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Joseph Acosta tells us, that when the Inhabitants of the Sea Coasts sent Expresses to Montezuma with News of the first Appearance of the Spanish Navy, their Advices were delineated in Large Paintings upon Cloth.

I Bernal Diaz del Castillo, regidor of this loyal city of Guatimala, and author of the followin most true history, during the time I was writing the fame, happened to see a work composed by Francisco Lopez de Gomara, the elegance of which made me…

Moctezuma: It is easy to compose Histories, when one knows to Write; but we can’t Write, and yet make Histories.

although the Indians of North America cannot communicate their ideas by writing, yet they form certain hieroglyphics, which serve to perpetuate any extraordinary transaction, or uncommon event

More admirable is that which they attest was found in Mexico and other places of the new world, where they hieroglyphized both their thoughts, histories, and inventions, to posteritu, not much unlike the AEgyptians, though in less durable and…

The ancient Mexicans, it is said, made pictures, as it were, a language; having no idea of the character of letters, they painted innumerable figures, to express their ideas.

Gage says, their Language is copious and elegant, and the Author of the Civil and Moral History of the Spanish West Indies says, their Books were made of Leaves of certain Trees folded up conveniently, and that their Learning was contain’d in Images,…

When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, in the fifteenth century, the news of their landing was sent to the emperor Montezuma, not by writing, or by hieroglyphicks (for the Mexicans had neither) but by a rude draught or picture of the ships.

Of these similitudes there were two different species before letters were invented: the first and most natural expressed ideas by representation, i.e. by tracing out the images of things, being a kind of picture writing, as that in use among the…

Joseph Acosta tells us, that when the Inhabitants of the Sea Coasts sent Expresses to Montezuma with News of the first Appearance of the Spanish Navy, their Advices were delineated in Large Paintings upon Cloth.

We see this plainly verified in the case of the Mexicans, whose only Method of recording their Laws and History, was by this Picture Writing.