Evidence of Metrical Composition
There is not wanting evidence to show that, like most barbarous compositions which depended for their popularity upon the ease with which they could be memorised, the “Popol Vuh” was originally composed in metre. Passages here and there show a decided metrical tendency, as:
“Ama x-u ch’ux ri Vuch
Ve, x-cha ri mama.
Ta chi xaquinic
Quate ta chi gekumarchic
Cahmul xaquin ri mama
Ca xaquin-Vuch” ca cha vinak vacamic.
which is translated:
“Is the dawn about to be?
Yes, answered the old man.
Then he spread apart his legs.
Again the darkness appeared.
Four times the old man spread his legs.
Now the opossum spreads his legs”—
Say the people.[12]
The first line almost scans in iambics (English style), and the fifth is perfect, except for the truncation in the fourth foot. The others appear to us to consist of that alternation of sustained feet—musically represented by a semibreve—with pyrrhics, which is characteristic of nearly all savage dance-poetry. Father Coto, a missionary, observes that the natives were fond of telling long stories and of repeating chants, keeping time to them in those dances of which all the American aboriginal peoples appear to have been so fond—and still are, as Baron Nordenskjöld has recently discovered in the Aymara country. These chants were called nugum tzih, or “garlands of words,” and although the native compiler of the “Popol Vuh” appears to have been unable to recollect the precise rhythm of the whole, many passages attest its original odic character.
Note.—The pronunciation of x in Kiché equals sh. Ch is pronounced hard, as in the Scottish “loch,” and c hard, like k.
[2] “History of the New World.” [↑]
[3] Oviedo, “Historia del l’Indie,” lib. vi. cap. iii. [↑]
[4] Sahagun, lib. ii. ch. ii. [↑]
[5] “Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru” (“Religions Ancient and Modern” series). [↑]
[6] Oviedo, Brasseur de Bourbourg. [↑]
[7] See Brinton, “Myths of the New World,” chap. ii. [↑]
[8] Loskiel, “Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder.” [↑]
[9] “Rel. de la Nouv. France,” 1636. [↑]
[10] J. W. Fewkes in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, 1892, p. 33; F. H. Cushing in “Amer. Anthropologist,” 1892, p. 303 et seq. [↑]
[11] In the Mexican text the Spanish word “diablo” has been interpolated by the Mexican scribes, as no Mexican word for “devil” exists. The scribe was, of course, under priestly influence; hence the “diablo.” [↑]
[12] This passage obviously applies to a descriptive dance emblematic of sunrise. [↑]