Primitive papermaking; an account of a Mexican sojourn and of a voyage to the Pacific islands in search of information, implements, and specimens relating to the making & decorating of bark-paper, by Dard Hunter.

UUM_PRIM_Part II

PART I1~»THE MAKIN OF BARK-PAPER IN MEXICO AN JAVA AS THE CRAFT IS STILL PRACTICED, BUT WHERE I AFEW YEARS THE ART WILL PASS INTO DISUSE AND IT MEMORY BE PRESERVED ONLY IN MUSEUMS & LIBRARIE HE ancient inhabitants of Mexico inscribed their illustrated manuscripts or codicesupon the dressed skins o of variousplantsand trees. Thestripsof skinandof pape ‘were long and narrow, and were folded in the form of but several early Spanish writer have recorded the procedur in an indefinite manner, Lorenzode Bo general de la A e isat il et e e was termed metl, and in Spanish pita. They allowed the leaves to. d;:a and after becomin soft made from themm both thickand thi paer, whi ic was afterward polished so that it could be painted upon?'. Dieg Lope Cogolludo (Historia de Yucatan. Madrid 1688.) tells us that books wer ‘made from the bark of trees wit a white polis and tha ok wer {enand el yands long and) swhen lded, measured oy aspan Francisco Hernandez, wh wasin Mexicofrom 157 1515‘,wntzs(ml-n Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesauru seu Plantarum e ‘makingpaper. The amaquahuitlo paper-tree grew plentifullyin the mountains of this region, and he says that paper was us no!onyforwri(m hu(asann[(ermgted-mgods,[oxdecoranonof!hetemples nd palaces o7 persone ST e g haceiear S e ke Meéxicom atrtbuted ts Frfar Andrés de Oltnos,e favention and use paper among the tribes of Mexico dates from the earliest times of whic we have notice, for he says the Othomids, from the most remote periods LT Digital Imag © 2004 University of Utah. Al rights reserved