[47] The inquiries I have instituted about his MSS.
have not been successful.
Numerous texts of this description have been obtained from the Klamath
Indians by Mr. A.S. Gatschet, and from the Omaha by the Rev. J. Owen
Dorsey, both of which collections are in process of publication by the
Bureau of Ethnology at Washington. Scattered specimens of stories of
this kind have also been obtained by a number of travelers, and they are
always a welcome aid to the study both of the psychology and language of
a tribe.
Section 4. _Didactic Literature_.
The more civilized American tribes had made considerable advances in
some of the natural sciences, and in none more than in practical
astronomy. By close observation of the heavenly bodies they had
elaborated a complicated and remarkably exact system of chronology. They
had determined the length of the year with greater accuracy than the
white invaders; and the different cycles by which they computed time
allowed them to assign dates to occurrences many hundreds of years
anterior.
Although there are local differences, the calendars in use in Central
and Southern Mexico and in Central America were evidently derived from
one and the same original. A great deal has been written upon them, but
for all that many questions about them remain unanswered.
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