The North-Americans of yesterday

WHILE there are found in the mounds of the central Mississippi region, and also among the living natives of the North-west coast, resemblances to the art work of the Aztecs, Mayas, and other tribes of the Central-American region, there is no evidence that there was any approach, in these localities or elsewhere, to any kind of record to be compared with the proficiency of the South. What there may once have been in the way of writings on bark or wood we can only conjecture. The Davenport tablet has been pronounced, on good authority, to be within the powers of the Dakota tribes. Other tablets and inscriptions of the Eastern region are surrounded with doubt.

The Mexican, that is, the Aztec, writing was more pictorial than that of the Mayas. It was cruder in every way, and comparing the two in the pages of Kingsborough and later reproductions, it is easy to distinguish a superior culture indicated by the writing of the Maya. We are more fortunate in the number of Aztec manuscripts preserved. The Spanish priests did what they could to obliterate the books existing when they came into the country, and Bishop Zumarraga made a fine bonfire out of a lot of them. But some escaped. Some priests sent copies or originals back home as curiosities, thinking, doubtless, that this took them out of the sight of the natives quite as effectually as the burning, and the natives themselves succeeded in preserving in secret some of the ancient documents. None of the oldest, however, have been found, but in time the number known to us may be considerably increased. One by one they turn up unexpectedly. That called the Codex Borgia was in use as a plaything of children of the Gustiniani family, till rescued by Cardinal Borgia, and only recently another one has been found dating from the year 1545,[60] wherein there are pictorial combinations never before seen. Thus gradually our data are increasing, and with the awakening interest in Amerindian archæology that seems to have come in these latter days of the nineteenth century, a century that has let slip much valuable data never to be recovered, further finds may be expected from time to time. The style of the Aztec documents is different from that of the Maya and Brinton believes them to be independent developments. It is possible, however, that both were derived from the same source and developed independently.[61] The Aztec writing is of a “rebus” character, and Brinton has applied to it the term ikonomatic, which he explains as follows in his Essays of an Americanist[62]: “All methods of recording ideas have been divided into two classes—Thought Writing and Sound Writing. The first, simplest and oldest, is Thought Writing. This in turn is subdivided into two forms—Ikonographic and Symbolic Writing. The former is also known as Imitative, Representative, or Picture Writing. The object to be held in memory is represented by its picture drawn with such skill, or lack of skill, as the writer may possess. In Symbolic Writing, a single characteristic part or trait serves to represent the whole object; thus the track of an animal will stand for the animal itself.... It will be observed that Thought Writing has no reference to spoken language; neither the picture of a wolf nor the representation of his footprint conveys the slightest notion of the sound of the word wolf. How was the enormous leap made from the thought to the sound—in other words, from an ideographic to a phonetic method of writing? This question has received considerable attention from scholars with reference to the development of the two most important alphabets in the world, the Egyptian and the Chinese. Both these began as simple picture writing, and both progressed to almost complete phoneticism. In both cases, however, the earliest steps are lost, and can be retraced only by indications remaining after a high degree of phonetic power had been reached. On the other hand, in the Mexican and probably in the Maya hieroglyphics, we find a method of writing which is intermediate between the two great classes I have mentioned, and which illustrates in a striking manner the phases through which both the Egyptian and the Semitic alphabets passed somewhat before the dawn of history. To this method, which stands midway between the ikonographic and the alphabetic methods of writing, I have given the name ikonomatic, derived from the Greek εικων-ονος, an image, a figure; ονομα-ατος, a name.... It is this plan on which those familiar puzzles are constructed which are called rebuses and none other than this which served to bridge over the wide gap between Thought and Sound Writing. It is, however, not correct to say that it is a writing by things, rebus; but it is by the names of things, and hence I have coined the work ikonomatic to express this clearly.” The position of the signs often had important significance, just as it has in some of our puzzles, like the following:

which is said to have been the address on a letter that found its destination in John Underwood, Andover, Massachusetts. It might be supposed that, having acquired a knowledge of the method of the Aztec writing, the general principles of which, according to Brinton, were known many years ago, we would now be able to translate the Mexican documents with little difficulty. The trouble lies, however, in the lack of exact knowledge of the Nahuatl language itself, and till that is acquired small progress will be made. It will be necessary to understand this language before its modern additions and changes came in, in order to connect it with the picture-writing, or rather the ikonomatic writing, of the fifteenth and previous centuries. It has been doubted whether there is any phonetic element in either the Aztec or the Maya hieroglyphics, but the evidence seems to indicate that there is a phonetic element, notwithstanding that there has been a following in many cases of rather slender threads of evidence.

Brinton gives the accompanying illustration of the character of the Aztec writing, this being the name of Montezuma, but really reading Moquahzoma. As most writers spell this name to suit themselves, judging from the great variety of spellings, we may as well accept Moquahzoma too. Indeed, as this seems to be supported by the evidence of the writing, it is more likely to be correct than the others. The picture at the right is of a mouse-trap, montli in Nahuatl, “with a phonetic value of mo or mon; the head of the eagle has the value quauh, from quauhtli; it is transfixed with a lancet zo and surmounted with a hand maitl, whose phonetic value is ma, and these values combined give Moquahzoma.”

When Mendoza was viceroy of New Spain, he caused a specimen of Aztec writing and book-making to be prepared and sent to Charles V., with an explanation in Spanish. Copies of this exist to-day; one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and another, which Prescott thought was the original, though Bancroft believed it to be a copy, in the Escurial Library. This Codex Mendoza was in three parts: 1st, historical; 2d, tribute rolls; 3d, descriptive of the domestic life and manners of the people. Besides this and the Borgia, there are the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican Library, another in the same place written on skin; the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, in the Bibliothèque National, Paris; the Codex Bologna, in the library of the Scientific Institute, and a number of others in divers places.[63] The remnants of the native Tezcucan archives were inherited by Ixtlilxochitl, lineal descendant of the last “king” of Tezcuco, who used them in preparing his historical writings. The collection afterwards disappeared.

Many of the manuscripts were merely chronological, but there were also tribute rolls, law codes, court records, historical records, and all the varied writings that belong to an active and intelligent people. The priests executed and held in their possession the important books, and seem to have been the leaders of whatever learning existed. “These writings,” says Bancroft, “were a sealed book to the masses, and even to the educated classes who looked with superstitious reverence on the priestly writers and their magic scrolls.”

The paper used was usually made from the leaves of the maguey. It is probable that the Aztecs learned to make it from the Mayas or from some intervening tribe who had learned from the Mayas. Sometimes the books were long strips of cotton cloth, or even a kind of parchment. They were either rolled up or folded like a screen, and frequently had covers of wood. A great deal of ingenuity and skill were bestowed on the preparation of these books and the writing they contained.

The appropriate name of “calculiform”[64] has been given to the Maya hieroglyphics because of their resemblance to pebble forms. Besides the inscriptions carved on stone from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the northern border of Honduras, there are some on wood and in stucco, but there exist, so far as known, but very few of the numerous records and books of perishable material which the pious zeal of the Spanish priests hastened to gather together and purify of heresy and wickedness in the fires of bigotry. Bishop Landa says: “As they contained nothing that did not savour of superstition and lies of the devil, we burnt them all, at which the natives grieved most keenly and were greatly pained.” The practice of the Mayas, it is said, was to bury the books with the priest who had written them, in which case large numbers of the writings must have been disposed of before the Spaniards took a hand. Doubtless, however, only certain books were thus buried with the authors, and perhaps copies of these may have been preserved. At any rate, unless some of the books have been protected in an absolutely dry place, tomb or what not, or there were also writings on tablets of clay or stone, we are not likely to have our present scanty knowledge of the ancient Mayas much increased through this channel. There are possibilities of discovery in many ways, even amongst the papers in forgotten archives.

In the Peabody Museum at Cambridge I saw a small vase from Labna that fixed my attention at once, and I understand there are others in existence of a similar character. It bears certain marks in the clay that suggested to my mind an alphabetic system. The marks are in groups, each group contained in a space that apparently corresponds to the calculiform inscriptions of the monuments. It seems possible, therefore, that this may be a development out of the calculiform. Afterwards I found a reference apparently to this same vase in Brinton’s Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. He says: “There is some reason to suppose, however, that in this part of the Mayan territory there had been a development of this writing until it had become conventionalized into a series of lines and small circles enclosed in the usual square or oval of the katun. I have seen several examples of this remarkable script, and give one, Fig. 79, part of an inscription on a vase from Labna, Yucatan, now in the Peabody Museum.” If these marks should turn out to be alphabetic, then we may expect to find slabs and tablets similarly inscribed.

We are but at the beginning of our investigation of the Amerind field. Only recently Saville discovered an entirely new form of hieroglyphic in Oaxaca in a tomb believed to be Zapotecan. Organised and exhaustive exploration will yield fine results. “Such organised and exhaustive exploration is the more to be desired,” says Goodman, “for the reason that all the inscriptions so far brought to light are of a purely chronological character, destitute of any real historical importance. They are merely public calendars, as it were, showing that at specified dates certain periods of their scheme would begin or end, or that a correspondence would occur between two or more of their different plans for computing time. Aside from the circumstance that the initial date in most instances undoubtedly marks the time at which the temple, stela, or altar to which it belongs was erected, I do not believe there is the record of a single historical event in all the inscriptions at present in our possession. That a people as cultured as they should have had no historical records at all, would be a presumption too absurd for credence, even without the testimony of the early Spanish authorities to the contrary. The actual question is whether any of them will ever be discovered. If they were inscribed upon paper or parchment and buried with their priestly owners, as we are told, there is very little hope that any vestige of them remains, unless there may have been some instance of almost miraculous preservation. Still that remote chance is worth a vast amount of research. But a better hope ... is that in crypts or tombs or other unexplored receptacles may be collected historical tablets of durable material—stone, stucco, baked clay, or even metal—which patient excavation will yet unearth.” Chance has played the chief part in the preservation of the few documents that have come down to us. In the Bibliothèque National at Paris the Maya one now known as the Codex Peresianus had been neglected amongst a lot of old papers where De Rosny happened to discover it. It has generally been assumed that because there was found one form of writing on the monuments and a similar form in the few documents preserved there was but the one method. This, however, does not necessarily follow. The monumental records and the chronological books may have been written by the priests in the archaic style while the ordinary and common style was something quite different.[65] Pio Perez has been followed with great faith, but Goodman thrusts him aside in the following paragraph: “The man who led everybody astray ... was Don Pio Perez.... In the absence of any regularly ordained authority, he was at once accepted on his own bare assumption as a leader and lawgiver, and then began that journey through the wilderness which has lasted more than forty years.... I ran in the ruck for seven seasons.... Then I turned and went back to Landa—to whom all desirous of reliable information concerning Maya chronology must go at last.”[66] The trouble with following Landa has been the inaccuracy of the translation by the Abbé Brasseur as well as a certain confusion existing within the original manuscript.[67]

Brinton says: “The Mayas were naturally a literary people. Had they been offered the slightest chance for the cultivation of their intellects, they would have become a nation of readers and writers.” Instead of having this chance they were crushed by the Spaniards and never rose again. But the decline of the Mayas cannot be altogether laid at the door of Spain. The remnant of the stock encountered by the Spaniards was already on the down road and had been for a long period.[68] That the Mayas had long passed the zenith of their progress is generally admitted, and we are not entirely sure that the people we know as Mayas were the original stock or only a mixture of the original and an inferior, wilder stock which mingled with them in the days of their decline. When a stock declined or became extinct, other stocks from contiguous territory or from farther off were likely to come in and possess themselves of whatever they found that was valuable and also become permanent residents of the country, just as the Navajos took up their home in a land that was formerly the residence of a different, house-building stock of whom the Navajos preserve, so far as I am aware, barely a reminiscence. Berendt thus describes the neighbourhood of Cintla: “Not a single tradition, not a single native name survives to cast any light upon these ruins. The whole of this coast was depopulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries owing to the slave-hunting incursions of the filibusters and man-hunters. The Indians who are now found in the neighbourhood have removed there from the interior since the beginning of the present century, and are absolutely ignorant of the origin or builders of this city.”

Not until we are in possession of historical data from the Mayas themselves, if that happy time ever arrives, can we be absolutely certain as to the present descendants.

“In Yucatan,” says Brinton, “the books of the Mayas consisted of a kind of paper made by macerating and beating together leaves of maguey and afterwards sizing the surface with a durable white varnish. The sheet was folded like a screen, forming pages about nine by five inches. Both sides were covered with figures and characters painted in various brilliant colours. On the outer pages boards were fastened for protection, so the completed volume had the appearance of a bound book of large octavo size. Parchment was sometimes used instead of paper. It was made of deerskin cured and smoked. Twenty-seven rolls of such parchments covered with hieroglyphics were among the articles burned by Bishop Landa at Mani in 1562.” “None of them, however,” remarks Goodman of the Maya books that have been found, “can be of much assistance in solving Maya historical problems, as they are all merely text-books explaining the meaning of signs, the elementary principles of their respective calendars and certain phases of lunar, solar, and in a few places, bissextile and chronological reckoning. I believe the figures usually supposed to represent deities to be only personifications of different periods or phases of time, and that most of the glyphs are merely numerals or symbols used for the occasion in their numerative sense only.”

It is plain, therefore, that much of the supposed interpretation of the Maya inscriptions has had little solid foundation, has in fact been little better than guesswork. There was one sanguine translator who was discovered to have begun at the wrong end of the book! The readings of the Maya inscriptions sometimes suggest that other mysterious operation of certain brilliant scholars of our time, the discovery and reading of the Shakespeare-Baconian cipher. The lack of real understanding of the Maya subject is pretty well indicated by the various estimates of the value of Landa’s legacy. One author, Holden, states that it was a positive misfortune, while Goodman, after following other lines for a time, returns to Landa as the only real foundation for accurate study. There is even yet difference of opinion as to the proper directions, left to right or up and down, etc., in which the works are to be read when they are read. Apparently the first sensible thing to be done is to gather together all that Landa wrote and reduce it to a shape that will place it before the greatest number of students, in connection with specimens of every kind of a mark or picture that by any possibility might have alphabetic significance. A striking peculiarity of the Maya remains is that there are not found any preliminary or originating forms of the glyphs. “We are compelled therefore to admit,” says Thomas, “that the origin of this writing is a mystery we are unable to fully penetrate.”[69] It may be that the forms from which it was derived were recorded on skins, on wood, or on bark, and in that case they probably disappeared before the beginning of the Maya decline. “A difference, it is true,” says Thomas,[70] “in the forms and ornamentation, and, to a certain degree, an advance toward a more perfect type, can be traced, but no examples, so far as the writer is aware, of the first rude beginnings or the original forms have been found. Some comparatively rude are found painted on pottery, scratched on shells or other soft material, but these belong to what may be termed demotic writing and are not primitive forms. Comparing the characters of the various inscriptions which have been discovered and those found in the few remaining pre-Columbian manuscripts, the result is as follows: First, it is apparent that the characters in the manuscripts have been adapted from those of the inscriptions. In other words, inscriptions preceded the manuscripts; hence we must look to the former for the older forms. What appear to the writer to be the oldest forms of the glyphs yet discovered are seen in those of Palenque and some of the inscriptions found by Charnay at Menche (Lorillard City), though others discovered by him at this same place belong to the later and more ornamental type, discovered in the Peten region, that is those carved in wood discovered by Bernouilli at Tikal, a type also found at Copan and Chichen Itza, but in none of the inscriptions at Palenque.” For my part, I cannot see that Thomas has exactly proved that the manuscripts were later than the stone-carved inscriptions, but his knowledge of the subject is so great and his methods so cautious that I am glad to give his statement in this connection.

The Maya glyphs probably developed out of something like the Mexican or Aztec writing; and the step was not a very long one from writing of the character of the Lenapé Walam Olum to that of the Aztec, and again it was not a long step from the ordinary picture-writing to the Walam Olum, so that it would seem that in these various writings we have an interesting series of steps from the crudest attempts at records, nearly, if not quite, to the highest, for it must be borne in mind that the step from the Maya glyphs to a true phonetic alphabet would be even shorter than any of the others. It is not impossible that something of the kind may yet be discovered. While the Mayas had made little progress in mechanical inventions, their progress in architecture, art, writing, and in astronomy is a proof that they were a thinking people, and, had conditions continued favourable to their progress, the Spaniards would have found them not easy to vanquish. The prominent and striking quality of the calculiform style has had a tendency to obscure the point that there may have been another system in vogue, more simple, more modern, in short purely phonetic. Perfected phonetic characters are simple characters and are likely not to attract notice, especially when attention has been fixed on other forms.

So far as now understood, there is no relationship between any kind of Amerindian writing and that of other races. Like everything else pertaining to the Amerind people, the development appears to have been purely indigenous. Le Plongeon, however, asserts that “abundant proofs of the intimate communications of the ancient Mayas with the civilised nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe are to be found among the remains of their ruined cities.”[71] The grounds accepted for this statement do not seem to be sufficient to satisfy other investigators. Certainly if there was any inter-communication, it was before the acquirement of iron-working in other countries, as so far no prehistoric iron has been found in the ruins of Yucatan.

After the coming of the Spaniards, some of the Mayas soon learned their alphabet and the missionaries added, says Brinton, “a sufficient number of signs to it to express with tolerable accuracy the phonetics of the Maya tongue. Relying on their memories, and, no doubt, aided by some manuscripts secretly preserved, many natives set to work to write out in this new alphabet the contents of their ancient records. Much was added which had been brought in by the Europeans, and much omitted which had become unintelligible or obsolete since the Conquest, while of course the different writers varying in skill and knowledge produced works of very various merit. Nevertheless each of these books bore the same name. In whatever village it was written, or by whatever hand, it always was, and to-day still is, called ‘The Book of Chilan Balam.’ To distinguish them apart, the name of the village where a copy was found or written is added. Probably in the last century almost every village had one, which was treasured with superstitious veneration.” Sixteen of these curious books are known to exist, but there has never been a complete translation of any of them. The following specimen is from The Book of Chilan Balam of the town of Mani, and is taken from Brinton’s Chronicles of the Maya.[72]

“Lai u tzolan katun lukci ti cab ti yotoch Nonoual cante anilo Tutulxiu ti chikin Zuiua u luumil u talelob Tulapan chiconahthan.”

Translation: “This is the arrangement of the katuns since the departure was made from the land, from the house Nonoual, where were the four Tutulxiu, from Zuiva at the West: they came from the land Tulapan, having formed a league.”

The strange title of these books is derived from that of the priests or shamans, who were believed to have divine powers. They date from 1595. The Maya books at present known are three, one in two parts, with these titles: 1. Codex Tro or Troano, 70 pages, found by the Abbé Brasseur at Madrid; 2. Codex Cortesianus,[73] so named because of a belief that it was brought to Europe by Cortes, also at Madrid, and believed to be a part of the Troano; 3. Dresden Codex, 74 pages, in the Royal Library, Dresden; 4. Codex Peresianus, 22 pages, the one discovered in the Paris Bibliothèque National by De Rosny, and given its title from the name “Perez,” written on the outer wrapper. Besides these it has been supposed that there are several in private hands. The Quiches, of Mayan stock, had a sacred book called the Popol Vuh,[74] and the allied Cakchiquels had their Records of Tecpan Atitlan. Other tribes or stocks of the Mexican region undoubtedly had books and records also, but in the present state of knowledge nothing definite can be said about them. But there was a general high development of all, or at least, the majority, of the stocks occupying Mexico and Central America in the fifteenth century and before, so that it is entirely reasonable to expect a considerable corresponding development in the line of picture-writing, hieroglyphs or alphabets. These, in some cases, will come to our knowledge, just as the new hieroglyph attributed to the Zapotecs recently rewarded the investigations of Saville.

The numeral systems of these people were well developed, and they were able to make exact calculations in astronomical, and in all other matters. The Aztecs used dots from one to ten, or twenty, and then symbols. The Mayas used dots only to four, and then dots and lines to nineteen, beyond which little is known of their method. Like all the rest of the Maya subject, there is in this line of investigation considerable confusion and great uncertainty. The table herewith given is a suggestion of a possible line of study. It seems to me to be the method that was followed, though my arrangement or even the figures are not correct. I introduce it here, before bestowing upon it further study, because it may contain an idea that will start someone else on a right track. It has been generally accepted that one dot • is one, two dots • • two, and so on to four • • • •, after which five was a straight line, . Here arises a question. Did the dots and lines mean the same when horizontal as when vertical? They occur both ways in the inscriptions and in the manuscripts, and Goodman takes them to be the same. Vertical and horizontal occur together frequently, thus: from Pl. 51, Dresden Codex. A doubt fills my mind, however, on this point. It is possible that when vertical the dots and lines had a different meaning. On this assumption, the two, three, etc., horizontally placed would mean either one, two, three, etc., or some higher figures, leaving the vertically placed ones to take their place as one, two, three, etc. I assume that the vertical ones were the beginning. The Maya system was a vigesimal one, that is, a counting by twenties. Every new twenty, therefore, would be represented by a new symbol. Referring to the table, it will be seen that the dots and lines vertically placed and combined carry the table easily to nineteen, that is, a dot beside the five line gives six, two five lines give ten, three, fifteen, while the addition of the dots carries the count quite naturally to the nineteen. It is now necessary to adopt a sign for twenty, and there have been adopted by various authors as many various signs, with several variants in each lot. Once settle on a symbol for twenty, and the road is easy to twenty-nine by placing the dots and lines horizontally. Thomas gives this figure for twenty,[75] but I do not believe it is twenty, and for convenience will adopt this . Then to get twenty-one it would be simple for the Maya to put a little cross on each side of the dot, that is above and below, . This figure is frequent, and it is varied sometimes by this , and by this , which Brinton assumes all to be variants of twenty. I take it they are variants of twenty-one and twenty-two, or of one and two. Running down to twenty-nine by means of the dots and lines, we arrive at the necessity for a new symbol for forty, and I take a common symbol in the inscriptions, . To follow precisely the method indicated by progress thus far, we would put a dot inside of this for forty-one, but the Maya does not seem to have done this, but made a slight change, perhaps to avoid confusion, and he put the dot outside and to the left, . Four of these dots make forty-four, and then forty-five is represented by a straight line vertically within. Dots now outside as before carry to forty-nine, when a vertical line replacing the dots gives fifty. Adding dots again as before leads to fifty-four, while doubling the lines with the dots produces all figures up to fifty-nine, . Then once more a new character is needed to go on, and one is chosen that is very common in the Dresden Codex, occurring in a number of different forms. It is this in its simple form. Thomas takes it in this form for naught, and Försteman for the same numeral in this form . The difference between these two is immediately apparent, and it seems that both these able investigators have made a mistake in this respect. It is as if some future investigator should give as our naught the figure 6 and the figure 9. The simple form is possibly one of the chief Maya numerals and the enclosed lines give it the necessary differentiation. Some change occurs again here, in the system I have attempted to outline. There are used lines instead of dots, though dots also were used, and the horizontal line does not appear to have been doubled; at least I have been unable to find an example of it, though, as the number of manuscripts is limited, I could hardly expect to find examples of all the figures in them. The carved inscriptions being, as is believed, older than the manuscripts, there would be a difference between the numerals in them and in the books. But we will take the simple character for, say, sixty. It may be mentioned again that these selections and their order are merely tentative. Only by long study might the matter be determined. Adding lines transversely as found in the Dresden Codex, we arrive easily at sixty-four. Following the previous system, a horizontal line with an upward curve then gives sixty-five, and transverse lines again take us to sixty-nine. A horizontal line with a down curve produces seventy . Seventy-four would then be , and as the horizontal line seems not to have been doubled we are forced to choose another character for seventy-five . A down curved horizontal line then gives seventy-six , while for seventy-seven an entirely new form is used. The reversal of seventy-five and seventy-six carries to seventy-nine. The cross lines in some cases appear to have been used up to sixty-seven. There are so many different figures of this kind that it is possible they were used interchangeably in some cases. For eighty a new figure is required, and I have selected one that occurs frequently in the Dresden book, in shape something like a bow, . A series of dots readily carries to eighty-four, and then the substitution of a line like a bow-string gives eighty-five . The next step at ninety would be to double this bow-string, but this seems not to have been done, as I can find no example of it. But I do find a differentiation in another way, probably because in this figure doubling the string would be clumsy. The difference is made by a rider on the string, and there are two kinds of rider, one a point or triangle, and the other a double square. Taking one of these riders for ninety, and then the dots beside it, we find ourselves at ninety-four . Then with the other rider on the string for ninety-five we arrive by means of the dots at ninety-nine . Then comes a demand for a character for one hundred, and this appears to have been merely a circle. A dot beside it would give 101, and so on by adding, out or in, the various symbols 199 is reached. To get to 299 it is only necessary to add another circle. For 500 some other symbol must be adopted, and the apparent one is a sort of circle with a kind of scarf knot at the top, or perhaps it can be described as a knotted scarf, . Taking this as 500 we can easily arrive at 599. An extra circle within will then carry to 699, and so on by adding circles up to 1000. Thomas in one of his admirable discussions of Maya writing[76] is puzzled by what he terms ornamental loops around some of the numerals, but if the line I have indicated here has any sense in it these ornamental loops would be 602, 604, etc., or some other numbers depending on the proper place for this symbol in the general scheme. The series of “loops” mentioned by Thomas is this:

Something might be determined by a comparison of these symbols with the known names of numbers. The Mayas counted into the millions, so they must have had a perfected system.