1908
[3]
PREFACE
The “Popol Vuh” is the New World’srichest mythological mine. No translation of it has as yet appeared inEnglish, and no adequate translation in any European language. It hasbeen neglected to a certain extent because of the unthinking stricturespassed upon its authenticity. That other manuscripts exist in Guatemalathan the one discovered by Ximenes and transcribed by Scherzer andBrasseur de Bourbourg is probable. So thought Brinton, and the presentwriter shares his belief. And ere it is too late it would be well thatthese—the only records of the faith of the builders of the mysticruined and deserted cities of Central America—should berecovered. This is not a matter that should be left to the enterpriseof individuals, but one which should engage the consideration ofinterested governments; for what is myth to-day is often historyto-morrow.
LEWIS SPENCE.
July 1908. [5]
THE POPOL VUH
[The numbers in the text refer to notes atthe end of the study]
There is no document of greater importance to the study of thepre-Columbian mythology of America than the “Popol Vuh.” Itis the chief source of our knowledge of the mythology of theKiché people of Central America, and it is further ofconsiderable comparative value when studied in conjunction with themythology of the Nahuatlacâ, or Mexican peoples. This interestingtext, the recovery of which forms one of the most romantic episodes inthe history of American bibliography, was written by a Christianisednative of Guatemala some time in the seventeenth century, and wascopied in the Kiché language, in which it was originallywritten, by a monk of the Order of Predicadores, one Francisco Ximenes,who also added a Spanish translation and scholia.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, a profound student ofAmerican archæology and languages (whose euhemeristicinterpretations of the Mexican [6]myths are as worthless as the pricelessmaterials he unearthed are valuabl