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. [21]
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.