Most of the Aborigines of the Continent possessed a keen sense of
locality, and often a certain rude skill in cartography. The relative
position of spots and proportionate distances were approximately
represented by rough drawings. They knew the boundaries of their lands,
the courses of streams, the trend of shores, and could display them
intelligently. These maps, as they are called, present a very different
appearance from ours. Those of the Aztecs are rather pictured diagrams,
something like those we find in fifteenth century books of travel. A
fair specimen, though of date later than the Conquest, was published not
long since, in Madrid.[51]
The Maya maps are even more conventional. A central point is taken,
usually a town, around which is drawn either a circle or a square, on
the four sides of which are placed the figures of the four cardinal
points, and within the figures are the various symbols which denote the
villages, wells, ponds, and other objects which are to be designated.
Specimens of some of these, all after the Conquest, however, have been
published by Mr. Stephens and Canon Carrillo,[52] and others are found in
the various _Books of Chilan Balam_.
Very few strictly scholastic works seem to have been produced by the
natives.
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