[100] Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], pp. lxxx-lxxxiii.
[101] The Popul Vuh, described by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his Histoire du Mexique under the title Manuscrit Quiché de Chichicastenango ([a], i. pp. lxxx ff.), is a Quiché 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 , ch. cxxiv, contains some account of the gods and heroes mentioned in the Popul Vuh.
[102] For discussion of the bat-god, Zotz, see Seler, 28 BBE, 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).
[103] The Manuscrit Cakchiquel, or Mémorial 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 Abbé ([a], i. p. lxxxiii) 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."
[104] Brinton [h], pp. 25-26.
[105] ib. p. 14.
[106] Of works dealing with the religious beliefs of the natives of Honduras and Nicaragua, the writings of Oviedo and of Las Casas (especially , 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], , [c], passim; Joyce [a], part i; Brinton [h], introduction; and, with ethnological analysis, Lehmann [c].
[107] Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], ii. p. 556. The Mictlan myth is given, ib. p. 105.
[108] Oviedo, TC xiv, p. 133.