Aboriginal American Authors and their Productions | Page 9

Atitlan.[33] It is an historical account of his family and tribe, written in the sixteenth century by a member of the junior branch of the ruling house of the Cakchiquels. His name was Don Francisco Ernantez Arana Xahila, and a passage of the MS. informs us that he was writing in 1581. After his death the work was continued by Don Francisco Tiaz Gebuta Queh. The style is familiar and often vivid, and the work is addressed to his children. It begins with the earliest myths and traditions of the tribe, and follows their fortunes to the lifetime of the writer. In respect both to mythology, history and language, it is one of the most noteworthy monuments of American antiquity. A loose paraphrase of it was made by Brasseur de Bourbourg, based upon which, a Spanish rendering was published by the "Sociedad Economica de Guatemala," under the auspices of Se?or Gavarrete. Neither the original nor any correct translation has been printed.
A copy of this MS. is in my collection, and both the original and a second copy are in Europe; but there were a number of similar historical accounts, committed to writing by this people and their immediate neighbors, of which we know little but the titles and a few extracts. Thus, the historian of Guatemala, Don Domingo Juarros, quotes from the MSS. of Don Francisco Gomez, Ahzib Kiche, or Chief Scribe of the Kiches, of Don Francisco Garcia Calel Tzumpan, of Don Juan Macario, nephew, and Don Juan Torres, son, of the Chief Chignavincelut, and "the histories written by the Quiches, Cakchiquels, Pipils, Pocomans, and others, who learned to write their tongues from their Spanish teachers." These MSS. gave the genealogies of their families and the migrations of their ancestors "from the time when the Toltecs, from whom they trace descent, first entered the territory of Mexico, and found it inhabited by the Chichimecs."[34]
One of the motives prompting to the composition of these works was to vindicate the claims of families to the sovereignty, or to the possession of land. They were, in fact, a sort of briefs of titles to real estate. One such is preserved, in the original, in the Brasseur collection, and is catalogued as "The Royal Title of Don Francisco Izquin, the last Ahpop Galel, or King, of Nehaib, granted by the lords who invested him with his royal dignity, and confirmed by the last King of Quiche, with other sovereigns, November 22, 1558."[35] A Spanish translation of the title of a female branch of this same family was printed at Guatemala in 1876, but the original text has never been put to press, although it is said to be still preserved in one of the ancient families of the Province of Totonicapam.[36]
Another Kiche work, which has excited a lively but not very intelligent interest among European scholars, is the Popol Vuh, National Book, a compendious account of their mythology and traditional history. A Spanish translation of it by Father Francisco Ximenez was edited in Vienna, in 1857, by Dr. Carl Scherzer.[37] The Abbé Brasseur followed, in 1861, by a publication of the original text, and a new translation into French.[38] This text fills 173 octavo pages, so that it will be seen that it offers an ample specimen of the tongue.
Neither of these translations is satisfactory. Ximenez wrote with all the narrow prejudices of a Spanish monk, while Brasseur was a Euhemerist of the most advanced type, and saw in every myth the statement of a historical fact. There is need of a re-translation of the whole, with critical linguistic notes attached. A few years ago, I submitted the names and epithets of the divinities mentioned in the Popol Vuh to a careful analysis, and I think the results obtained show clearly how erroneous were the conceptions formed regarding them by both the translators of the document.[39] I shall not here go into the question of its age or authorship, about which diverse opinions have obtained; but I will predict that the more sedulously it is studied, the more certainly it will be shown to be a composition inspired by ideas and narratives familiar to the native mind long before the advent of Christianity.
I have been told that there are other versions of the Popol Vuh still preserved among the Kiches, and it were ardently to be desired that they were sought out, as there are many reasons to believe that the copy we have is incomplete, or, at any rate, omits some prominent features of their mythology.
One branch of the Maya race, the Tzendals, inhabited a portion of the province of Chiapas. One of their hero-gods bore the name of Votan, a word from a Maya root, signifying the breast or heart, but from its faint resemblance to "Odin," and its still fainter