The twelfth canto finds Gilgamesh seeking to learn the secret of the future life. Eabani is raised from the dead and questioned, but can give no satisfactory answer. And thus the great epic ends.

Jastrow subjects the epic to discriminating study, points out the various elements of different ages historic and natural, popular and scholastic that enter into its composition, and compares it with Biblical and other fragments. It does not come within the purpose of this article to enter fully into these interesting subjects of discussion.

Parnapishtim is called Adra Khasis, "the very pious"; in its original form, it seems to have been Khasis-adra-in m is an emphatic termination, as Jastrow points out, thus doubling the emphasis. This latter epithet is distorted in the account of the Deluge, written in Greek by the Chaldean priest Berosos in the third century before Christ, and appears as Xisuthros.

According to this account, preserved by Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus, Kronos reveals to Xisuthros in a dream that on the fifteenth of the month Daesios all mankind would be destroyed by a flood. This Chaldean Noah was the tenth King of Babylon. He was commanded to bury the records of antiquity in Sippara, the city of the Sun, build a ship, take all birds and four-footed beasts, and enter the ship with his family and friends. He built the ship 9,000 feet long and 2,000 feet wide. The flood came, but seems to have been of brief duration. Xisuthros sent forth birds three times; the last time they did not return. He made an opening in the ship, and looking out found the earth dry again, and his boat stuck fast on a mountain. He disembarked with his wife, daughter, and helmsman, erected an altar, offered a sacrifice, and then, with those who disembarked with him, disappeared. Those who remained in the ship called him by name, and heard a voice from the skies exhorting them to live a godly life, and telling them that, on account of his piety, he had been taken away to the gods, and his family and helmsman had been admitted to the same honor. They were bidden to return to Babylon and dig up the buried records. Hearing this, they offered sacrifices, obeyed the directions of the heavenly voice, rebuilt Babylon, and founded cities and temples.

Père V. Scheil has recently discovered a new account of the Deluge. This interesting document is found on a fragment of a terra-cotta tablet that originally consisted of eight columns, four on a side. Fortunately the superscription remains. When any literary work required several tablets, the superscription of each repeated its title, which consisted of a few words of the beginning. The superscription of this tablet shows that it formed the tenth chapter of the story, "While the Men Rested," and quite distinct from the story preserved in the previously discovered versions that begin with the words, "They See a Source," and form its eleventh chapter. Ancient mythological and legendary pieces wrought into various literary compilations.

This tablet was found in Sippara, according to those from whom it was obtained, a city of ancient literary fame. This statement is partially confirmed by the name of the scribe, Ellit-Aya. Now Aya was the consort of Shamash, and Sippara was the principal seat of the worship of these divinities. The scribe was a scholar in one of the many schools that flourished in the city of the Sun-god. The tablet is carefully written. "The signs are a little worn, but legible. After each ten lines, Ellit-Aya has lightly marked the sign for ten in the margin of the column, and the total of the column at the foot, and finally the total number of lines at the end of the tablet, in all 439 lines." The tablet is dated "the 28th day of the month Sebat, in the year when King Ammizaduga built the fortress Ammizadugaki at the mouth of the Euphrates," approximately 2140 B. C.

When the ancient cuneiform scribe found the text that he was copying mutilated, he conscientiously indicated the fact by the word hibis," effaced." The use of this word in the tablet under consideration proves that it is a copy of a more ancient document. The date of the original must have been several centuries at least earlier than the copy. The main facts of this fragmentary account are: the punishment of man for sin; the flood as the instrument of this punishment; the ruin of city and land; the building of a ship for safety, and the intercession of a friendly god. The tablet furnishes the form of the name Khasis-Adram mentioned above.

It may be mentioned in this connection that Lenormant in his "Beginnings of History," traces traditions of a deluge among many peoples and tribes on all the continents and many of the islands in all parts of the world. This fact has not yet received adequate consideration.

I had intended to compare these several accounts with the relation in Genesis, but the space at my command forbids. I will only say that the many differences seem to me to consist in incidentals; in essentials there is agreement. The thorough exploration of "Ur of the Chaldees" and other early cities of Babylonia will doubtless bring to light other verses. Possibly the original written documents may yet be recovered.

MEXICAN PAPER

BY FREDERICK STARR.

In 1880, Dr. Ph. J. J. Valentini presented his important discussion upon Mexican paper before the American Antiquarian Society. The article is unfortunately but little known. After mentioning the enormous quantity of paper, paid as tribute to the Aztec Confederacy, Dr. Valentini investigates the materials from which the ancient Mexicans manufactured paper and the methods they employed. He quotes Petrus Martyr and Diego de Landa in regard to paper made from tree bark in the hot lands, and Gomara and Hernandez relative to paper made from the leaves of maguey in the plateau country. These authorities wrote shortly after the Conquest. Boturini, who came much later, does not refer to bark paper, but mentions that from the maguey, and also speaks of a paper made from palm leaves, samples of which in his possession, were "as smooth as silk." Clavijero, also a comparatively late author, speaks of silk and cotton as materials for paper-or, at least, as surfaces upon which paintings were made.

We cannot refer to any satisfactory ancient descriptions of Mexican paper making. Petrus Martyr never visited Mexico, and, while his account is interesting and his description of the paper itself is exact, his information as to its origin is at second hand. Still he plainly states that the paper he saw was made from the inner bark of a tree. Diego de Landa describes the Maya paper as made from "the roots of a tree." Valentini, reasonably it seems to us, explains this as referring probably to the buttressing swellings at the lower part of the rubber tree, Castiloa elastica, which he asserts is still called amatl (Az. paper) by the natives of Central America.

Boturini describes the making of paper from maguey, as follows:

The Indian paper was manufactured from the leaves of the maguey, which in the national language was called metl, and in Spanish pita. They threw them into water to rot and washed the fibre from them, which, when cleaned, they extended to make their paper thick or thin, which afterward they burnished for painting upon it.‡

Boturini probably never saw the manufacture of paper from maguey, but his account, derived from some unknown author or by tradition, is probably correct, so far as it goes. Regard

"Mexican Paper: an article of tribute; its manufacture, varieties, employment and uses." Worcester. Charles Hamilton; 1881; 89, pp. 22. +"Historia de Mexico " Ed. of 1881. Mexico. Vol 1., p. 273.

"Idea de Una Nueva Historia Generale." Ed. of 1871. Mexico. Page 326.

ing maguey paper we have a capital early authority in Motolinia. He says:

Good paper is made from m tl: the sheet is as large as two sheets of our, and they make nch of this in Tlaxcala, which goes through a great part of New Spain. There are other trees from which it is made in the hot lands, and of these they are accustomed to use a great quantity: t. e tree and the paper are cañe 1 amat!, and from this name they call letters and books and paper amate, although there is also a special name for book.*

Paper was still made from maguey in 1580 at Culhuacan, near the City of Mexico, as proved by the statement of Gallego in the ms. Relacion de Culhuacan. As a matter of curious and bibliographic interest, we may meation the fact that paper of ma,uey fibre has been lately made at the City of Mexico. In 1898, Dr. Nicolas Leon reprinted Maturino Gilberti's "Arte de la lengua Tarasca ó de Michoacan" (1558). One hundred copies were printed, in a sumptuous large quarto edition, on maguey fibre paper made expressly for the work.

But our special interest is not maguey paper. We have referred to it because Mr. Hough has lately thrown doubt upon the use of maguey paper by the old Mexicans. He begins his note with these words: "There seems to be a general im ression that the ancient Mexican codices were written on paper made from the bark of the maguey (agave species), as this statement appears in the works of all the writers who have mentioned the subject." This is a curious claim. Neither Gomara, Hernandez, Motolinia, Clavijero, Boturini, Lorenzana, Orozco y Berra, Chavero, Valentini, or Biart-and tl.ese are the only writers we have consulted in order to test Mr. Hough's claim-speak of the bark of the maguey as material for paper. As Mr. Hough goes on to state-the maguey has no bark. All these writers state, however, and there is no reason to question their statements that paper was made from the leaf (hoja or penca) of the maguey. There can be no question that two kinds of paper were made and used extensively by the ancient Mexicans-the maguey paper on the Plateau, the bark paper in the low country: the former would have been more common among the Aztecs, the latter, among the Mayas. We believe that Mr. Hough's conjecture that "the numerous ridged stone beaters and smoothers found in Mexico were used in making paper from bark," is entirely justified. They were, no doubt, also used in "extending," by beating, the maguey fibres. This use of such stones we suggested in our teaching prior to 1891.

In March, 1899, Señor Xochihua, ar educated and intelligent Indian at that time connected with the Jefetura at Tlalnepantla, state of Mexico, told us that bark paper is still beaten at San Gregorio, in the state of Hidalgo. In our last journey to Mexico we looked into the matter at c found it of consider

P 245

Motolinia "Historia de los Indios de Nueva Espana." Ed Icarbalceta Mexico, 180; +"Material of the Mexican Codices,” American Anthropologist, n s 1., pp. 78y-too

able interest. While we have already announced our results, we may be permitted to again present them here. We found that such paper is still made over a considerable area in the warm mountainous parts of the states of Hidalgo and Puebla. The region presents a curious condition ethnologically. Four tribes or peoples - Aztecs, Otomis, Tepehuas, Totonacs--are sandwiched in with one another in the strangest way. One village may be Otomi, the next Tepehua; or one may be Tepehua and the next Totonaco. Two little streams coming together at an acute angle may mark three tribal territories, one people living in the included space, and a different one on either side. Even in the same town two tribes may dwell side by side: thus Pantepec, state of Puebla, is a Totonaco town, with one section,

of perhaps thirty houses, Otomi. In Tlaxco, Puebla, the four peoples-Aztecs, Otomis, Tepehuas, Totonacs-live together. Throughout the region these peoples maintain their tribal distinctness; each retaining its own language and peculiarities of dress and customs.

So far as we know, the making of bark paper in this region is peculiar to the Otomis. Others who wish it, purchase it from them. We have certain knowledge of the manufacture at four towns-San Gregorio (Dist. Tenango, Hidalgo), Xalapa (Dist. Zacualtipan, Hidalgo), San Pablito (Municipio Pahuatlan,

"Notes upon the Ethnography of Southern Mexico," Proc. Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. Vol. viii, pp. 181-182.

+ See advertisement.