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Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Spence, Lewis
The work on the subject which is most easily obtained, and indeed the only work which gives the original Kiché text, is that of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, “Vuh Popol: Le livre sacré de Quichés et les mythes de l’antiquité Américaine.” The Kiché text was translated by the assistance of natives into French, and the translation is more or less inaccurate. The notes and introduction must be read by the student with the greatest caution. It was published at Paris in 1861.
Ximenes’ translation into Spanish of the “Popol Vuh” and that of Gavarrete are about of equal value, rather inaccurate, and accompanied by scanty notes. The title of the first is “Las Historias del Origin de los Indios de Guatemala, par el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenes (Vienna, 1856), and of the second, “El Popol Vuh,” (San Salvador 1905). This exhausts the list of works written exclusively concerning the “Popol Vuh.” The other works of Brasseur and those of Brinton contain more or less numerous allusions to it, but references to it in standard works of mythology are exceedingly rare. The only other works which have a bearing upon the subject are those upon Mayan and Kiché mythology, or which, among other matter, historical or political, refer to it in any way. The most important of these are:
Dr. Otto Stoll—“Ethnographie der Republik Guatemala.”
—— “Ethnologie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala.”
Scherzer—“Die Indianer von Santa Catalina Istlavacan.”
Müller—“Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligion” (1855).
E. Förstemann—“Commentary on the Maya Manuscript,” in the Royal Public Library of Dresden. Translation from the German by S. Wesselhoeft and A. M. Parker (Harvard University, 1906).
E. Seler—“Über den Ursprung der mittelamerikanischen Kulturen” (1902).
—— “Ein Wintersemester in Mexico und Yucatan” (1903).
—— “Codex Fejerváry-Mayer” (Berlin, 1901).
P. Schellhas—“Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts,” translated by S. Wesselhoeft and A. M. Parker (Cambridge, Mass., 1904).
Cyrus Thomas—“The Maya Year,” Washington, 1894.
—— “Notes on Maya and Mexican Manuscripts.”
W. Fewkes—“The God ‘D’ in the Codex Cortesianus,” (Washington, 1895).
All these works relate more or less entirely to Mayan mythology, and are chiefly valuable as illustrating the connection between the Kiché and Mayan mythologies. It must be understood that this is not a list of works relating to Mayan antiquities, but only a list of such works as refer at the tame time to Mayan and Kiché mythology.
The brief essay of the late Professor Max Müller upon the “Popol Vuh” is of little or no value except as a statement in favour of its authenticity. It gives little or no information concerning the work, and is, indeed, chiefly concerned with the authenticity and nature of North American picture-drawings.