaken thought or convey information, but solely to excite emotion. It can have a meaning only when heard, and only in the surroundings which gave it birth.

Hence it is, that the notices of the poetry of American nations are so scant and unsatisfactory. While all travelers agree that the tribes have songs and chants, war songs, peace songs, love songs, and others, few satisfactory specimens have been recorded. Those who have examined the subject most accurately have found that many so-called songs are mere repetitions of a few words, or even of simple interjections, over and over again, with an endless iteration, in a chanting voice. The Dakota songs which have been preserved by Riggs, the Chippeway songs obtained from the interpreter Tanner, and the numerous specimens of native Californian chants recorded by Powers, as well as many others of this class which might be mentioned, are mainly of this character.

Consequently, they show very poorly in a translation, and are apt to convey an unjustly depreciatory notion of the nations which produce them. To estimate them aright, the meter and the music must be taken into consideration, and also their suitability to the minds to which they were addressed.[69]

But the anthology of America is not limited to specimens of this kind. In the Iroquois Book of Rites there are funeral dirges of considerable length, expressive and touching in meaning; and in the Algonkin a few have been preserved in the original, which are authentic and pleasing. Here, for instance, is a nearly literal version of a Chippeway love song:—

  "I will walk into somebody's dwelling,
  Into somebody's dwelling will I walk.

  To thy dwelling, my dearly beloved,
  Some night will I walk, will I walk.

  Some night in the winter, my beloved,
  To thy dwelling will I walk, will I walk.

  This very night, my beloved,
  To thy dwelling will I walk, will I walk."[70]

Much more striking, and to me strangely so, are the songs of the Taensa, a small tribe who dwelt on the banks of the lower Mississippi. They are now extinct, but a very curious account of their language, by a Spanish missionary, has been preserved and recently published. The early travelers speak of them as an unusually cultivated people, but one cannot but be surprised to find them capable of composing an epithalamium like the following:—

"Tikaens, thou buildest a house, thou bringest thy wife to live in it.

"Thou art married, Tikaens, thou art married.

  "Thou wilt become famous; thy children will name thee among the elders.
   Think of Tikaens as an old man!

"By what name is thy bride known? Is she beautiful? Are her eyes soft as the light of the moon? Is she a strong woman? Didst thou understand her signs during the dance?

"I know not whether thou lovest her, Tikaens.

"What said the old man, her father, when thou askedst for his pretty daughter?

"What betrothal presents didst thou give?

"Rejoice, Tikaens! be glad, be happy!

"Build thyself a happy home.

"This is the song of its building!"

Some of the songs of war and death are quite Ossianic in style, and yet they appear to be accurate translations.[71]

The comparatively elevated style of such poems need not cast doubt upon them. The first European who wrote about the songs of the natives of America, who was none other than the witty and learned Montaigne, paid a high tribute to their true poetic spirit. Montaigne knew a man who had lived among the Tupis of Brazil for ten or twelve years, and had learned their language and customs. He remembered several of their songs of war and love, and translated them to gratify the insatiable thirst for knowledge of the famous essayist. The refrain of one of them, supposed to be addressed to one of those beautiful serpents of the tropical forests, ran thus:—

"O serpent, stay! stay, O serpent! that thy painted skin may serve my sister as a pattern for the design and form of a rich cord, which I may give to my love; for this favor, may thy beauty and grace be esteemed beyond those of all other serpents."

"I have had enough to do with poetry," comments Montaigne on this couplet, "to say about this that not only is there nothing barbarous in this fancy, but that it is altogether worthy of Anacreon." Such is his enthusiasm, indeed, that he finds in this simple and faithful expression of sentiment the highest form of poesy; "the true, the supreme, the divine; that which is above rules and beyond reasoning."[72]

Scarcely can we call these words extravagant, when, in our own century, another Frenchman, eminent as a scientific observer, and speaking from the results of personal study on the spot, has said of the songs of a tribe of this same Tupi stock, the Guarayos, that they cannot be surpassed for grace of language and delicacy of expression.[73]

Many interesting Klamath, Omaha and Zuni verses have been collected by the efforts of Gatschet, Dorsey, Cushing and other zealous laborers connected with the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, and these will shortly be accessible to all through the accurate publications of the government press.

The melodious Nahuatl tongue lent itself readily to poetic composition, and was cultivated enthusiastically in this direction long before the Conquest. Apparently the poetic dialect never freed itself from the use of unmeaning particles thrown in to complete the meter; as, indeed, may also be said of the English popular song dialect, which retains to this day very many such.[74]

With this exception the Tezcucan poets, for it was in that province that the muses were most assiduously worshiped, made use of a pure, brilliant, figurative style, and had developed a large variety of metrical forms.

One of the most famous disciples of the lyre was Nezahualcoyotl, himself sovereign of Tezcuco about the year 1460. He left seventy odes on philosophical and religious subjects, which were borne in memory and repeated after the Conquest. Translations of a few of them have come down to us, but my inquiries as to the whereabouts of the originals, if, indeed, they exist, have been fruitless.[75] The Jesuit, Horatio Carochi, published some ancient verses in his grammar of the Nahuatl (Mexico, 1645). Several which appear in later works do not seem to merit the credit of antiquity. They are more like those which Sahagun wrote and published, in Nahuatl, at a very early period,[76] Christian songs, intended to take the place of the ditties of love and chants of war, which the natives had such a passion for singing.

Under the title Cantares de los Mexicanos, there was long preserved in the library of the University of Mexico a manuscript of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, with a large number of supposed ancient Aztec songs; but what has become of it now, nobody knows.[77] Thus it is that these precious monuments of antiquity are allowed to lie uncared for, through generations, until, at length, they fall a prey to ignorance or theft.

A few other fragments of Nahuatl poetry, all probably modern, but some of them the versification of native bards, might be named; but the whole of it, as now existing, could give us but a faint idea of the perfection to which the art appears to have attained in the palmy days of the great Tezcucan poet-prince.

In the literature of the Maya group of dialects, there have been preserved various sacred chants, some in the Books of Chilan Balam, others in the Kiche Popol Vuh. What are known as the "Maya Prophecies" are, as I have said, evidently the originals, or echoes of the mystic songs of the priests of Kukulkan and Itzamna, deities of the Maya pantheon, who were supposed to inspire their devotees with the power of foretelling the future.

The modern Maya lends itself very readily both to rhyme and rhythm, and I have in my possession some quite neat specimens of versification in it, from the pen of the Yucatecan historian, Apolinar Garcia y Garcia.

When we reach Peru we find a race not less poetical in temperament than the cultured Mexicans. Nothing but their ignorance of an alphabet, and the indifference or fanatical hatred of the early explorers for the productions of the native intellect, prevented the perpetuation of a Qquichua literature, both extensive and noble. As it is, we may expect many valuable examples of it when the learned Peruvian scholar, Senor Gavino Pacheco Zegarra, shall publish his long promised Tresor de la Langue des Incas. Among them he has announced the first appearance of a number of Yaravis, or elegiac chants, composed by the Indians themselves, and sung in memory of their departed friends.

We know, from the testimony of Garcillaso de la Vega, that the Inca bards formed a separate and highly respected class, and that in their hands the supple Qquichua tongue had been brought under well recognized rules of prosody. He mentions the different classes and subjects of their poems, compares them to similar compositions in Spanish, and even gives specimens of two short ones, of undoubted antiquity, and adds that, when a boy, he knew many others. "What would not one now give," exclaims Mr. Markham, "for those precious relics of Inca civilization, which the half-caste lad allowed to slip from his memory."[78] All that Mr. Markham could collect, in his extensive journeys in Peru, were not above twenty songs of ancient date, and I regret to say that these have not yet been published.

Of those charming Tupi songs, to which I have already referred, I fear that we have but very few preserved in the original tongue. Not that there is any lack of poems in the lingoa geral, or "common language" of Brazil, as the ordinary and corrupt Tupi there spoken is called. It is a melodious idiom, lending itself easily to rhyme and rhythm, and several Brazilian writers of European blood have gained reputation by their compositions in it. But of genuine aboriginal productions, there are not many.

The entertaining old voyager, Jean de Lery, who visited Brazil with Villegagnon in 1557, has recorded a few simple airs, which appear to be merely choruses or refrains of songs, the delivery of which was, however, so effective, that to hear them carried him out of himself; and ever, when his memory recalled them, his heart beat, and it seemed that he heard the wild cadence once again resounding in his ears through the tropical forests.[79]

Some strange old poetic invocations in archaic Tupi addressed to the moon and to the god of love, Ruda, who dwells in the clouds, have been collected and printed by Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, a writer whose studies on Tupi poetry, its character and development, merit high praise.[80] Both the songs and music of the modern natives of that country attracted the attention of the learned Von Martius, and in his volumes of Travels in Brazil an appendix is devoted to their discussion.[81] Many excellent hints for preparing a Tupi anthology are also contained in an erudite note of Ferdinand Denis to his description of the visit of fifty native Tupis to France, in 1550.[82]

Section 7. Dramatic Literature.

The development of the dramatic art can be clearly traced in the American nations. When the Spaniards first explored the West Indian Islands they found the inhabitants much given to festivals which combined dancing with chanting, and the introduction of figures with peculiar costumes. The native name of these representations was adopted by the Spaniards, and applied to such performances elsewhere. The word is areytos, and is derived from the Arawack verb, aririn, to rehearse, recite.[83]

Such dramatic recitations were found among most of the tribes of North and South America, and have been frequently described by travelers. Often they were of a religious nature, having something to do with devotional exercises; but not seldom they were simply for amusement. Occasionally they were mere pantomimes, where the actors appeared in costume and masks, and went through some ludicrous scene. Thus, to quote one example out of many, Lieutenant Timberlake saw some among the Cherokees, about the middle of the last century, which he speaks of as "very diverting," where some of the actors dressed in the skins of wild animals, and the simulated contest between these pretended beasts and the men who hunted them, were the motives of the entertainment.[84]

From the solemn religious representations on the one hand and these diverting masquerades on the other, arose the two forms of tragedy and comedy, both of which were widely popular among the American aborigines.[85] The effete notion that they were either unimaginative or insusceptible to humor is, to be sure, still retained by a few writers, who are either ignorant or prejudiced; but it has been refuted so often that I need not stop to attack it. In fact, so many tribes were of a gay and frolicsome disposition, so much given to joking, to playing on words, and to noticing the humorous aspect of occurrences, that they have not unfrequently been charged by the whites best acquainted with them, the missionaries, with levity and a frivolous temperament.

Among the many losses which American ethnology has suffered, that of the text of the native dramas is one of the most regretable. Is is, however, not total. Two have been published which claim to be, and I think are, faithful renditions of the ancient texts as they were transmitted verbally, from one to another, in pre-Columbian times.

The most celebrated of these is the drama of Ollanta,[86] in the Qquichua language of Peru. No less than eight editions of this have been published, the last and best of which is that by the meritorious scholar, Senor Gavino Pacheco Zegarra. The internal evidence of the antiquity of this drama has been pronounced conclusive by all competent Qquichua students.[87]

The plot is varied and ingenious, and the characters agreeably contrasted. Ollanta is a warrior of low degree, who falls in love with Cusi Coyllur, daughter of the Inca, who returns his affection. The lovers have secret meetings, and Ollanta asks the sovereign to sanction their union. The proud ruler rejects the proposal with scorn, and the audacious warrior gathers his adherents and attacks the State, at first with success. But Cusi Coyllur is thrown into prison and her child, the fruit of her illicit love, is separated from her. The Inca dies, and under his successor Ollanta is defeated and brought, a prisoner, to the capital. Mindful, however, of his merits, the magnanimous victor pardons him, restores him to his honors, and returns to his arms Cusi Coyllur and her child. Minor characters are a facetious youth, who is constantly punning and joking; and the dignified figure of the High Priest of the Sun, who endeavors to dissuade the hero from his seemingly hopeless love.

The second drama to which I refer is that of Rabinal Achi, in the Kiche tongue of Guatemala. The text was obtained by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, and edited with a French translation. The plot is less complete than that of the Ollanta, and the constant repetitions, while they constitute strong evidence of its antiquity and native origin, are tedious to a European reader.[88]

Rabinal-Achi is a warrior who takes captive a distinguished foe, Canek, and brings him before the ruler of Rabinal, King Hobtoh. The fate of the prisoner is immediate death and he knows it, but his audacity and bravery do not fail him. He boasts of his warlike exploits, and taunts his captors, like an Iroquois in his death song, and his enemies listen with respect. He even threatens the king, and has to be restrained from attacking him. As his end draws near, he asks to drink from the royal cup and eat from the royal dish; it is granted. Again, he asks to be clothed in the royal robe; it is brought and put about him. Once more he makes a request, and it is to kiss the virgin mouth of the daughter of the king, and dance a measure with her, "as the last sign of his death and his end." Even this is conceded, and one might think that it was his uttermost petition. But no; he asks one year's grace, wherein to bid adieu to his native mountains. The king hears this in silence, and Canek disappears; but returning in a moment, he scornfully inquires whether they supposed he had run away. He then, in a few strong words, bids a last farewell to his bow, his shield, his war-club and battle-axe, and is slain by the warriors of the king.

The love of dramatic performances was not crushed out in the natives by the Conquest. In fact, in the Spanish countries, it was turned to account and cultivated by the missionaries as a means of instructing their converts in religion, by "miracle plays" or autos sacramentales, as they are called. It was even permitted to the more intelligent natives to compose the text of plays. One such, manifestly, I think, the work of a native author, in the mixed Nahuatl-Spanish dialect of Nicaragua, I have prepared for publication. The original was found by Dr. Berendt in Masaya, and his copy, without note or translation, came into my hands.

The play is a light comedy, and is called "The Ballet of the Gueegueence or the Macho-Raton." The characters are a wily old rascal, Gueegueence, and his two sons, the one a chip of the old block, the other a bitter commentator on the family failings. They are brought before the Governor for entering his province without a permit; but by bragging and promises the foxy old man succeeds both in escaping punishment and in effecting a marriage between his scapegrace son and the Governor's daughter. The interest is not in the plot, which is trivial, but in the constant play on words, and in the humor, often highly Rabelaisian, of the anything but venerable parent.

The "Zacicoxol," or Drama of Cortes and Montezuma, written in Kiche, of which I have a copy, may possibly be the work of an Indian, but is probably largely that of one of the Spanish curas, and appears to have little in it of interest.

Another and peculiar form of dramatic recitation is what are called the Loas or Logas, of Central America. In these, a single individual appears in some quaint costume, in a little theatre erected for the purpose, and recites a burlesque poem, acting the different portions of it to the best of his ability. At present, most of these Logas are of a semi-religious character. The one I have is entitled "The Loga of the Child-God," Loga del nino Dios, and is written in Spanish intermingled with words from the Mangue or Chorotegan language. This tongue, spoken by a few persons in Nicaragua, is closely akin to the Chapanec of Chiapas, and was a sonorous and rich idiom. Those who spoke it were much given to scenic representations, as we learn from the historian Oviedo, who lived among them for nearly a year, about 1527. None of these remain, though as late as about 1820, one of great antiquity, believed to be an original native production, continued to be acted. Its title was La Ollita or El Canahuate, the former word meaning the peculiar musical instrument of that locality, the "whistling jar." The subject was a tale of love, and one of these primitive flutes was used as an accompaniment to the songs.

Section 8. Conclusion.

Thus do I answer the questions which I proposed at the outset of my thesis. If I have failed to justify the expectations which I may have raised, at least I have thrown into strong relief the cause of my failure, to wit, the utter and incredible neglect which, up to this hour, has prevailed with regard to the preservation of what relics of native literature which we know have existed,—which do still exist.

Time and money are spent in collecting remains in wood and stone, in pottery and tissue and bone, in laboriously collating isolated words, and in measuring ancient constructions. This is well, for all these things teach us what manner of men made up the indigenous race, what were their powers, their aspirations, their mental grasp. But closer to very self, to thought and being, are the connected expressions of men in their own tongues. The monuments of a nation's literature are more correct mirrors of its mind than any merely material objects. I have at least shown that there are some such, which have been the work of native American authors. My object is to engage in their preservation and publication the interest of scholarly men, of learned societies, of enlightened governments, of liberal institutions and individuals, not only in my own country, but throughout the world. Science is cosmopolitan, and the study of man is confined by no geographical boundaries. The languages of America and the literary productions in those languages have every whit as high a claim on the attention of European scholars as have the venerable documents of Chinese lore, the mysterious cylinders of Assyria, or the painted and figured papyri of the Nilotic tombs.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: What Dr. Washington Matthews says of one of the Sioux tribes is, in substance, true of all on the Continent:—

"Long winter evenings are often passed in reciting and listening to stories of various kinds. Some of these are simply the accounts given by the men, of their own deeds of valor, their hunts and journeys; some are narrations of the wonderful adventures of departed heroes; while many are fictions, full of impossible incidents, of witchcraft and magic. The latter class of stories are very numerous. Some of them have been handed down through many generations; some are of recent origin; while a few are borrowed from other tribes. Some old men acquire great reputation as story tellers, and are invited to houses, and feasted, by those who are desirous of listening to them. Good story tellers often originate tales, and do not disclaim the authorship. When people of different tribes meet they often exchange tales with one another. An old Indian will occupy several hours in telling a tale, with much elegant and minute description."—Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, pp. 62-3. (Washington, 1877.)]

[Footnote 2: That these assertions are not merely my own, but those of the most profound students of these tongues, will be seen from the following extracts, which could easily be added to:—

"This language [the Cree] will be found to be adequate, not only to the mere expression of their wants, but to that of every circumstance or sentiment that can, in any way, interest or affect uncultivated minds."—Joseph Howse, A Grammar of the Cree Language, p. 12. (London, 1865.)

"J'ai affirme que nos deux grandes langues du Nouveau Monde [the Iroquois and the Algonkin] etaient tres claires, tres precises, exprimant avec facilite non seulement les relations exterieures des idees, mais encore leur relations metaphysiques. C'est ce qu' out commence de demontrer mes premiers chapitres de grammaire, et ce qu'achevera de faire voir ce que je vais dire sur les verbes."—Rev. M. Cuoq, Jugement Errone de M. Ernest Renan sur les Langues Sauvages. p. 32 (2d Ed. Montreal, 1869.)

"Affermo che non e facile di trovare una lingua piu atta della Messicana a trattar le materie metafisiche; poiche e difficile di trovarne un' altra, che tanto abbondi, quanto quella, di nomi astratte."—Clavigero, Storia Antica del Messico, Tomo IV, p. 244. (Cesena, 1781.)

"Todos los bellisimos sentimientos que se albergan en los nobles corazones en ninguna otra de aquellas lenguas (Europeas) pueden encontrar una expresion tan viva tan patetica y energica como la que tienen en Mexicano. ?En cual otra se habla con tanto acatamiento, con veneracion tan profunda, de los altisimos mysterios de ineffable amor que nos muestra el Cristianismo?"—Fr. Agustin de la Rosa, in the Eco de la Fe. (Merida, 1870.)

Alcide d'Orbigny argues forcibly to the same effect, of the South American languages:—"Les Quichuas et les Aymaras civilises ont une langue etendue, pleine de figures elegantes, de comparaisons naives, de poesie, surtout lorsqu'il s'agit d'amour; et il ne faut pas croire qu'isoles au sein des forets sauvages ou jetes au milieu des plaines sans bornes, les peuples chasseurs, agriculteurs et guerriers, soient prives de formes elegantes, de figures riches et variees."—L'Homme Americain, Tome I, p. 154.

For other evidence see Brinton, American Hero Myths, p. 25. (Philadelphia, 1882.). Horatio Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 107. (Philadelphia, 1883.)]

[Footnote 3: Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, p. 18.]

[Footnote 4: The Tribes of California, p. 73. (Washington, 1877.)]

[Footnote 5: "Il n'est pas rare de trouver des individus parlant jusqu'a trois ou quatre langues, aussi distinctes entr'elles que le francais et l'allemand."—Alcide D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, Tome I, p. 170. The generality of this fact in South America was noted by Humboldt, Voyage aux Regions Tropicales, T. III, p. 308.]

[Footnote 6: "Hay muchos de ellos buenos gramaticos, y componen oraciones largas y bien autorizadas, y versos exametros y pentametros."—Toribio de Motilinia, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva Espana, Tratado III, cap. XII.]

[Footnote 7: Menologio Franciscano de los Varones mas Senalados de la
Provincia de Mexico, Tomo IV, pp. 447-9. (Mexico, 1871.)

In the Prologue to the Sermonario Mexicano of F. Juan de Bautista (Mexico, 1606), is a well-written letter, in Latin, by Don Antonio Valeriano, a native of Atzcaputzalco, who was professor of grammar and rhetoric in the College of Tlatilulco. Bautista says of him that he spoke extempore in Latin with the eloquence of a Cicero or a Quintilian; and his contemporary, the academician Francisco Cervantes Salazar, writes: "Magistrum habent [Indi] ejusdem nationis, Antonium Valerianum, nostris grammaticis nequaquam inferiorem, in legis christianae observatione satis doctum et ad eloquentiam avidissimum."—Tres Dialogos Latinos de Francisco Cervantes Salazar, p. 150 (Ed. Icazbalceta, Mexico, 1875).]

[Footnote 8: Francisco de Paula Garcia Pelaez, Memorias para la
Historia del Antiguo Reyno de Guatemala, Tomo III, pp. 201 and 221
(Guatemala, 1852).]

[Footnote 9: Ritos Antiguos, Sacrificios e Idolatrias de los Indios de la Nueva Espana, in the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana, Tom. 53, p. 300.]

[Footnote 10: A Study of the Manuscript Troano. By Cyrus Thomas,
Ph.D., with an Introduction by D.G. Brinton, M.D., p. xxvii.
(Washington, 1883.)]

[Footnote 11: "Tenian libros de pergaminos que hacian de los cueros de venados, tan anchos como una mano o mas, e tan luengos como diez o doce passos, e mas e menos, que se encogian e doblaban e resumian en el tamano e grandeza de una mano por sus dobleces uno contra otro (a manera de reclamo); y en aquestos tenian pintados sus caracteres o figuras de tinta roxa o negra, de tal manera que aunque no eran letura ni escritura, significaban y se entendian por ellas todo lo que querian muy claramente."—Oviedo, Historia General y Natural de Indias, Lib. XLII, cap. I.]

[Footnote 12: "Une ecriture consistant en raies tracees sur de petites planchettes."—Alcide D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, Tomo L, p. 170, on the authority of Viedma, Informe general de la Provincia de Santa Cruz, MS.]

[Footnote 13: Legends and Tales of the Eskimo. (Edinburgh and
London, 1875.)]

[Footnote 14: Pok, Kalalek avalangnek, etc., Nongme, 1857; or, Pok, en Groenlaender, som har reist og ved sin Hjemkomst, etc. Efter gamle Handskrifter fundne hos Groenlaendere ved Godthaab. Godthaab, 1857.]

[Footnote 15: Kaladlit Assilialit, etc. See Thomas W. Field, Indian Bibliography, p. 199. (New York, 1873.)]

[Footnote 16: First printed in The American Whig Review, New York,
Feb. 1849; reprinted in The Indian Miscellany, edited by W.W.
Beach, Albany, 1877. I have not been able to find the original.]

[Footnote 17: Horatio Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites.
(Philadelphia, 1883.) It is No. II of my "Library of Aboriginal American
Literature."

The introductory essay, in ten chapters, treats at considerable length of the ethnology and history of the Huron-Iroquois nations, the Iroquois League and its founders (Hiawatha, Dekanawidah, and their associates), the origin of the Book of Rites, the composition of the Federal Council, the clan system, the laws of the League, and the historical traditions relating to it, the Iroquois character and public policy, and the Iroquois language. A map prefixed to the work shows the location of the United Nations and of the surrounding tribes.]

[Footnote 18: Recit de Francois Kaondinoketc, Chef des Nipissingues (tribu de race Algonquine) ecrit par lui-meme en 1848.—Traduit en Francais et accompagne de notes par M.N.O., 8vo. pp. 8. (Paris, 1877.)]

[Footnote 19: The National Legend of the Chata-Muskokee Tribes. By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D. Morrisania, N.Y., 1870. 4to. pp. 13. Reprinted from The Historical Magazine, February, 1870.]

[Footnote 20: "Les chefs des vieillards m'avoient souvent parle de leurs ancetres, des courses qu'ils avoient faites, et des combats qu'ils avoient eu a soutenir, avant que la nation put se fixer ou elle est aujourd'hui. L'histoire de ces premiers Creeks, qui portoient alors le nom de Moskoquis, etoit conservee par des banderoles ou chapelets," etc.—Memoire ou Coup-d'Oeil Rapide sur mes different Voyages et mon Sejour dans la Nation Creck, Par le Gen. Milfort, pp. 48, 229. (Paris, An. XI, 1802).]

[Footnote 21: "We burned all we could find of them," writes Bishop Landa, "which pained the natives to an extraordinary degree."—Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 316. For a discussion of what was destroyed at Mani see Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, 3d Ed., Vol. I, p. 604, note by the Editor. The efforts which have of late been made by Senor Icazbalceta and the Reverend Canon Carrillo to modify the general opinion of these acts of vandalism cannot possibly be successful. The ruthless hostility of the Church to the ancient civilization, an hostility founded on religious intolerance, could be proved by hundreds of extracts from the early writers.]

[Footnote 22: Boturini's work is entitled Idea de una Nueva Historia General de la America Septentrional fundada sobre material copioso defiguras, Symbolos, Caracteres, y Geroglificos, Cantares y Manuscritos de Autores Indios. Madrid, 1746. The fate of his collection is sketched by Brasseur de Bourbourg, in the introduction to his Histoire des Nations civilisees de Mexique et de l'Amerique Centrale, Vol I.]

[Footnote 23: The following extract from Ixtlilxochitl sums up the native authorities on which he relied for the particulars of the life of the last prince of Tezcuco, and merits quotation as a bit of literary history:—

"Autores son de todo lo referido, y de los demas de su vida y hechos los infantes de Mexico Ytzcoatzin y Xiuhcozcatzin, y otros Poetas y Historicos en los anales de las tres cabezas de esta Nueva Espana, y en particular en los anales que hizo el infante Quauhtlazaciulotzin, primer Senor del pueblo de Chiauhtla; y asimismo se halla en las relaciones que escribieron los infantes de la ciudad de Tezcuco, Don Pablo, Don Toribio, Don Hernando Pimentel y Juan de Pomar hijos y nietos del Rey Nezalhualpiltzintli de Tezcuco, y asimismo el infante Don Alonso Axiaicatzin Senor de Itztapalapan, hijo del rey de Cuitlahuac, y sobrino del rey Motecutzomatzin."—Ixtlilxochitl, Historia Chichimeca, cap. XLIX.]

[Footnote 24: In the celebrated library of J.F. Ramirez, were two folio volumes, containing 1022 pages, entitled Anales Antiguos de Mexico y sus Contornos. They included, besides various Spanish accounts, 27 fragments in the Nahuatl language, some translated and some not. The titles of all are given by Don Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, in his valuable and rare Apuntes para un Catalogo de Escritores en Lenguas Indigenas de America, pp. 140-142. (Mexico, 1866.)]

[Footnote 25: Memorial del Pueblo de Teptlaustuque, en la Nueva
Espana; en que se refiere su Origen i Poblacion, i de los Tributos i
Servicios, antes i despues de la Conquista; todo pintado, i M.S. En
la Libreria del Rei. Antonio de Leon i Pinelo, Bibliotheca
Occidental. The district of Tepetlaoztoc belonged to Tezcuco.]

[Footnote 26: "Don Gabriel Castaneda, Indio principal, natural de
Michuacan Colomocho en la Provincia de Mejico. Escribio en Lengua
Megicana, Relacion de la Jornada que hizo Sandoval Acaxitli,
Cacique y Senor de Tlalmanalco, con el Sr. Visorey Don Antonio de
Mendoza en la Conquista de los Chichimecas de Xuchipila,
1541."—Beristain y Souza, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana
Septentrional, s.v.]

[Footnote 27: For testimony to this interesting fact see The Maya
Chronicles, Introduction, p. 28, note.]

[Footnote 28: The Books of Chilan Balam, The Prophetic and Historic
Records of the Mayas of Yucatan. By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D.,
Philadelphia, 1882. Reprint from the Penn Monthly, March, 1882.]

[Footnote 29: Library of Aboriginal American Literature, Vol. I, p. 189. (Philadelphia, 1882.)]

[Footnote 30: An intelligent appreciation of the linguistic labors of Pio
Perez was written by Dr. Berendt, in 1871, and printed in
Mexico.—Los Trabajos Linguisticos de Don Juan Pio Perez. 8vo.
pp. 6.]

[Footnote 31: Disertacion sobre la Historia de la Lengua Maya o
Yucateca. Por Crescencio Carrillo. Published in the Revista de
Merida, 1870.]

[Footnote 32: A fine manuscript of Vico's work, as well as a number of other productions in Cakchiquel, by the missionaries, are in the library of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia.]

[Footnote 33: Tecpan Atitlan is a village on the shore of Lake Atitlan, in the province of Solola, Guatemala.]

[Footnote 34: Don Domingo Juarros, Compendio de la Historia de la
Ciudad de Guatemala, Tomo, II pp. 6, 7, 12, 16, et al. (Ed.
Guatemala, 1857). A copy of Tzumpan's writings is said to be in a
private library in the United States.

The native Cakchiquel writers were also the authorities on which Father Vazquez depended, in part, in composing his history of Guatemala. He gives a partial translation of one, beginning the passage: "Los Indios de Zolola dizen en sus escritos," etc.—Fray Francisco Vazquez, Cronica de la Provincia de Guatemala, Lib. III, Cap. XXXVI. (Guatemala, 1714, 1716.)]

[Footnote 35: Brasseur de Bourbourg, Bibliotheque
Mexico-Guatemalienne, p. 142. (Paris, 1871.)]

[Footnote 36: Titulos de la Casa de Ixcuin-Nehaib, Senora del Territorio de Otzoya. Guatemala, 1876. 8vo. pp. 15. Reprint from the Boletin de la Sociedad Economica de Guatemala.]

[Footnote 37: Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de esta Provincia de Guatemala, traducidas de la lengua Quiche al Castellano. Por el R.P.F. Francisco Ximenez. 8vo. Vienna, 1857.]

[Footnote 38: Popol Vuh. Le Livre Sacre et les Mythes de l'Antiquite
Americaine, avec les livres heroiques et historiques des Quiches.
Par l'Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg. (Paris, 1861.)]

[Footnote 39: The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths of Central
America. By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D. 8vo. pp. 37. (Philadelphia,
1881.) Reprint from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society, 1881.]

[Footnote 40: Boturini, Idea de una Nueva Historia de la America
Septentrional, p. 115.]

[Footnote 41: Cabrera, Teatro Critico Americano, p 33.]

[Footnote 42: American Hero-Myths, pp. 213-217. (Philadelphia, 1882.)]

[Footnote 43: On this Qquichua MS. see Marcos Jimenez de la Espada, Tres Relaciones de Antiguedades Peruanas. Introd. p. 34.]

[Footnote 44: Relacion de las Costumbres Antiguas de los Naturales del
Piru, printed in the work last quoted, p. 142, note.]

[Footnote 45: "En cabildo de 29 de Julio de 1692, el capitan Don Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman trajo a esta sala siete peticiones escritas en cortezas de arboles."—Francisco de Paula Garcia Pelaez, Memorias para la Historia del Antiguo Reyno de Guatemala, Tom. II, p. 267. (Guatemala, 1852.)]

[Footnote 46: O Selvagem. Trabalho Preparatorio para aproveitamento de Selvagem e de solo por elle occupado no Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, 1876.]

[Footnote 47: Notes on the Lingoa Geral, or Modern Tupi of the
Amazonas, in the Transactions of the American Philological
Association, for 1872.]

[Footnote 48: Boturini, Idea de una Nueva Historia, etc., App. pp. 57 et seq.; Didacus Valades, Rhetorica Christiana, Pars Secunda (Perusia, 1579); Gemelli Carreri, Giro del Mundo.]

[Footnote 49: Stephens, Travels in Yucatan, Vol. I, p. 449
(London, 1843).]

[Footnote 50: Relacion de las Ceremonias y Ritos de Mechoacan. The MS. of this work, in the Library of Congress, does not contain the Calendar which the author, in the body of the work, promises to append; nor apparently does the copy in Madrid, from which the work was printed, in Vol. 53 of the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana.]

[Footnote 51: Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regidores de Mexico.
Codex en Geroglificos Mexicanos y en lengua Castellana y Azteca.
First published at Madrid, 1878. A specimen of the map, "Carte
Geographique Azteque," is given by Professor Leon de Rosny, in Les
Documents Ecrit de l'Antiquite Americaine, p. 70 (Paris, 1882).]

[Footnote 52: Stephens, Travels in Yucatan, Vol. II, p. 265, gives
a Maya map of Mani. A more complete study of the subject is that of
Carrillo, Geografia Maya, in the Anales del Museo Nacional de
Mexico, Tom. II, p. 435.]

[Footnote 53: Silabario de Idioma Mexicano, dispuesto por el Lic.
Faustino Chimalpopocatl Galicia, Mexico, 1849, 8vo. pp. 16. Second
edition, Mexico, 1859, 8vo. pp. 32. Also Epitome o Modo Facil de
Aprender el Idioma Nahuatl, 12mo. pp. 124, Mexico, 1869.]

[Footnote 54: Elementos de la Gramatica Megicana, por Don Antonio
Tobar Cano y Moctezuma. Written about 1642.]

[Footnote 55: Confessionario Mayor y Menor en Lengua Mexicana, y Platicas contra las Supersticiones de Idolatria, que el dia de oy an quedado a los Naturales desta Nueva Espana. Ano de 1634. Mexico. A copy of this scarce volume is in my library.]

[Footnote 56: Dr. Couto de Magalhaes remarks: "Como o nome indica, este missionario devia ser algum mestico que, com o leite materno, beben os primeiros rudimentos da grande lingua Sul-Americana."—Origens, Costumes e Regias Selvagem, p. 62 (Rio de Janeiro, 1876). In 1876 M. Varuhagen published, at Vienna, a Historia da paixao de Christo e taboa dos parentescos em lingua Tupi, written by Yapuguay, an extract, apparently, from the volume mentioned in the text. The edition was only 100 copies.]

[Footnote 57: C.F. Hartt, On the Lingoa Geral of the Amazonas, p. 3, in the Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1872.]

[Footnote 58: Tah-gah-jute; or, Logan and Cresap. An Historical
Essay. By Brantz Mayer. (Albany, 1867.)]

[Footnote 59: History of the American Indians, pp. 52, 63.
(London, 1775.)]

[Footnote 60: James Howse, A Grammar of the Cree Language, p. 11.
(London, 1865.)]

[Footnote 61: "Piensan que un hombre que habla sin cortarse y con soltura debe ser de una naturaleza superior y privilegiada. Por solo esta circumstancia ascienden el grado de Ghulmenes o caciques, u hombres notables." Federico Barbara, Manual o Vocabulario de la Lengua Pampa, p. 164. (Buenos Aires, 1879.)]

[Footnote 62: Rev. Cyrus Byington, Grammar of the Choctaw
Language, p. 20 (Philadelphia, 1870.)]

[Footnote 63: Huehue, ancient; tlatolli, words, speeches. A special variety were the calmecatlatolli, the declamations which the youths of noble families were taught to deliver in the spacious halls of the calmecac, or public schools. "Calmeca tlatolli, palabras dichas en corredores largos. E tomase por los dichos y fictiones de los viejos antiguos." Molina, Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana, sub voce. The word calmecac is a compound of calli, house, and mecana, to give, it being the building furnished by the State for purposes of public instruction.]

[Footnote 64: Fr. Juan Baptista (or Bautista), Platicas Morales en Lengua Mexicana, intitulados Huehuetlatolli, 8vo. Mexico (1599? or 1601?). This work is not mentioned by Icazbalceta, but is described in Berendt's notes, and a copy was sold in Paris in 1869. It is enumerated by Vetancurt, Menologio Franciscano, p. 446 (2d ed.).]

[Footnote 65: Olmos, Grammaire de la Langue Nahuatl, pp. 231 sqq.
(Paris 1875.)]

[Footnote 66: Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Incas. Translated by C. R. Markham. Printed for the Hackluyt Society (London, 1873).]

[Footnote 67: Chrestomathie de la Langue Maya, in Etude sur le
Systeme Graphique et la Langue des Mayas. (Paris, 1870.)]

[Footnote 68: Bernal Diaz gives an interesting account of this "black sermon," as he calls it. The incident is significant, as it shows that the natives were accustomed to gather around their places of worship, to listen to addresses by the priests. See the Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espana, Cap. XXVII. (Madrid, 1632.)]

[Footnote 69: Some judicious remarks on the origin and development of aboriginal poetry are offered by Theodore Baker, in his excellent monograph on the music of the North American Indians, but his field of view was somewhat too restricted to do the subject full justice, as, indeed, he acknowledges. Über die Musik der Nord-Americanischen Wilden, von Theodor Baker, pp. 6-14. (Leipzig, 1882.)]

[Footnote 70: Schoolcraft, History, Condition and Prospects of the
Indian Tribes of the United States, vol. V, p. 559.]

[Footnote 71: Grammaire et Vocabulaire de la Langue Taensa, avec
Textes traduits et commentes. Par J.D. Haumonte, Parisot, et L.
Adam. Paris, 1882.]

[Footnote 72: "Or, i'ay assez de commerce avec la poesie pour juger cecy, que non seulement il n'y a rien de barbaric en cette imagination, mais qu'elle est tout a faict anacreontique."—Essais de Michel de Montaigne, Liv. I, cap. XXX, and comp. cap. XXXVI.]

[Footnote 73: "Chez les Guarayos, ces hymnes religieux et allegoriques, si riches en figures.—Il est impossible de trouver rien de plus gracieux."

"Quant a leurs poetes, le charme avec lequel ils peignent l'amour, annonce, certainement en eux, une intelligence developpee et autant d'esprit que de sensibilite."—Alcide D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, Tome I, pp. 155, 170.]

[Footnote 74: "Negli avanci, che si restano della lor Poesia, vi sono alcuni versi, ne'quali tra le parole significative si vedono frapposte certe interjezioni, o sillabe prive d'ogni significazione, e soltanto adoperate, per quel ch'appare, per aggiustarsi al metro. Il linguaggio della lor Poesia era puro, ameno, brilliante, figurato, e fregiato di frequenti comparazioni fatte colle cose piu piacevoli della natura, siccome fiori, alberi, ruscelli, &c."—Clavigero, Storia di Messico. Tom. II, p. 175.]

[Footnote 75: The originals of some of these poems were in the hands of
Ixtlilxochitl, as is evident from his Historia Chichimeca, cap.
XLVII.]

[Footnote 76: Sahagun, Psalmodia Xpiana. (Mexico, 1583?) An extremely rare book, which I have never seen. Clavigero saw a copy, and thinks it was printed about 1540. Storia di Messico, Tom. II, p, 178, Note.]

[Footnote 77: It is mentioned by Icazbalceta, Apuntes para un Catalogo de Escritores en Lenguas Indigenas de America, p. 146. (Mexico, 1866.) There are, however, two copies of it extant, somewhere.]

[Footnote 78: See Mr. Clements R. Markham's Introductions to his edition of the Ollanta drama (London, 1871); and to his Qquichua Grammar and Dictionary (London, 1864).]

[Footnote 79: "I'en demeurai tout rauy; mais aussi toutes les fois qu'il m'en ressouuient, le coeur m'en tressaillant, il me semble que ie les aye encor aux oreilles."—Jean de Lery, Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil, autrement dite Amerique, pp. 258, 286. (Geneve, 1585.)]

[Footnote 80: See his Origens, Costumes e Regiaeo Selvagem, pp. 78-82, 140-147. (Rio de Janeiro, 1876.)]

[Footnote 81: Spix and Martius, Reise in Brasilien, Brasilianische
Volkslieder und Indianische Melodien, Musikbeilage.]

[Footnote 82: Une Fete Bresilienne celebree a Rouen en 1550 suivie
d'un Fragment du XVI'e Siecle roulant sur la Theogonie des anciens
Peuples du Bresil et des Poesies en Langue Tupique, de Christovam
Valente. Par Ferdinand Denis, pp. 36-51, 98, sqq. (Paris, 1850.)]

[Footnote 83: The Arawack language, which is now spoken in Guiana only,
at the time of the discovery extended over the Greater and Lesser
Antilles and the Bahama Islands, as I have shown in an essay on The
Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological
Relations, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society, 1870.]

[Footnote 84: The Memoirs of Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, p. 80
(London 1765).]

[Footnote 85: In the ancient Qquichua literature the tragic dramas were called huancay; those of a comic nature, aranhuay. Both were composed in assonant verses of six and eight syllables, which were not sung or chanted, but repeated with dramatic intonation.]

[Footnote 86: On the bibliography of the drama see Zegarra, Ollantai,
Drame en Vers Quechuas du temps des Incas, Introd. p. CLXXIII.
(Paris, 1878.) The English translation is by Clements R. Markham,
Ollanta, an Ancient Ynca Drama (London, 1871).]

[Footnote 87: The recent attempt of General Don Bartolome Mitre, of Buenos Ayres, to discredit the antiquity of the Ollanta drama (in the Nueva Revista de Buenos Ayres, 1881), has been most thoroughly and conclusively refuted by Mr. Clements R. Markham, in the volume of the Hackluyt Society's Publications for 1883.]

[Footnote 88: Rabinal-Achi, ou le Drame Ballet du Tun, published as an appendix to the Grammaire de la Langue Quiche (Paris, 1862). The Abbe Brasseur asserts that he wrote down this drama from verbal information, at the village of Rabinal in Guatemala; but a note by Dr. Berendt in my possession characterizes this statement as incorrect, and adds: "Brasseur found the MS. all written, in the hands of an hacendado, on the road from Guatemala to Chiapas. The original exists still in the same place." It was a weakness with the Abbe to throw, designedly, considerable obscurity about his authorities and the sources of his knowledge.]

* * * * *