File:The myths of Mexico and Peru (1913) (14597430799).jpg

Identifier: mythsofmexicoper01spen (find matches)
Title: The myths of Mexico and Peru
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indian mythology Indians of Mexico Indians of South America Indian mythology Indians of South America
Publisher: New York, T. Y. Crowell company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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each some 7 feet high.He also found columns of two pieces, which were fittedtogether by means of mortise and tenon, bas-reliefs ofarchaic figures of undoubted Nahua type, and manyfragments of great antiquity. On the hill of Palpan,above Tollan, he found the ground-plans of severalhouses with numerous apartments, frescoed, columned,and having benches and cisterns recalling the implu-vium of a Roman villa. Water-pipes were also actuallyunearthed, and a wealth of pottery, many pieces ofwhich were like old Japanese china. The ground-planor foundations of the houses unearthed at Palpanshowed that they had been designed by practicalarchitects, and had not been built in any merely hap-hazard fashion. The cement which covered the wallsand floors was of excellent quality, and recalled thatdiscovered in ancient Italian excavations. The roofshad been of wood, supported by pillars. PictufeWriting The Aztecs, and indeed the entire Nahua race,employed a system of writing of the type scientificallyH
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>. (X INTERPRETATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHS described as pictographic, in which events, persons,and ideas were recorded by means of drawings andcoloured sketches. These were executed on papermade from the agave plant, or were painted on theskins of animals. By these means not only historyand the principles of the Nahua mythology werecommunicated from generation to generation, but thetransactions of daily life, the accountings of merchants,and the purchase and ownership of land were placedon record. That a phonetic system was rapidly beingapproached is manifest from the method by which theNahua scribes depicted the names of individuals orcities. These were represented by means of severalobjects, the names of which resembled that of theperson for which they stood. The name of KingIxcoatl, for example, is represented by the drawing ofa serpent (coatl) pierced by flint knives (iztli), and thatof Motequauhzoma (Montezuma) by a mouse-trap(montli)^ an eagle ((juaiihtlt)^ a lancet (zo), and a

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