Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/116

108 Their human beings were always big-headed, long-footed, with faces in profile, immense noses and a front view of one staring eye. The work was otherwise well done, with clear strokes and fadeless coloring. The priests were the great picture-writers and historians of the tribe. Their law-records were said to have been so accurate that the Spanish government always took them in evidence when Indian testimony was required. There were several different styles of penmanship, no one of which is now understood by any living person. In less than one hundred years after the conquest there were but two persons who could read the manuscripts which escaped the general wreck. Both of these men were very old, and neither was a skilled interpreter.

The Romish priests became very much interested in Mexican picture-writing. When it was decided that the Indians could be trusted with their old art, the monks began to encourage them in it, and even to study it themselves in order to communicate the truths of the gospel to these poor people in the way most familiar to them. In some cases they were successful. Many a native who had gone faithfully through his prayers in an unknown tongue now began for the first time to understand them. The Aztecs were a deeply religious people—as, indeed, were all the Mexican tribes—and when they came to unburden their hearts to the priests in the confessional, they could in no way express themselves so well as by their old pictures. Many learned the art in order to relate their religious experience, and thousands of new manuscripts were written, some of which remain to perplex the antiquarian. A monk who understood picture-writing says he was literally overwhelmed by these Indian confessions on long strips of muslin.