Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/105

Rh ametl, which would mean "water-aloe," but in sound made a very tolerable substitute for Amen. But M. Aubin has actually found the beginning of a Paternoster of this kind in the metropolitan library of Mexico (Fig. 12), made with a flag, pan(tli}, a stone, te(tl), a prickly pear, noch(tli), and again a stone, te(tl), and which would read Pa-te noch-te, or perhaps Pa-tetl noch-tetl.

After the conquest, when the Spaniards were hard at work introducing their own religion and civilization among the conquered Mexicans, they found it convenient to allow the old picture-writing still to be used, even in legal documents. It disappeared in time, of course, being superseded in the long-run by the alphabet; but it is to this transition-period that we owe many, perhaps most, of the picture-documents still preserved. Copies of old historical paintings were made and continued to dates after the arrival of Cortes, and the use of records written in pictures, or in a mixture of pictures and Spanish or Aztec words in ordinary writing, relating to lawsuits, the inheritance of property, genealogies, etc., were in constant use for many years later, and special officers were appointed under government to interpret such documents. To this transition-period, the writing whence the name of Teocaltitlan (Fig. 10) is taken, clearly belongs, as appears by the drawing of the house with its arched door.

A genealogical table of a native family in the Christy Museum is as good a record of this time of transition as could well be cited. The names in it are written, but are accompanied by male and female heads drawn in a style that is certainly Aztec. The names themselves tell the story of the change that was going on in the country. One branch of the family, among whom are to be read the names of Citlalmecatl, or "Star-Necklace," and Cohuacihuatl, or "Snake-Woman," ends in a lady with the Spanish name of Justa; while another branch, beginning with such names as Tlapalxilotzin and Xiuhcozcatzin, finishes with Juana and her children Andres and Francisco.