Note 72 — Chapter IV

It is unfortunate that the region of Maya culture was the subject of no such full reports, dating from the immediate post-Conquest period, as we possess from Mexico. The more important of the Spanish writers who deal with the Yucatec centres are Aguilar, Cogolludo, Las Casas, Landa, Lizana, Nuñez de la Vega, Ordoñez y Aguiar, Pio Pérez, Pedro Ponce, and Villagutierre, with Landa easily first in significance. The histories of Eligio Ancona and of Carrillo y Ancona are the leading Spanish works of later date. Native writings are represented by three hieroglyphic pre-Cortezian codices, namely, Codex Dresdensis, Codex Tro-Cortesianus, and Codex Peresianus, as well as by the important Books of Chilam Balam and the Chronicle of Nakuk Pech from the early Spanish period (for description of thirteen manuscripts and bibliography of published works relating to their interpretation, see Tozzer, "The Chilam Balam Books," in CA xix [Washington, 1917]). Yet what Mayan civilization lacks in the way of literary monuments is more than compensated by the remains of its art and architecture, to which an immense amount of shrewd study has been devoted. The more conspicuous names of those who have advanced this study are mentioned in connexion with the literature of the Maya calendar, Note 92, infra. The region has been explored archaeologically with great care, the magnificent reports of Maudsley (in Biología Centrali-Americana) and of the Peabody Museum expeditions (Memoirs), prepared by Gordon, Maler, Thompson, and others, being the collections of eminence. Brasseur de Bourbourg can scarcely be mentioned too often in connexion with this field. His fault is that of Euhemerus, but he is neither the first nor the last of the tribe of this sage; while for his virtues, he shows more constructive imagination than any other Americanist: probably the picture which he presents would be less criticized were it less vivid.