Proceedings American Philosophical Society Vol 24 1887 PDF Download

Excerpt from Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 24: Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge; January to December, 1887 Unfortunately, it appears simply as an appendix to the Spanish translation of M. Leon de Rosny's work on the hieratic writing of Central America, and is issued to the limited number of 200 copies, all large folio. It is therefore both difficult to obtain and needlessly expensive. Moreover, the editor, for fear of "distracting the reader," as he tells us, pointed out only a few of the differences between the correct text and that printed by Brasseur, so that the real value of the second edition of the text is not apparent until a long and toilsome comparison has been made. The leading position which Landa's Relacion holds with reference to the ancient Maya civilization has led me to examine his words with care, and the notes I have made will, I believe, prove of value to those who are engaged in the study of this remarkable people. I shall arrange these notes in three portions, as they refer to the two texts now printed, to the Abbe Brasseur's translation with its notes, and to the hieroglyphic signs, etc., inserted in the text. The d104. In Brasseur's edition the text is divided into numbered sections, each with an appropriate heading. No such arrangement is in the original. What is more objectionable, many of the paragraphs and even sections as arranged by Brasseur are entirely arbitrary, and do not correspond at all with the paragraphing of the original. Sometimes they begin in the midst of a phrase, cutting it in two, and destroying its meaning. He omits, without a word, fully one-sixth of the whole text. In his edition, p. 346, he concludes with the words, aqui acaba la obra de Landa, "here closes the work of Landa." No such words are in the original. On the contrary, the MS. he copied from continued with a number of chapters, one on the reason why the Indians offered human sacrifices, others on the serpents, animals, trees, etc., of Yucatan. Of these Brasseur says not a syllable. In copying he occasionally, but rarely, omitted sentences, doubtless through haste. An instance of this occurs, p. 328, where three lines of the original are dropped immediately after the word escalera, terminating the sentence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."