Latin American Mythology
By Hartley Burr Alexander

Index

CHAPTER V

CENTRAL AMERICA

I Quiche and Cakchiquel
II The Popul Vuh
III The Hero Brothers
IV The Annals of the Cakchiquel
V Honduras and Nicaragua

I. QUICHE AND CAKCHIQUEL

¹ BY some accident of history the most significant literary records of the Mayan peoples and, in their way, of any American stock are not preserved to us from the builders of the monumental cities, the Maya themselves, but from two closely related tribes belonging to the southernmost group of the Mayan race. The Quiche (frequently, Kiche) and the Cakchiquel (or Kakchiquel) dwelt in the mountains of Guatemala overlooking the Pacific, where, except for the Nahuatlan Pipil, to the east of them, their neighbours were other Mayan tribes the Tzental, the Mame, and their kindred to the west; the Pokonchi, the Kekchi, and others to the north; and the Chord to the east. It is in the lands of these groups, mountain valleys draining toward the Gulf and the Carribbean, that the ruins of the monumental cities chiefly lie. At the time of the Conquest their sites had long been abandoned, though it must not be supposed that the tribes occupying the land were savage. On the contrary, they lived in well-built, fortified towns, with fine residences for the chiefs and pyramid temples for the service of the gods; but the remains of the cities of the Conquest era have yielded no such wealth of art as has been revealed by the exploration of the homes of the ancestral Maya, nor do the traditions of the tribes who inhabited the region at the coming of the Spaniards throw any light upon the builders of the ancient cities which, indeed, they seem scarcely to have known. Rather, when the Quiche and their kindred entered the land, it appears to have been long deserted:

"Only rabbits and birds were here, they say, when they took possession of the hills and the plains, they, our fathers and ancestors from Tulan, O my children"

so runs the beginning of the Cakchiquel Annals. ² These Annals, like the Popul Vuh, or "Sacred Book," of the kindred Quiche, profess to give a migration-legend of the ancestors of the tribe and an account of the historic chiefs, but neither the one record nor the other runs to a remote period; both point to a comparatively recent entrance into an abandoned country, the date of which Brinton would set at less than two centuries anterior to the Conquest; nor is there any certain clue which would associate the Quiche-Cakchiquel histories with those of the contemporary Maya.

The relationship of the two centres of Mayan culture, Yucatec and Guatemalan, is, however, more than merely linguistic and racial. When the Maya of the later days of the Old Empire were pushing northward into the peninsula, exploring and establishing cities, others of their kindred were penetrating the mountains to the south, and the last town of the south to rise and fall (as shown by its dated monuments) was at Quen Santo in the Guatemalan province of Huehuetenango. Whether or not something of the old culture was transmitted through these groups or their descendants, whom, indeed, the Quiche and Cakchiquel may have been, identities of mythic reference make it certain that all Maya groups had some primitive community of experience. Moreover, the southern tribes clearly shared with the northern their literary and artistic bent. The story of the defeat of the Quiche, in the Cakchiquel Annals ³ tells how the latter slew "the son of the chief jeweller, the treasurer, the secretary, and the chief engraver" of the Quiche monarch officers whose very character gives the picture of an accomplished society; and it may well be assumed that the literary taste and historic feeling manifest in the Annals and the Popul Vuh are but evidences, literary rather than graphic in character, of the genius which marks the whole Mayan race. Brasseur de Bourbourg says ⁴ of the Popul Fuh that "it is composed in a Quiche of great elegance, and its author must have been one of the princes of the royal family," while of the Annals (which he names Memorial de Tecpan-Atitlan, and which was indeed, in greater part written by a noble, Don Francisco Ernandez Arana Xahila) he declares that "the style is varied and picturesque and frequently contains passages of high animation." The translations of both documents quite sustain these opinions of their literary excellence.

Las Casas, who was as familiar as any man with the general character of native American culture, and especially with that of Guatemala of which he was bishop, gives a general characterization of native learning in his chapter (Apologetica Historia, ccxxxv) on "the books and religious traditions of Guatemala." In the kingdoms and republics of New Spain, he says, "among other offices and officials, were those who acted as chroniclers and historians. They possessed knowledge of the origin of all things relative to religion and to the gods and their cult, as well as of the founders of their cities, of the beginnings of their kings and lords and seignories, of the manner of their election and succession, of how many and what lords and princes had passed away, of their works and actions and memorable deeds, good and bad, and of whatever they had governed well or ill; also, of their great men and good, and of strong and valorous captains, of the wars that they had made, and of how they had distinguished themselves. Moreover, of the first customs and the first comers, of how they had since changed for good or ill, and of all that pertains to history, in order that they might have understanding and remembrance of past events." Furthermore, he adds, these chroniclers kept count of the days, months, and years, and "although they had no writing similar to ours, nevertheless they had figures and characters representing all that they needed to designate, and, by means of these, great books of such clever and ingenious art that we may say that our letters were of no great advantage to them." The office of chronicler, it is added, was hereditary, or belonged to certain families.

After the Conquest many of the natives who had acquired the alphabet adapted it to their own tongue and recorded their histories in the new characters. Numbers of such books were known to the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century, and it is from these that the Popul Fuh and the Cakchiquel Annals have survived.

II. THE POPUL VUH

⁵ The Popul Vuh is the most striking and instructive of the myth-records of primitive America. Other legends are as comprehensive in scope, as varied in material, and as dramatic in form; but no other, in anything like the measure of this document, combines with these qualities the element of critical consciousness, giving the flavour of philosophic reflection which lifts the narrative from the level of mere tale-telling into that of literature. Something of this character is clearly due to the fact that it was written down after the introduction of Christianity by an author, or authors, professing the new faith; yet it is equally clear to a reader of our day that this is not the whole cause, that there is in the aboriginal material itself such an element of deliberate reflection as appears in the Aztec rituals recorded by Sahagun and in some of the Incaic fragments, though scarcely to be found elsewhere in the New World, at least in the myths as they have been preserved to us.

The work is divided into four parts, consciously literary in arrangement. The first recounts the creation of the earth and of the First Peoples, together with the conflicts of the Hero Brothers with Titan-like Earth-giants. The second part depicts the duel of the upper-world heroes with the nether-world demonic powers: an elder pair of Hero Brothers are defeated, later to be avenged by the younger Hero Brothers the slayers of the Earth-giants who overcome Death in his own lair and by his own wile. This incident of "the harrowing of Hell" belongs in mythic chronology to a cycle of events earlier in part than the gigantomachy, and it is obviously for dramatic reasons that the longest book of the Popul Fuh is devoted to it. With the third part the original narrative is resumed, narrating the creation of the ancestors of the present race of men and the rise of the Sun which now rules the world ; while the fourth and last part continues the tale, giving myths of cult origins, tribal wars, and finally records of historic rulers, thus satisfying the feeling for consecutiveness and completeness.

"Admirable is the account" so the narrative opens "admirable is the account of the time in which it came to pass that all was formed in heaven and upon earth, the quartering of their signs, their measure and alignment, and the establishment of parallels to the skies and upon the earth to the four quarters thereof, as was spoken by the Creator and Maker, the Mother, the Father of life and of all existence, that one by whom all move and breathe, father and sustainer of the peace of peoples, by whose wisdom was premeditated the excellence of all that doth exist in the heavens, upon the earth, in lake and sea.

"Lo, all was in suspense, all was calm and silent; all was motionless, all was quiet, and wide was the immensity of the skies.

"Lo, the first word and the first discourse. There was not yet a man, not an animal; there were no birds nor fish nor crayfish; there was no wood, no stone, no bog, no ravine, neither vegetation nor marsh; only the sky existed.

"The face of the earth was not yet to be seen; only the peaceful sea and the expanse of the heavens.

"Nothing was yet formed into a body; nothing was joined to another thing; naught held itself poised; there was not a rustle, not a sound beneath the sky. There was naught that stood upright; there were only the quiet waters of the sea, solitary within its bounds; for as yet naught existed.

"There were only immobility and silence in the darkness and in the night. Alone was the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, the Lord, and Gucumatz, the Plumed Serpent, those who engender, those who give being, alone upon the waters like a growing light.

PLATE XXIII: Ceremonial precinct or plaza, Quirigua. An altar and three stelae of the Old Empire Maya type are shown. Other monuments are still in situ on this site, among them the "Quirigua Dragon," Plate I (frontispiece). After photograph by Cornell, Lincoln.

"They are enveloped in green and azure, whence is the name Gucumatz, and their being is great wisdom. Lo, how the sky existeth, how the Heart of the Sky existeth for such is the name of God, as He doth name Himself !

" It is then that the word came to Tepeu and to Gucumatz, in the shadows and in the night, and spake with Tepeu and with Gucumatz. And they spake and consulted and meditated, and they joined their words and their counsels.

"Then light came while they consulted together; and at the moment of dawn man appeared while they planned concerning the production and increase of the groves and of the climbing vines, there in the shade and in the night, through that one who is the Heart of the Sky, whose name is Hurakan.

"The Lightning is the first sign of Hurakan; the second is the Streak of Lightning; the third is the Thunderbolt which striketh; and these three are the Heart of the Sky.

"Then they came to Tepeu, to Gucumatz, and held counsel touching civilized life: how seed should be formed, how light should be produced, how the sustainer and nourisher of all.

'"Let it be thus done. Let the waters retire and cease to obstruct, to the end that earth exist here, that it harden itself and show its surface, to the end that it be sown, and that the light of day shine in the heavens and upon the earth; for we shall receive neither glory nor honour from all that we have created and formed until human beings exist, endowed with sentience.' Thus they spake while the earth was formed by them. It is thus, veritably, that creation took place, and the earth existed. * Earth,' they said, and immediately it was formed.

"Like a fog or a cloud was its formation into the material state, when, like great lobsters, the mountains appeared upon the waters, and in an instant there were great mountains. Only by marvellous power could have been achieved this their resolution when the mountains and the valleys instantly appeared with groves of cypress and pine upon them.

"Then was Gucumatz filled with joy. 'Thou art welcome, O Heart of the Sky, O Hurakan, O Streak of Lightning, O Thunderbolt!'

"This that we have created and shaped will have its end,' they replied.

"And thus first were formed the earth, the mountains, and the plains; and the course of the waters was divided, the rivulets running serpentine among the mountains; it is thus that the waters existed when the great mountains were unveiled.

"Thus was accomplished the creation of the earth when it was formed by those who are the Heart of the Sky and the Heart of the Earth; for so those are called who first made fruitful the heaven and the earth while yet they were suspended in the midst of the waters. Such was its fecundation when they fecundated it while its fulfilment and its composition were meditated by them."

So runs the first chapter of the Quiche Genesis, displaying at the outset an odd intermingling, which characterizes the whole work, of the raw actuality of primitive imagination with the dramatic reflection of the mind of the sage.

The second act of the drama is the creation of denizens, or rather histrions, for the stage that is set; and the Quiche narrator, with remarkable ease, casts them in puppet mould, a back- ground of grandiosity serving still further to belittle the dolls which are the Creator's experiments. First, the animals are formed and assigned their dwellings and their habits: "Thou, Deer, shalt sleep on the borders of brooks and in the ravines; there shalt thou rest in the brushwood, amid forage; and there multiply; thou shalt go upon four feet, and upon four feet shalt thou live." This is the style in which the creatures of land and air and water are severally addressed. Nevertheless and here is the philosophic touch the animals could not speak, as man does; they had no language; they could only chatter and cluck and croak, each according to its kind. This is very far from the most primitive stratum of thought, where all animals are gifted with language.

"When the Creator and the Maker understood that they could not speak, they said one to another: 'They are unable to utter our name, although we are their makers and formers. This is not well.' And they spake to the animals: 'Our glory is not perfect in that ye do not invoke us; but there shall yet be those who can salute us and who will be capable of obedience. As for you, your flesh shall be broken under the tooth.'"

Seed-time was approaching, and dawn; and the divine beings said, "Let us make those who shall be our supporters and nourishers." Then they formed men out of moist earth, but these proved to be without cohesion or consistence or power of movement; they could not turn their heads; their sight was veiled; although they had speech, they had no intelligence; the waters destroyed them helplessly; and their makers saw that their handiwork was a failure. Now they consulted with Xpiyacoc and Xmucane (Mayan equivalents of Cipactonal and Oxomoco, like whom they were addressed as "Twice Grandmother," "Twice Grandsire"); while Hurakan of the Winds and He of the Sun were also called into the council. There they divined with kernels of maize and with red berries of the tzite; and when noon came they said : " O Maize, O Tzite, O Sun, O Creature, unite and join one another! And thou, O Heart of the Sky, redden that the countenance of Tepeu, of Gucumatz, be not made to lower!" Then they carved manikins of wood and caused them to live and to multiply and to engender sons and daughters who were also manikins, carved and wooden. But these had neither heart nor intelligence nor memory of their creators; they led a useless and animal existence; they were only experimental men; they had no blood, no substance, no flesh; and their faces and their limbs were dry and desiccated. They thought not of their Makers, nor did they lift their heads to them.

The gods, again disappointed, resolved upon the destruction of the manikin race and caused a heavy, resinous rain to descend day and night, darkening the face of the earth. Moreover, four great birds were sent to assail these creatures of wood: Xecotcovach snatched their eyes from their orbits; Camalotz attacked their heads, and Cotzbalam their flesh, while Tecumbalam broke their bones, and animals great and small turned against them.

"Ye have done ill to us," cried their dogs and their fowls; "now we shall bite you; in your turn ye shall be tormented."

Even the pots and cooking utensils arose in rebellion. The metates said: "We were tortured by you; daily, daily, night and day, always it was holi, holi, huqui, huqui, grinding our surfaces because of you. This we have suffered from you; now that ye have ceased to be men, ye shall feel our power; we shall grind you and reduce your flesh to powder;" and the bowls and pots followed with similar threats and imprecations. The victims ran everywhere in desperate efforts to escape: they ascended to the roofs of their houses, but the houses collapsed; they wished to climb the trees, but the trees drew away from them; they sought to enter the caverns, but these closed against them. All were destroyed, and there remained of their descendants only the little monkeys that live in the trees, which is token that "of wood alone their flesh was formed by the Creator and Maker."

After the destruction of the manikins is narrated, the Popul Vuh digresses to recount the deeds of the Hero Brothers, Hunahpu and Xbalanque; and it is only in the third part of the work that the tale of creation is resumed, the beginnings of the present "Sun" of the world being its theme.

Once more the demiurgic gods meditated the creation of man, and once more they gathered for counsel in the cosmic dusk, for though the dawn was near, the world was not yet illuminated. It was then that they heard of the white and the yellow maize in the Place of the Division of the Waters; and it was decided that from these should be made the blood and the flesh of man. "Then they began to grind the white maize and the yellow, while Xumucane concocted nine broths; and this nourishment entering in, generated strength and power, giving flesh and muscles to man. . . . Only yellow maize and white entered into their flesh, and these were the sole substance of the legs and arms of man; thus were formed our first fathers, the four brothers, who were formed of it," whose names were Balam-Quitze, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam.

"Men they were; they spake and they reasoned; they saw and they understood; they moved and they had feeling; men perfect and fair, whose features were human features."

These beings, however, were too highly endowed; they lifted up their eyes, and their gaze embraced all; they knew all things; nothing in heaven or earth was concealed from them. The Maker asked: "Is not your being good? Do ye not see? Do ye not understand? Your speech and your movement, are they not admirable? Look up, are there not mountains and plains under the sky?" Then the created ones rendered thanks to their Creator, saying: "Truly, thou gavest us every motion and accomplishment! We have received existence, we have received a mouth, a face; we speak, we understand, we think, we walk; we perceive and we know equally well what is far and what is near; we see all things, great and small, in heaven and upon the earth. Thanks be to you who have created us, O Maker, O Former!" But the Makers were not pleased to hear this. "This is not well! Their nature will not be that of simple creatures; they will be as gods. . . . Would they perchance rival us who have made them, whose wisdom extendeth far and knoweth all things?" Thus spoke Hurakan, and Tepeu, and Gucumatz, and the divine pair Xpiyacoc and Xmucane. Then the Heart of the Sky breathed a cloud upon the eyes of the four men, veiling itself so that it appeared like a mirror covered with vapour; and their vision was obscured, so that they could clearly see only what was near them. Thus their knowledge and their wisdom were reduced to mortal proportions; and being caused to slumber, during their sleep four beautiful women were brought to be their wives, so that when they awoke, they were filled with joy of their espousals.

The generations of humanity increased, men living together in joy and peace. They had but a single language and they prayed neither to wood nor to stone, but only to the Maker and Former, Heart of the Sky and Heart of the Earth, their prayer being for children and for light, for the sun had not yet risen. As time passed and no sun appeared, men became disquieted, so that the four brothers set forth for Tulan-Zuiva, the Place of Seven Caves and Seven Ravines, where they received their gods, a deity for each clan, Tohil being the divinity of Balam-Quitze, Avilix of Balam-Agab, Hacavitz of Mahucutah, and Nicahtagah of Iqi-Balam. Tohil's first gift was fire, and when rains extinguished the first flame, he kindled it anew by striking upon his foot-gear, whereupon men of other tribes, their teeth chattering with cold, came to the brothers praying for a little of their fire. "They were not well received, and their hearts were filled with sadness," is the rather brutal comment; but the motive turns out to be yet more brutal, for as a price of fire Tohil demanded that these strangers "embrace me, Tohil, under the armpit and under the girdle," a euphemism which can refer only to the customary form of human sacrifice.

Even yet the sun had not appeared, and the race of man was saddened by the delay. They fasted and performed expiations, keeping continual watch for the Morning Star, which should herald the first sunrise. Finally in despair they resumed their migration: "Alas!" they said, "here we shall never behold the dawn at the moment when the sun is born to lighten the face of the earth!" The journey led through many lands until finally they came to the mountain of Hacavitz, where the brothers burned incense which they had brought from "the place of sunrise" and where they watched the Morning Star ascend with waxing splendour on the dawn of the rising sun. As the orb appeared, the animals, great and small, were filled with joy, while all the nations prostrated themselves in adoration. The new sun did not burn with the heat of the sun of today, but was like a pale reflection of ours; nevertheless it dried the dank earth and made it habitable. Moreover, the great beast-gods of the first days lion, tiger, and noxious viper together with the gods Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz, were changed into stone as the sun appeared "their arms cramped like the branches of trees . . . and in all parts they became stone. Perhaps we should not be in life at this moment because of the voracity of the lions, the tigers, the vipers, the qantis, and the White Fire-Maker of the Night; perchance our glory would not now exist had not the first animals been petrified by the sun."

Nevertheless sorrow mingled with joy, for though the ancestors of the Quiche had found their mountain home, illumined by the sun, the moon, and the stars, they remembered their kindred left behind; and even when they sang the song Ka-mucu ("We behold"), the anguish in their hearts came also to expression. "Alas! we were ruined in Tollan; we were parted from our brethren, who still remain behind! True, indeed, we have beheld the Sun, but they, where now are they, when at last the day hath come?" Years afterward, when the Quiche had become great under the leadership of the four heroes, the brothers foresaw the day of their death drawing near; and again, with dolour of soul, they sang the song Kamucu, bidding farewell to their wives and their sons, and saying: "We return to our people; even now the King of the Deer riseth into the sky. Lo, we make our return; our task is performed; our days are complete." Thereupon they disappeared, vanishing without trace, excepting that in their place was left a sacred bundle which was never to be opened and which was called "Majesty Enveloped."

III. THE HERO BROTHERS

The deeds of the Hero Brothers in the Popul Fuh take place in an epoch of the world previous to the rise of the present Sun. Apparently they fall in an Age of Giants just succeeding the destruction of the manikins, for the narrative proceeds from the tale of the annihilation of these beings to the overthrow, by the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, of the Earth Titans, stating that the events occurred in the days of the inundation. Vukub-Cakix was the first of the Giants, and his sin was the sin of hybris, for he boasted:

"I shall be yet again above all created beings; I am their sun, I am their dawn, I am their moon. Great is my splendour; I am he by whom men move. Of silver are the balls of my eyes, gleaming like precious stones; and the whiteness of my teeth is like the face of the sky. My nostrils shine afar like the moon; of silver is my throne, and the earth liveth when I step forth from it. I am the sun, I am the moon, the bringer of felicity. So be it, for my gaze reacheth afar!"

This is obviously a hymn to the sun; and it is possible that it refers to a mythic "Sun of Giants," although the narrator clearly takes it in another sense : " In reality his sight ended where it fell, and his gaze did not embrace the entire world." It was, in fact, because of his riches (metals and precious stones) that Vukub-Cakix thought to emulate the sun and the moon.

It was for their pride and arrogance that Vukub-Cakix and his sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan, were successively overcome and destroyed by the hero brothers. "Attention, it is I who am the sun," cried Vukub-Cakix; "it is I who move the earth," said Zipacna; "and it is I that shake the sky and overturn the the whole earth," quoth Cabrakan. Indeed, such was their strength that they could move mountains, great and small, at will; and since such orgulous Titans could be overcome only by craft, even with demi-gods for their adversaries, it was by craft that Hunahpu and Xbalanque conquered them.

Vukub-Cakix possessed a tree the fruit of which was his food, and the twins, concealing themselves in its branches, shot the giant in the cheek with a poisoned arrow when he came for his meal, though they did not escape uninjured, for he tore away one of Hunahpu's arms. The monster went home, roaring with pain, and the two plotters, disguising themselves as physicians, came offering to cure his malady and saying: "You suffer from a worm but you can be cured if your jaw is altered by removing the bad teeth." "It is by my teeth alone that I am king; all my beauty comes from my teeth and the balls of mine eyes." "We will put others in their place," they said; and so they substituted teeth of maize for the emerald teeth of the giant and flayed the splendour from his eyes. The splendour faded from him; he ceased to appear like a king; and soon he died, while Hunahpu recovered his arm, which Chimalmat, the wife of Vukub-Cakix, was basting on a spit; and the twins turned away in triumph. Zipacna was the next victim. First, the brothers conspired with four hundred youths (doubtless the same as the "Four Hundred Southerners" of the Huitzilopochtli myth) to lure Zipacna into a pitfall, where they tried to destroy him by hurling huge trees upon him; and when all was quiet, the plotters erected a house on the spot, making merry with drink and celebrating their triumph. But the giant was only craftily biding his time, and, rising suddenly, he cast house and revellers high into the heavens, where the four hundred became stars and constellations. The twins then decided upon another decoy. Since the food of Zipacna was sea-food, especially crabs, they modelled a great crab, and painting it cunningly they put it into a deep ravine. Encountering the giant on his food search, they pointed out this fine crab; he leaped after it, and they wiser by experience hurled mountains upon him, thus imprisoning him, though so desperate were his struggles for freedom that they turned him into stone to quiet him. The third giant, Cabrakan, was also made the victim of his own gluttony and pride. The brothers challenged him to shift a certain mountain, for he boasted that he could remove the greatest; but as he was preparing to show his strength, they suggested that he first partake of food, and shooting a bird, they cooked it for him, taking care to poison it in the process. The giant devoured the bird the more greedily in that it was his first taste of cooked meat; but immediately his strength began to fail, and his eyes to dim; and while the brothers twittingly urged him to make good his boasts, he sank to earth dead.

The great adventure of the heroic twins, however, was their triumph over the Lords of Death, and to this the second part of the Popul Vuh is devoted. The tale begins with the story of an earlier pair of Hero Brothers, Hunhun-Ahpu and VukubAhpu, sons of Xpiyacoc and Xmucane. Hunhun-Ahpu, in turn, was father of Hunbatz and Hunchouen, two youths who seem to be little more than foils for the hero twins later to be born; although they are described as wise in all the arts, as players of the flute, singers, blow-gun shooters, painters, sculptors, jewel-workers, and smiths.

Hunhun-Ahpu and his brother, Vukub-Ahpu, being devoted to tlachtli, exercised themselves at this sport every day. As they played, they journeyed toward Xibalba, the underworld, whose lords, Hun-Came and Vukub-Came, also were clever at the ball game. Therefore, thinking to trap the upperworld champions, they of the nether realm sent them a challenge four owls were their messengers to meet in an underworld match; and the brothers accepting the challenge, set out for Xibalba. Passing down a steep descent, they soon crossed a river in a deep gorge, next a boiling river, and then a river of blood, after which, beyond a fourth river, they came to cross-roads, red, black, white, and yellow. The guardian of the black road said: "I am the way to the king" ; but it led them to a place where two wooden images were seated. These the brothers saluted; and receiving no response except the ribald laughter of the Xibalbans, the heroes knew that they had been made butts of ridicule. The brothers angrily issued their challenge, and the Xibalbans invited them to seats on the throne of honour; but this proved to be a heated stone, and when they burned themselves, the princes of Xibalba could scarcely contain their merriment. The brothers were then given torches and conducted to the House of Gloom, with injunctions to keep the lights undiminished until the dawn; but the torches were speedily consumed, and when, next day, they were brought before Hun-Came and Vukub-Came who demanded the lights, they could only reply, "They are consumed, Lords." Thereupon, at the command of the underworld-gods, the brothers were sacrificed, and their bodies were buried; only, the head of Hunhun-Ahpu was placed in a fruit-tree, where it was immediately transformed so as to be indistinguishable from the gourd-like fruits which the tree bore.

The Xibalbans were prohibited from approaching this tree, but a certain maiden, Xquiq ("Princess Blood"), having heard of it, said to herself: "Why should I not go to see this tree; in sooth, its fruits should be sweet, according to what I hear said of it." She approached the tree in admiration: "Are such the fruits of this tree? And should I die were I to pluck one?" Then the head in the midst said: "Do you indeed desire it? These round lumps among the branches of the tree are only death's-heads!" Nevertheless, Xquiq was insistent, whereupon Hunhun-Ahpu's head demanded that she stretch forth her hand, and, by a violent effort, he spat into it, saying: "This saliva and foam which I give thee is my posterity. Behold, my head will cease to speak, for it is only a death's-head, with no longer any flesh. So it is also with the head of even the greatest of princes; for it is the flesh alone that adorneth the visage, whence cometh the horror which besetteth men at the moment of death." He then directed the maiden to flee to the upper world, knowing that she would be pursued by the underworld powers; and these, indeed, when they heard that Xquiq was enceinte, demanded that she be sacrificed, sending Owl-Men to execute their doom. But the princess beguiled the Owls, inducing them to substitute for her heart the coagulated sap of the bloodwort, the odour of which they took to be the scent of blood, while she herself fled to the protection of the mother of Hunbatz and Hunchouen. The latter demanded proof that the new comer was indeed her daughter-in-law and sent Xquiq into the field for maize. There was but one hill in the field, whereupon the maiden appealed for aid to the gods, by whose miraculous help she was enabled to gather a full burden without disturbing the single hill. This miracle satisfied the mother-in-law; who said: "It is a sign that thou art indeed my daughter-in-law, and that those whom thou dost carry will be wise"; and shortly after this, Xquiq gave birth to the twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

The new comers were welcomed by all excepting Hunbatz and Hunchouen, who regarded their half-brothers as rivals and plotted their death; but Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who from birth had shown their prowess as magicians, transformed the two flute-players into monkeys, condemning them to live in the trees. Hunbatz and Hunchouen, says the chronicler, "were invoked by musicians and singers aforetime, and also by painters and sculptors; but they were changed into beasts and became monkeys because of their pride and their maltreatment of their brothers." It is probable that the two were monkey-form gods of the arts, though it is also possible that the transformation is associated with that of the primeval age which ended with the metamorphosis of men into monkeys.

The next episode in the career of the two youths was the clearing of a field by means of magic tools which felled trees and dug the soil while their owners amused themselves at the chase; but at night the animals restored the vegetation. Accordingly the brothers concealed themselves to watch for the undoers of their work; and when by night the lion (puma) and the tiger (jaguar), the hare and the opossum, the deer, the coyote, the porcupine, and the peccary, together with the birds, appeared and called to the felled trees to raise themselves, the brothers attempted to trap them. They succeeded only in seizing the tails of the deer and the rabbit (which, of course, explains the present decurtate state of these animals), but finally they captured the rat, which, to save its life, revealed to them the hiding-place of the rings and gloves and rubber ball with which their fathers had played tlachtli, and which their grandmother had concealed from them lest they, too, become lost through the fatal lure of the game. By a ruse the twins succeeded in getting possession of the apparatus, and like their fathers became passionately devoted to the sport.

When the Lords of Xibalba learned of this, they said: "Who, then, are these that begin again to play above our heads, shaking the earth without fear? Are not Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hunahpu dead, who wished to exalt themselves before us?" Forthwith they dispatched a challenge to the new champions which the twins accepted; but before they departed for the underworld, each planted a reed in the house of their grandmother, saying that if any ill befell either of them, his reed would wither and die. They passed the underworld rivers, and coming to the four roads (here named black, white, red, and green), they set out upon the black path, though they took the precaution to send in advance an animal called Xan, with instructions to prick the leg of each lord in the realm below. The first two throned beings made no response, being manikins of wood; but the third uttered a cry, and his neighbour said: "What is it, Hun-Came? What has pricked you? " The same thing happened to Vukub-Came, Xiqiripat, Ahalpuh, Cuchumaquiq, Chamiabak, Ahalcana, Chamiaholom, Patan, Quiqxic, Quiqrixgag, and Quiqre (for such were the names of these princes): "it is thus that they revealed themselves, calling one another by name," each in turn. When the hero twins came, refusing to salute the wooden men, they addressed the Lords of Xibalba each by his title, much to the chagrin of these; and, further, they declined a place on the heated stone, saying, "It is not our seat."

In succeeding episodes Hunahpu and Xbalanque underwent the ordeals of the houses of the underworld. The House of Gloom was first; but the twins substituted red paint for the fire on the torches given them and thus preserved these undiminished. "Whence indeed, are you come?" cried the astonished Xibalbans; "who are you?" "Who can say whence we are," they answered; "we ourselves do not know." So they refused to reveal themselves and in the game of ball which followed they altogether defeated the Xibalbans; but since this only augmented the desire of the latter for the lives of the pair, the underworld lords demanded of the two heroes that they bring them four vases of flowers. Accordingly they sent the youths under guard to the House of Lances; but the brothers overcame the demons of this abode by promising them, the flesh of all animals, while at the same time they persuaded the ants to bring the needed flowers from the gardens of Hun-Came and Vukub-Came. Having failed with this test, the Xibalbans then dispatched their guests to the House of Cold, which they survived by kindling pine-knots. The next trial was the House of Tigers, but its ferocious denizens were diverted by bones which the brothers cast to them. The House of Fire was also harmless to them; but in the sixth, the House of Bats, or House of Camazotz, as its lord was called, they met their first discomfiture. All night the heroes lay prone, longing for the dawn; but at last Hunahpu for a moment raised his head, which was instantly shorn off by the vigilant Camazotz. Xbalanque, in desperation, summoned the animals to his assistance; and the turtle, chancing to touch the bleeding neck of Hunahpu and becoming attached to it, was transformed into a head with the magic aid of the animals. The real head the Lords of Xibalba had suspended in the ball court, where they were reviling it when Xbalanque and Hunahpu, with his turtle's head, appeared for the last round at the game; and with the assistance of the animals Xbalanque succeeded in winning the victory once more, and recovering Hunahpu's head, he restored it in place of the turtle's.

Having now met the ordeals set by the Xibalbans, the brothers undertook to show their own prowess, and, first of all, their contempt of death. Anticipating the action of the Lords of Xibalba in condemning them to death, they sought the counsel of two magicians, Xulu and Pacam, with whom they arranged for their resurrection; after which, sentenced to be burned, they mounted the funeral pyre and met their death, whereat all the Xibalbans were filled with joy, crying, "We have triumphed, indeed; and none too soon!" The bones, ground to powder at the advice of the two magicians, were cast upon the underworld waters; wherein on the fifth day two fish-men were to be seen, while the next day a pair of wretched beggars, poor and miserable, appeared among the Xibalbans. These beggars, however, were wonder-workers: they burned houses and immediately restored them; they even sacrificed and then resuscitated one another. Their fame soon reached the ears of Hun-Came and Vukub-Came, and when the mendicant-magicians were brought before these lords, they were implored by the Xibalban kings to perform their miracles. Thereupon the beggars began their "dances": they killed and revivified the dog of the underworld princes; they burned and restored the royal palace; they sacrificed and brought to life a man each deed at the command of Hun-Came and Vukub-Came. Finally, overcome with excitement, the Lords of Xibalba cried, "Do likewise with us; immolate us also!" "Can death exist for you?" asked the beggars ironically. "Nevertheless, it is your right that we amuse you." But when they had sacrificed Hun-Came and Vukub-Came, they restored them no more to life. "Then fled all the princes of Xibalba, seeing their kings dead, and their bodies laid open; but in a moment they themselves were sacrificed, two by two, a chastisement which was their due." A single prince escaped, begging for pity, while the host of their vassals prostrated themselves before their conquerors.

Then the heroes revealed themselves, disclosing their names and the names of their fathers, saying, "We are the avengers of the sufferings of our sires; harken, now to your doom, ye of Xibalba! Since your fame and your power are no more, and ye merit no clemency, your race shall have little rule, and never again shall ye play the Game of Ball. Yours it shall be to make objects of burnt clay, pots and pans, and maize-grinders; and the animals that live in the brushwood and in solitude shall be your share. All the happy, all the cultivated, shall cease to be yours; the bees alone will continue to reproduce before your eyes. Ye, perverse, cruel, sad, wretched, who have done ill, now lament it!" Thus were degraded those who had been of bad faith, hypocritical, tyrannical; thus their power was ruined.

Meanwhile, in the upper world, the grandmother of the twins watching the two reeds, had mourned and rejoiced in turn, twice seeing them wither and twice revive. " The Living Reeds, the Level Earth, the Centre of the House, shall be the names of this place," she said. The twins talked with the heads of their father and uncle, paying them funeral honours and elevating them to the sky, the one to become the sun, the other the moon; and they raised up also the four hundred youths buried by Zipacna, to become stars in heaven, saying: "Henceforth ye shall be invoked by civilized peoples; ye shall be adored; and your names shall not perish."

Such, in its general character, is the mythic portion of the Popul Vuk. It is built up of elements found far and wide in North America and it reflects ideas practically universal among the civilized Nahuatlan and Mayan tribes; but it possesses one great distinction that of presenting these concepts with an imaginative intensity unmatched by any other version, a quality which in some measure argues that the whole cycle is original with the Mayan stock. The myth certainly gives a broad view of the south Mayan pantheons; and most of the elements in the proper names which can be interpreted are indicative of the cosmic nature of the personalities. According to Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hun signifies "one," Vukub is the word for "seven"; Hunahpu is "One Blowgun-Shooter," and it is quite likely that the blowgun was associated with celestial phenomena, as the game of tlachtli certainly is; Hun-batz is "One Monkey"; Hun-Came is "One Dead," and so on. Vukub-Cakix ("Seven Macaws"), Vukub-Hunahpu ("Seven One-Blowgun-Shooter"), and Vukub-Came ("Seven Dead") are clearly corresponding, or complementary, cosmic powers. The Abbe believes that Hurakan (from which comes our word "hurricane") and Cabrakan ("Earthquake") are deities imported from the Antilles. Camazotz ("Ruler of Bats," Brasseur; "Death Bat," Seler) is clearly the Elder of the Bats the bat-god known to have been a dread and potent deity among the Maya, and, as the vampire, feared and propitiated far into South America. ⁶ Balam means "tiger" that is, the jaguar, which, perhaps because of its spots, is symbol of the star-studded night and of the west. The four Quiche ancestors are clearly cosmic deities Balam-Quitze ("Smiling Tiger") perhaps of the east; Balam-Agab ("Night Tiger") of the west; Iqi-Balam ("Moon Tiger"); and Mahucatah ("Renowned Name," an epithet, in the Abbe's opinion). The Hero Brothers are, of course, familiar figures everywhere in American myth.

IV. THE ANNALS OF THE CAKCHIQUEL

⁷ The Cakchiquel Annals do not, like the Popul Vuh form a work of primarily literary or historical intent, but are, both in form and in content, part of a brief, the purpose of which is to establish certain territorial rights of members of the family of Xahila, thus falling into the class of native titulos, written in Spanish, several of which have been published. From its nature the composition has not, therefore, the dramatic character of a mythic narrative; nevertheless its very purpose, as founding a title to lands anciently held, leads to the effort to establish this by the right of first occupation, and hence to stories of the first comers. That such accounts are reproduced more or less exactly from mythic narratives there can be no manner of doubt, internal traits showing near affinity with the tales of the Popul Vuk and kindred cycles.

The narrative begins with a record of "the sayings of our earliest fathers and ancestors, Gagavitz the name of one, Zactecauh the name of the other ... as we came from the other side of the sea, from the land of Tulan, where we were brought forth and begotten . . .

"These are the very words which Gagavitz and Zactecauh spake : ' Four men came from Tulan ; one Tulan is at the sunrise, and one is at Xibalbay, and one is at the sunset; and we came from this one at the sunset; and one is where is God. Therefore there are four Tulans, they say, our sons; from the sunset we came; from Tulan from beyond the sea; and it was at Tulan that, arriving, we were brought forth; coming, we were produced, as they say, by our fathers and our mothers.

"'And now the Obsidian Stone is brought forth by the precious Xibalbay, the glorious Xibalbay; and man is made by the Maker, the Creator. The Obsidian Stone was his sustainer when man was made in misery and when man was formed; he was fed with wood, he was fed with leaves; he wished only the earth; he could not speak, he could not walk; he had no blood, he had no flesh; so say our fathers, our ancestors, O ye my sons. Nothing was found to feed him; at length something was found to feed him. Two brutes knew that there was food in the place called Paxil, where these creatures were, the Coyote and the Crow by name. Even in the refuse of maize it was found when the creature Coyote was killed as he was separating his maize and was searching for bread to knead, killed by the creature named Tiuh Tiuh; and from within the sea, by means of Tiuh Tiuh, was brought the blood of the serpent and of the tapir with which the maize was to be kneaded; the flesh of man was formed of it by the Maker, the Creator; and well did they, the Maker and the Creator, know him who was born, him who was begotten; they made man as he was made, they formed man as they made him; so they tell.

There were thirteen men, fourteen women; they talked, they walked; they had blood, they had flesh. They married, and one had two wives. They brought forth daughters, they brought forth sons, those first men. Thus men were made, and thus the Obsidian Stone was made, for the enclosure of Tulan; thus we came to where the Zotzils were at the gates of Tulan; arriving, we were born; coming, we were produced; coming, we gave the tribute in the darkness, in the night, O our sons.' Thus spake Gagavitz and Zactecauh, O my sons; and what they said hath not been forgotten. They are our great ancestors; these are the words with which they encouraged us of old."

These extracts indicate the style of the Annals, full of repetition and almost without relational expressions, but now and again lighted with passages of extraordinary vividness. The Obsidian Stone, Chay Abah, represented an important civic fetish or oracular talisman, if we may credit the description of Iximche, the Cakchiquel capital, transmitted by Fuentes y Guzman and quoted by Brinton. ⁸ On the summit of a small hill overlooking the town so goes the account "is a circular wall, not unlike the curb of a well, about a full fathom in height. The floor within is paved with cement, as the city streets. In the centre is placed a socle or pedestal of a glittering substance, like glass, but of what composition is not known. This circular structure was the tribunal or consistory of the Cakchiquel Indians, where not only was public hearing given to causes, but also the sentences were carried out. Seated around this wall, the judges heard the pleas and pronounced the sentences, in both civil and criminal cases. After this public decision, however, there remained an appeal for its revocation or confirmation.

Three messengers were chosen as deputies of the judges, and these went forth from the tribunal to a deep ravine, north of the palace, to a small but neatly fitted-up chapel or temple, where was located the oracle of the demon. This was a black and semi-transparent stone, of a finer grade than that called chay (obsidian). In its transparency, the demon revealed to them what should be their final decision." This passage is not the only indication of the employment of divination by crystal gazing in primitive America; and it is even possible that the translucent green stones so widely valued were primarily sacred because of divinatory properties. Not all sacred stones were of the emerald hue, however; for in the Cakchiquel narrative one of the deeds of Gagavitz is the ascent of a volcano where, it is said, he conquered the fire, bringing it captive in the form of a stone called Gak Chog, which, the chronicler is at pains to state, is not a green stone.

The mythic affinities of the Cakchiquel narrative are already apparent in the passages quoted. The city of Tulan (frequently "Tullan" in the text) is clearly become a name for certain cosmic stations, namely the houses of sunrise, sunset, zenith ("where is God"), and nadir (Tulan of Xibalbay, the under-world). The successive creations of men, experimental men first, and finally maize-formed men, is certainly the same' myth as that of the Popul Vuh^ which is briefly described also by Las Casas and which is probably intimately associated with a cult of the maize-gods. "If one looks closely at these Indians," says an early writer quoted by Brinton,⁹ (manuscript known as the Cronica Franciscana), "he will find that everything they do and say has something to do with maize. A little more, and they would make a god of it. There is so much conjuring and fussing about their corn fields, that for them they will forget wives and children and any other pleasure, as if the only end and aim of life was to secure a crop of corn."

There are numerous mythic incidents in the continuation of the narrative after the creation. At Tulan the peoples were divided into seven tribes, and it was from Tulan that, with idols of wood and of stone, they set out at the oracular command of the Obsidian Stone. The auguries were mostly evil:

"A bird called 'the guard of the ravine' began to complain within the gate of Tulan, as we were going forth from Tulan. 'Ye shall die, ye shall be lost, I am your portent,' the creature said to us. 'Do ye not believe me? Truly your state shall be a sad one.' ':

The owl prophesied similar disaster, and another bird, the parroquet, "complained in the sky and said, 'I am your portent; ye shall die.' But we said to the creature, 'Speak not thus; thou art but the sign of spring. Thou wailest first when it is spring; when the rain ceaseth, thou wailest." ¹⁰ They arrived at the sea-coast, and there a great number perished while they awaited a means of crossing, which finally came when "a red tree, our staff, which we had taken in passing from the gate of Tulan," was thrust into the sands, whereupon the waters divided, and all passed over. Then it was that Gagavitz and Zactecauh were elected leaders; and next they fought with the people of Nonoualcat and Zuyva, but though at first successful in the fight, they were eventually defeated:

"Truly, it was fearful there among the houses; truly, the noise was great, the dust was oppressive; fighting was going on in the houses, fighting with the dogs, the wasps, fighting with all. One attack, two attacks we made, and we ourselves were routed; as truly as they were in the air, they were in the earth; they ascended and they descended, everywhere against us; and thus they showed their magic and their sorcery." After this defeat, the various tribes received the gods which were to be their pro- tectors.

"When we asked each other where our salvation was, it was said to us by the Quiche men: 'As it thundered and resounded in the sky, truly the sky must be our salvation'; so they said, and therefore the name Tohohil was given them." The Zotzil received Cakix, the macaw, as their deity; and the Cakchiquel said: '"Truly, in the middle of the valley lieth our salvation, entering there into the earth.'

Therefore the name Chitagah was given. Another, who said salvation was in the water, was called Gucumatz"; and so on, down the roll. The tribes then set forth and encounter "the spirit of the forest, the fire called Zakiqoxol," who kills many men. "Who are these boys whom we see?" says the spirit (who, it seems, is a giant) ; and Gagavitz and Zactecauh replied: "Let us see what kind of a hideous mole thou art? Who art thou? We shall kill thee. Why is it that thou guardest the road here?" "Do not kill me; I, who am here, I am the heart of the forest," and he asked for clothing. "They shall give to thee wherewith to clothe thyself," they answered; and "then they gave him wherewith to clothe himself, a change of garment, his blood-red cuirass, his blood-red shoes, the dying raiment of Zakiqoxol."

The narrative continues with episodes that may be historical. There are encounters, friendly and militant, with various tribes; Zactecauh is killed by falling down a ravine; the wanderers are delayed a year by the volcano which Gagavitz conquers; a certain being named Tolgom, son of "the Mud that Quivers," is captured and offered by the arrow sacrifice, this being the beginning of an annual festival at which children were similarly slain; and afterward the people come to the place where their dawn is to be and there they behold the sunrise. The warriors took wives from neighbouring tribes and " then also they began to adore the Demon. ... It is said that the worship of the Demon increased with the face of our prosperity." To Gagavitz were born two sons, Caynoh and Caybatz, who were to be his successors; and "at that time King Gagavitz died, the same who came from Tulan; his children, our ancestors, Caynoh and Caybatz, were still very young when their father died. They buried him in the same place where their dawn appeared, in Paroxene."

Here the mythical part of the Annals ends. Caynoh and Caybatz may be a pair of heroes like Hunahpu and Xbalanque, as some authorities deem; but the situation in which they are presented, subjects of a Quiche King, Tepeuh, indicates an historical situation, finally reversed, as the narrative later shows, in sanguinary wars in which the Cakchiquel threw off the Quiche yoke. And here, as elsewhere in the New World, the coming Spaniard was enabled to profit by local dissensions; for Alvarado, whose entrance into Iximche is described as by an eyewitness, first allied himself with the Cakchiquel for the destruction of their neighbours and then destroyed his allies for the sake of their gold. So out of this broken past speaks the Xahila narrative the one native voice from a lost civili- zation.

V. HONDURAS AND NICARAGUA

¹⁰South of the Mayan peoples, in the territories formed by the projection of Central America between the Gulf of Honduras and Lake Nicaragua, the aboriginal inhabitants were represented by some ten linguistic stocks. On the western coast were several groups of Nahuatlan tribes who had come from far in the north, probably in recent times; on the other hand, the large Ulvan stock, back from the Mosquito Coast, are regarded as probably of Chibchan kinship, and their territories were contiguous with the Chibchans of Costa Rica, who brought the influence of the southern continent as far northward as the southern shores of the lake; the remaining tribal groups Lencan, Subtiaban, Payan, Mosquitoan, Chiapanecan, etc. have no certain linguistic affinity with any other peoples. Culturally, the whole region was aboriginally marked by an obvious inferiority both to the Mayan peoples to the north and the Chibchan to the south; though at the same time it reflected something of the civilization of each of these regions. As a whole, however, it possessed no single level, but ranged from the primitive savagery of the Mosquito Coast to something approaching a native culture in the western highlands.

The mythic lore of these peoples (not extensively reported) is in no way remarkable. The Nahuatlan tribes Pipil and Niquiran worshipped gods whose kinship with those of the Aztec is apparent. Of the Pipil, Brasseur says:

"They adored the rising sun, as also statues of Quetzalcohuatl and Itzcueye, to whom they offered almost all their sacrifices,"

Itzcueye being a form of the earth goddess. Similarly the Niquiran deities mentioned by Oviedo, especially the creator pair, Tamagostad and Cipattonal, are identified with Oxomoco and Cipactonal of the Mexicans; while the calendar of the same tribe is Mexican in type. The chief centre of worship of the Pipil was named Mictlan, but the myth which Brasseur narrates in connexion with the establishment of this shrine is curiously analogous to certain Chibcha tales. The sacred city was on a promontory in Lake Huixa, and "it was there that one day a venerable old man was beheld to advance, followed by a girl of unequalled beauty, both clad in long blue robes, while the man was crowned with a pontifical mitre. They arose together from the lake, but they did not delay to separate; and the old man seated himself upon a stone on the summit of a high hill, where, by his order, was reared a beautiful temple called Mictlan." Similar cults of lake-spirits are indicated on the island of Zapatero, in Lake Nicaragua, where Squier discovered a whole series of remarkable idols, pillars surmounted by crudely carved crouching or seated figures, while statues of a similar type were found on another island, Pensacola. In several of these the human figure is hooded by an animal's head or jaw, or appears within the mouth of the monster a motive which probably comes from the Mayan north.

The Chiapanecan people north of the Niquirian Nahua consulted an oracular Old Woman, who appears, as Oviedo relates the story, ¹² to have been the spirit of the volcano Masaya. The caciques went in secret to consult her before undertaking any enterprise and sacrificed to her human victims, who, says Oviedo, offered themselves voluntarily. When Oviedo asked how the Old Woman looked, they replied that "she was old and wrinkled, with pendant breasts, thin, dishevelled hair, long teeth like those of a dog, a skin darker than that of the Indians, and glowing eyes," a description which scarcely makes the voluntary sacrifice plausible. With the coming of the Christians her appearances were more and more rare.

Of such character were the ideas of the more advanced tribes of the western coast. The Sumo (of the Ulvan stock) tell a tale of their origin, reported by Lehmann ¹³: "Between the Rio Patuca and the Rio Coco is a hill named Kaun'apa, where is a rock with the sign of a human umbilical cord. There in olden time the Indians were born; there is the source of the people. A great Father, Maisahana, and a great Mother, Ituana, likewise existed, the latter being the same as Itoki, whom the Mosquito know as Mother Scorpion. First, the Mosquito were born and instructed in all things; but they were disobedient to their elders (as they still are) and departed toward the coast. Thereafter the Tuachca were born, and then the Yusco who live on Rio Prinzapolca and Bambana; but since the Yusco were bad and lewd, the rest of the Sumo fought against them and killed all but a few, who live somewhere around the source of Rio Coco, near the Spaniards. Last the Ulua were born, who are indeed the youngest; and they were instructed in all things, especially medicine and song, wherefore they are known as 'Singers.'"

The Mother Scorpion of this myth is regarded by the Mosquito as dwelling at the end of the Milky Way, where she receives the souls of the dead; and from her, represented as a mother with many breasts, at which children take suck, come the souls of the new-born a belief which points to a notion of reincarnation. The Mosquito¹⁴ possess also a migration-myth, with stories of a culture hero named Wakna, and an ancient prophecy that they shall never be driven back from the coasts to which he led them. Along with this are reminiscences of the coming of cannibals doubtless Carib from overseas; and the usual quota of superstitions as to monsters of forest and waters. They are said, moreover, to have vague notions of a supreme or superior god which is altogether likely and, in general, these Central American religions are, doubtless, as the early writers describe them, formed of an ill-defined belief in a Heaven Father, with deities of sun and stars as objects of worship, and spirits of earth and forest as objects of dread.

NOTES

1. For ethnic analysis Thomas and Swanton is followed here and throughout the chapter. Of the earlier Spanish authors Las Casas (especially [b], chh. cxxii-cxxv, clxxx, ccxxxiv ff.) is the most weighty. See also Morley [e], "The Rise and Fall of the Maya Civilizations," in CA xix (Washington, 1917).

2. Brinton [h], p. 69.

3. ib. p. 149.

4. Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], pp. Ixxx-lxxxiii.

5. The Popul Vuh, described by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his Histoire du Mexique under the title Manuscrit Quiche de Chichicastenango ([a], i. pp. Ixxx ff.), is a Quiche document, part myth and part legendary history, supposed to have been put in writing in the seventeenth century, when it was copied and translated into Spanish by Francisco Ximenes, of the Order of Predicadores. The manuscript was found by C. Scherzer in 1855 in the library of the university of San Carlos, Guatemala. The Spanish text of Ximenes was published at Vienna in 1856, and again, with French translation and notes, by Brasseur de Bourbourg, Paris, 1861; a second Spanish version, by Barberena, appeared in San Salvador, 1905. None of these translations is regarded as accurate, or indeed as other than filled with error and misinterpretation; but pending the appearance of a scholarly rendering from the native text they are our only sources for a document of profound interest. The edition of Brasseur de Bourbourg is that here employed, translations being from parts i, ii, and iii, while interpretations of names are drawn chiefly from Brasseur's footnotes. Las Casas [b], ch. cxxiv, contains some account of the gods and heroes mentioned in the Popul Fuh.

6. For discussion of the bat-god, Zotz, see Seler, 28 BSE, pp. 231 ff., "The Bat God of the Maya Race"; also, Dieseldorff, ib., p. 665, "A Clay Vessel with a Picture of a Vampire-headed Deity"; cf. Giglioli, CA xvi (Vienna and Leipzig, 1910).

7. The Manuscrit Cakchiquel, or Memorial de Tecpan-Atitlan, as he calls it, was given to Brasseur de Bourbourg by Juan Gavarrete, of the Convent of Franciscans of Guatemala. Its author, says the Abbe ([a], i. p. Ixxxiii) was Don Francisco Ernandez Arana Xahila, of the Princes Ahpotzotziles of Guatemala, grandson of King Hunyg, who died of the plague, five years before the Spaniards set foot in this country, in 1519. The manuscript was brought down to 1582 by this author, and thence carried forward to 1597 by Don Francisco Diaz Gebuta Queh, of the same family. Brinton published his translation under the title, The Annals of the Cakchiquels, in Philadelphia, 1885, and the work now commonly is referred to under this name. It is Brinton's version which is here followed, with some inconsequential alterations of phraseology. In his introduction Brinton gives (pp. 39-48) interesting comments on the "Religious Notions."

8. Brinton [h], pp. 25-26.

9. ib. p. 14.

10. Of works dealing with the religious beliefs of the natives of Honduras and Nicaragua, the writings of Oviedo and of Las Casas (especially [b], ch. clxxx) are the most important of early date. Among works of later date Squier's books are of the first significance. Bancroft, iii, ch. xi, gives a summary of most that is known of the myths of this region; Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], livre v, ch. iii, livre viii, ch. iv, contains additional materials. The archaeology is described by Squier [a], [b], [c], passim; Joyce [a], part i; Brinton [h], introduction; and, with ethnological analysis, Lehmann [c].

11. Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], ii. p. 556. The Mictlan myth is given, ib. p. 105.

12. Oviedo, TC xiv, p. 133.

NOTES 365

13. Lehmann [c], p. 717.

14. See Lehmann [c], pp. 715-16.

Index