Excerpt from Geographical Society of California: Special Bulletin

Perhaps no question has so much perplexed the scientists of the past four hundred years as the vexed one of the origin of the Aztecs and the ancient and high civilization of Central America that confronted the Spanish conquerors on their arrival, and that up to the present period has received no satisfactory solution. It is therefore with great pleasure that this Society presents to the scientific world the following most valuable and scholarly paper of Mr. Johnston's which seems in a fair way to clear up the mystery which has so long shrouded this interesting region.

In order that this desirable result may be attained we invite the co-operation of the learned in this and other countries and shall be happy to receive communications either throwing light on the three absorbing topics embraced in this paper or inviting discussion on whatsoever points may appear doubtful, so that d'accord with Mr. Johnston we may be enabled to furnish such information as the vast fund of material which he has collected bearing on those topics can afford, and which he has hitherto abstained from utilizing in his work with a view to the attention of the reader not being diverted from the main issues by its length.

In the meantime we venture to make a few remarks which may possibly be of some assistance in arriving at a decision with regard to the correctness of Mr. Johnston's theory.

According to the traditions still existing amongst the Central Americans, and so much of the Aztec manuscript literature as escaped the destructive hands of the Spaniards and is to be found in the elaborate work of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, the earliest Amer ican civilization originated in Yucatan and the neighboring districts, a region which is amongst the most fertile in the New World. There, about 1000 B. O., Votan, the first of the American legislators, established himself, and Palenque, said to be the oldest city in Central America, was founded. He and his people evidently came from the West for it is stated that they found the whole coast from Darien to California occupied by a barbarous people, thus showing that their first discoveries were made on that, and not on the East side of the continent, at the same time that it will be apparent to any one acquainted with the geographical configuration of this region that this journey must have been undertaken in ships and not by land. Votan appears to have made four voyages to and from his original country and stated that in one of them he visited the dwelling of the thirteen serpents (benares) as also the ruins of an old building which had been erected, by menfor the purpose of reaching heaven. N ow these four voyages would seem to correspond to an equal number of the joint ones of the Jews and Phoenicians, which, according to the best historic infor mation, ceased with the death of Solomon - viz., in forty-five years, but at what period those of the Phoenicians, when undertaken alone, came to an end, it is impossible to determine with the limited knowledge at our disposal.

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