Note 1 — PREFACE

By far the most eminent and successful among modern writers on Mexican mythology and ritual is Professor Eduard Seler, of Berlin, who, owing to the generosity of the Duc de Loubat, has been enabled to publish monographs upon the principal Mexican hieroglyphical paintings or codices. In these he has done much for the elucidation of the involved symbolism in which the native MSS. abound, and has greatly added to our knowledge of the divine forms represented in their grotesque pages. Elaborate photogravure reproductions of these, the papyri of Mexico, have also been published, superseding the older and less accurate copies in the great collection of Lord Kingsborough. In his Gesammelte Abhandlungen,1 too, a work quite encyclopædic as regards its scope and aim, Professor Seler has approached almost every problem presented by Mexican archæology. But his work might have been of greater value had he been mindful of the difficulties which the subject presents to the non-specialist reader. Indeed, the technicality and aridity of his general method often render his output comprehensible to few but the “senior wranglers” of the study.