Word: mayans
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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First Words. But what can earthlings say that their Extraterrestrial Neighbors will understand? Let's begin, said Hogben, by some small talk about numbers, whose properties do not vary from planet to planet. Most numerical systems (the Roman, Chinese, Mayan) grew out of simple tally marks. One mark stood for "one"; two marks for "two," etc. Probably the Neighbors passed through a similar stage in their early intellectual development and have records of it. So Hogben's first message into space would be an equation in simplified Roman numerals...
...invested $40 in a horse. After a day on horseback, he decided he preferred walking, sold the horse for $28. The second day he walked for 14 hours, changed his mind again. Eventually, after borrowing other mounts from a Maryknoll father and an American doing research work on the Mayan Indians, he arrived at the prearranged meeting point, Huehuetenango, ahead of the others...
Bill Long, born in New Florence, Mo., raised in Brownsville, Texas, learned to fly in World War I, barnstormed all over the Rio Grande Valley after war's end. While flying in & out of Mexico with oil company payrolls, he heard reports of Mayan treasure in an inaccessible jungle. Long later parachuted into the wilderness, barely managed to hack his Way back (emptyhanded) to civilization...