Indian Languages Database
Record Details
Quatre lettres sur le Mexique: exposition absolue du système hiéroglyphique mexicain la fin de l’Age de Pierre. Époque glaciaire temporaire commencement de l’Age de Bronze. Origines de la civilisation et des religions de l’antiquité; d’après le Teo-Amoxtli et autres documents mexicains, etc.
Paris and London: Maisonneuve et Cie; Trübner and Co., 1868
Physical Description: XX, 463, [1] p. : ill. ; 26 cm. (8vo)
Call number: E861/ B823c/ v.4
Accession number: 05825
Notes: Volume 4 of Collection de documents dans les languages indigènes contains a far-ranging historical treatise exploring indigenous American languages and civilizations in relation to Eurasian cultures, includes vocabulary from Nahuatl, Quiché, and other indigenous Mexican languages, with illustrations of hieroglyphic symbols (passim). Concludes with several “pièces justificatives”, the first of which is “Histoire de la nation mexicaine: Ms. en language nahuatl de l’an 1576” (p. 401-424). The Nahuatl text printed in the left-hand column is accompanied by copious footnotes as well as by Bourbourg’s two substantially different translations into French, one in the right-hand column parallel to the Nahuatl and the other following each brief section of the text. The first version, “celle qu’eût donnée tout scholiaste mexicain” (Avant-propos, p. IX), is “pseudo-historique” (p. 402); the second emphasizes the history of the “soulèvement géologique des petites Antilles, en particulier de la Guadeloupe... un récit entièrement d’accord avec les principes de la science moderne” (p. IX). The fourth “pièce justificative” consists of ”Chants anciens des Indiens des États-Unis (Extrait de l’ouvrage intitulé: The American nations, or Outlines of their general history, ancient and modern, etc., by C.S. Rafinesque, Philadelphia, 1836, first volume, pag. 122 et. suiv.)” (p. [435]-448). The extract, primarily in English, contains songs annexed to “some of the original Wallam-Olum (painted records) of the Linapi tribe of Wapaham or White River” which Rafinesque obtained from “the late Dr. Ward of Indiana”. The songs “form a kind of connected annals of the nation”. The English text includes numerous terms in Delaware, mostly historical and geographical proper names “with a literal translation word for word” (p. [435]). The two song series consist of 3 songs relating traditions prior to the tribe’s arrival in America and 7 songs relating events from their arrival in America through the arrival of European colonists.
A “Table des sommaires” (p. [449]-463) gives a detailed summary of each section of Bourbourg’s four “letters”.
To access digital facsimile copy of book, click here.
Languages: Delaware / Nahuatl / Quiché
Genre: Specimen / Vocabulary
Region: Spanish America
