Pre-Columbian Codices and Paper Making Carl Kauffman Introduction to Preservation LIS 713-Spring 2013

Pre-Columbian Codices and Paper Making Carl Kauffman Introduction to Preservation LIS 713-Spring 2013 The Madrid Codex “Then he (Landa) collected the books and the ancient writing and he commanded them burned and tied up. They burned many historical books of the ancient Yucatan which told of its beginning and history, which would be of much value if they had been translated in our own writing, because today there would be something original. At best there is no great authority for more than the traditions of these Indians” -Bernardo de Lizana 1633 (Coe & Kerr 1997, 222) On July 12, 1562 occurred the infamous Auto de Fe in the town of Mani in the Yucatan of Mexico and with it the destruction of much of Mayan culture. This act of ritual destruction in the name of the Inquisition included the burning of numerous codices because as its’ instigator Bishop Diego de Landa stated “We found in these books a large number of characters and as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.” This single act deprived the future of an untold wealth of knowledge concerning this great native American civilization as books and other artifacts were consigned to the flames, nor was this the only time that the conquering Spaniards condemned the creations of the Maya to oblivion. This systematic destruction of the books the Christian Spaniards found representative of an evil and alien culture was nearly successful. The humid and tropical climate of the Maya also contributes to the loss of ancient books and other artifacts. Therefore destruction, time, and climate have left only four examples of these folded bark paper books to survive the centuries in varying degrees of preservation. Nonetheless, much has been learned of ancient Maya book making traditions from these examples as well as from other forms of Mayan writing. The calligraphic Mayan writing was found in numerous forms; on carved stone stellae, on painted ceramic pottery and incised into stone and bone implements. The Maya also painted and wrote on surfaces in cave walls, wall murals and on wooden lintels that supported structures such as the temples at the 1 great city of Tikal in Guatemala. Lastly, they wrote on paper created from the inner bark of the Ficus, a type of fig tree. In researching the subject of Pre-Columbian codices I had the great fortune to speak with one of the pre-eminent scholars in Maya studies, Karl Taube professor at University of California-Riverside. Professor Taube helped greatly by clarifying many of the issues surrounding the Maya codices and ancient Maya culture in general. I found his help particularly significant as I ran across his name in several of the books I used in researching this paper. Bishop Diego de Landa While much has been learned about Mayan writing and books from the few surviving codices, much has also been learned from depictions of scribes and scribal activities from the glyphs and scenes on ceramics and other surfaces employed by the Maya for the purpose of recording their events and knowledge. It should also be noted that the Maya were not the only people in the pre-European world of Mesoamerica to write or create books. Examples of pre-Columbian codices exist from cultures farther north in Mexico including from the Aztecs and Mixtecs. There are in fact, considerably more of these similarly constructed screen fold codices with Aztec or Mixtec origins in existence today. Some of the Aztec and Mixtec books were created before the Spanish 2 conquest while others were commissioned by the Spanish in the years following Cortez’ defeat of the Aztecs in 1521. These books were made using traditional methods and paper for their own purpose of understanding the converted people of Mexico. However, it is important to note that the Aztecs did not have as advanced a system of hieroglyphic writing as the Maya. As Esther Paszthory comments, Aztec writing consisted of ideographs and pictographs that functioned largely as “mnemonic devices for an essentially oral tradition” (Paszthory 1983, 180). Of course these books were also graphically beautiful and created with essentially the same materials and methods as the books created by other cultures including the Maya. Some knowledge of pre-Columbian paper making can be learned from Spanish accounts in the years following the conquest as well as from a few isolated indigenous groups such as the Otomi people of central Mexico who still make paper from a Ficus tree. In fact, Michael D. Coe surmises that “there is no reason to believe that Maya paper-manufacture was different from that of non-Maya Mesoamerica” (Coe & Kerr 1997, 143). I asked Professor Taube if there are any examples of the Maya people of today making paper in a traditional manner and he said that unlike the Otomi he has never encountered any (K. Taube, personal communication, May 3, 2013). The destruction of so much Mayan culture along with so many examples of Mayan books makes the preciousness of the surviving four even more evident. However, there rarity today is not necessarily representative of their significance to the pre-conquest Maya. There were likely many thousands of such books before the conquest and their content will never be known. There is also much evidence that the Maya highly valued their books and their scribes. As Mary Ellen Miller points out if the written word held 3 little importance to the Maya Bishop Landa “would have had little reason to round them up and set them on fire” (Miller 1999, 188). The importance of books to the Maya is also suggested by archaeological evidence because it is known that Maya kings were often buried with books resting on their chests. Unfortunately the only remnants of these books consist of pieces of rotten stucco sizing (Miller 1999, 188). When I spoke with Karl Taube he described these remains of codices found in Maya burial sites as “calcified bricks with signs of having contained paint” (K. Taube, personal communication, May 3, 2013). Example of Maya glyphs Mayan writing has undergone a long process of decipherment and with it an increased understanding that it is far more phonetically based than previously thought. The Maya number system was understood long before the rest of Maya hieroglyphics and decipherment of their writing was not aided by Bishop Landas’ inaccurate, and perhaps remorseful, translation of the “Maya alphabet” following the great Auto De Fe. Nevertheless after many years of difficult code breaking the result is in an understanding 4 that the Maya wrote in a logo syllabic system with a combination of symbols for whole words combined with others for phonetic syllables (Coe & Kerr 1997, 53). The links between Maya writing have also been made with specific Mayan languages, particularly Cholan and Yucatec. These languages have modern descendants still spoken today. This knowledge of Mayan hieroglyphs also has led to an understanding that while following certain basic rules, there was much artistry and leeway in which Maya scribes could write. This allowed for considerable individuality in the style of writing and can be seen in both the surviving codices and on ceramic ware (Coe & Kerr 55-57). When I asked Karl Taube about how wide-spread literacy may have been he suggested that it was almost definitely a province of the elite. This was because of evidence but also because he described the writing system as “extremely visually complex and difficult.” This Maya writing system was actually more complicated and hard to learn than similar systems such as those of China (K. Taube, personal communication, May 3, 2013). Map of the Maya world 5 The Maya civilization existed across a broad span of time from its’ earliest origins of at least 1500BCE all the way until the first conquests by the Spanish in the 1540’s. It is also important to understand that there were several phases of Maya culture with the most “Classic period” being many years before the arrival of the Spanish. In addition, the Maya did not have a single empire or kingdom but rather established numerous city- states spread over an area referred to as Mesoamerica, referring to the countries of Mexico and Central America. There were also fairly wide climate variations within the Maya world from tropical rainforests, to milder mountain areas and flat tropical plains in the north of the Yucatan peninsula (Freidel & Schiele 1990, 50-65). Although it is likely that early forms of writing in Mesoamerica began with the Olmec civilization along the gulf coast of Mexico and spread to groups such as the Zapotecs it is the Maya that are perhaps best associated with Pre-Columbian writing systems. Much of our knowledge of Maya scribes and written culture comes from the Classic period, approximately 200- 900AD in the form of pottery and ceramics which the Maya wrote upon and illustrated. The four surviving codices are themselves, are much more recent creations from the Post- classic period right before the Spanish arrival. The oldest book, the Grolier Codex dates from approximately 1230 AD (Coe 1999, 199-200). The existence of codices in the Pre-Columbian world would not have been possible without paper. Analysis of paper samples from the four codices as well as accounts from Indians and Spanish observers have shown that the paper used throughout Mesoamerica came from the inner bark of Ficus tree a type of fig tree. There are around fifty types of trees belonging to the genus Ficus found throughout Mexico and different ones were used by different tribal groups as a paper source (Van Hagen 1944, 37).

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