Note 114 — Chapter XX · Conjectures respecting the descendants of the tribes who built the Temples.—Knowledge and education of the Caciques and Priests.—Traditions of the arrival of white strangers from the East.—Las Casas.—Quetzal-Coatl.—Crosses found in Yucatan.—Gomara.—Legend of the flight of Spaniards by sea towards the West after the conquest of Spain by the Saracens.—Fabulous island of Antilia.—Columbus on his outward voyage steers for Antilia.—Trade-winds.—Considerations upon the probabilities of vessels being driven across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans towards America.

Professor Rau in his memoir upon the Palenque tablet, states that it is his belief that the Maya language, or a kindred dialect, was spoken by the builders of Palenque.

With regard to this subject it has to be observed that when the Toltec tribes, or the tribe that built the temples, settled at Palenque they had possibly forgotten their own original language, which may have been a Pawnee or Dakota dialect.

It would naturally happen after their wives had been taken from among the aboriginal race, that the children would speak the dialects of their mothers. It has been mentioned by an early Spanish writer that the Aztecs, when they settled in Mexico, endeavoured to establish their own language, but without success.