hieroglyphic MSS. of the Americans is to be found in certain books
which, soon after the conquest of Mexico, were written down by natives
who had learnt the art of alphabetic writing from their conquerors,
the Spaniards. Ixtlilxochitl, descended from the royal family of
Tetzcuco, and employed as interpreter by the Spanish Government, wrote
the history of his own country from the earliest time to the arrival
of Cortez. In writing this history he followed the hieroglyphic
paintings as they had been explained to him by the old chroniclers.
Some of these very paintings, which formed the text-book of the
Mexican historian, have been recovered by M. Aubin; and as they helped
the historian in writing his history, that history now helps the
scholar in deciphering their meaning. It is with the study of works
like that of Ixtlilxochitl that American philology ought to begin.
They are to the student of American antiquities what Manetho is to
the student of Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Berosus to the decipherer of
the cuneiform inscriptions. They are written in dialects not more than
three hundred years old, and still spoken by large numbers of natives,
with such modifications as three centuries are certain to produce.
They give us whatever was known of history, mythology, and religion
among the people whom the Spaniards found in Central and South America
in the possession of most of the advantages of a long-established
civilisation. Though we must not expect to find in them what we are
accustomed to call history, they are nevertheless of great historical
interest, as supplying the vague outlines of a distant past, filled
with migrations, wars, dynasties, and revolutions, such as were
cherished in the memory of the Greeks at the time of Solon, and
believed in by the Romans at the time of Cato. They teach us that the
New World which was opened to Europe a few centuries ago, was in its
own eyes an old world, not so different in character and feelings from
ourselves as we are apt to imagine when we speak of the Red-skins of
America, or when we read the accounts of the Spanish conquerors, who
denied that the natives of America possessed human souls, in order to
establish their own right of treating them like wild beasts.
The 'Popol Vuh,' or the sacred book of the people of Guatemala, of
which the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg has just published the original
text, together with a literal French translation, holds a very
prominent rank among the works composed by natives in their own native
dialects, and written down by them with the letters of the Roman
alphabet. There are but two works that can be compared to it in their
importance to the student of American antiquities and American
languages, namely, the 'Codex Chimalpopoca' in Nahuatl, the ancient
written language of Mexico, and the 'Codex Cakchiquel' in the dialect
of Guatemala. These, together with the work published by the Abbe
Brasseur de Bourbourg under the title of 'Popol Vuh,' must form the
starting-point of all critical inquiries into the antiquities of the
American people.
The first point which has to be determined with regard to books of
this kind is whether they are genuine or not: whether they are what
they pretend to be--compositions about three centuries old, founded on
the oral traditions and the pictographic documents of the ancient
inhabitants of America, and written in the dialects as spoken at the
time of Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro. What the Abbe Brasseur de
Bourbourg has to say on this point amounts to this:--The manuscript
was first discovered by Father Francisco Ximenes towards the end of
the seventeenth century. He was cure of Santo-Tomas Chichicastenango,
situated about three leagues south of Santa-Cruz del Quiche, and
twenty-two leagues north-east of Guatemala. He was well acquainted
with the languages of the natives of Guatemala, and has left a
dictionary of their three principal dialects, his 'Tesoro de las
Lenguas Quiche, Cakchiquel y Tzutohil.' This work, which has never
been printed, fills two volumes, the second of which contains the copy
of the MS. discovered by Ximenes. Ximenes likewise wrote a history of
the province of the preachers of San-Vincente de Chiapas y Guatemala,
in four volumes. Of this he left two copies. But three volumes only
were still in existence when the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg visited
Guatemala, and they are said to contain valuable information on the
history and traditions of the country. The first volume contains the
Spanish translation of the manuscript which occupies us at present.
The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg copied that translation in 1855. About
the same time a German traveller, Dr. Scherzer, happened to be at
Guatemala, and had copies made of the works of Ximenes. These were
published at Vienna, in 1856.[98] The French Abbe, however, was not
satisfied with a mere reprint of the text and its Spanish translation
by Ximenes, a translation which he qualifies as untrustworthy and
frequently unintelligible. During his travels in America he acquired a
practical knowledge of several of the native dialects, particularly of
the Quiche, which is still spoken in various dialects by about six
hundred thousand people. As a priest he was in daily intercourse with
these people; and it was while residing among them and able to consult
them like living dictionaries, that, with the help of the MSS. of
Ximenes, he undertook his own translation of the ancient chronicles of
the Quiches. From the time of the discovery of Ximenes, therefore, to
the time of the publication of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, all
seems clear and satisfactory. But there is still a century to be
accounted for, from the end of the sixteenth century, when the
original is supposed to have been written, to the end of the
seventeenth, when it was first discovered by Ximenes at
Chichicastenango.
[Footnote 98: Mr. A. Helps was the first to point out the importance
of this work in his excellent 'History of the Spanish Conquest in
America.']
These years are not bridged over. We may appeal, however, to the
authority of the MS. itself, which carries the royal dynasties down to
the Spanish Conquest, and ends with the names of the two princes, Don
Juan de Rojas and Don Juan Cortes, the sons of Tecum and Tepepul.
These princes, though entirely subject to the Spaniards, were allowed
to retain the insignia of royalty to the year 1558, and it is shortly
after their time that the MS. is supposed to have been written. The
author himself says in the beginning that he wrote 'after the word of
God (chabal Dios) had been preached, in the midst of Christianity; and
that he did so because people could no longer see the 'Popol Vuh,'
wherein it was clearly shown that they came from the other side of the
sea, the account of our living in the land of shadow, and how we saw
light and life.' There is no attempt at claiming for his work any
extravagant age or mysterious authority. It is acknowledged to have
been written when the Castilians were the rulers of the land; when
bishops were preaching the word of Dios, the new God; when the ancient
traditions of the people were gradually dying out. Even the title of
'Popol Vuh,' which the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg has given to this
work, is not claimed for it by its author. He says that he wrote when
the 'Popol Vuh' was no longer to be seen. Now 'Popol Vuh' means the
book of the people, and referred to the traditional literature in
which all that was known about the early history of the nation, their
religion and ceremonies, was handed down from age to age.
It is to be regretted that the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg should have
sanctioned the application of this name to the Quiche MS. discovered
by Father Ximenes, and that he should apparently have translated it by
'Livre sacre' instead of 'Livre national,' or 'Libro del comun,' as
proposed by Ximenes. Such small inaccuracies are sure to produce great
confusion. Nothing but a desire to have a fine sounding title could
have led the editor to commit this mistake, for he himself confesses
that the work published by him has no right to the title 'Popol Vuh,'
and that 'Popol Vuh' does not mean 'Livre sacre.' Nor is there any
more reason to suppose, with the learned Abbe, that the first two
books of the Quiche MS. contain an almost literal transcript of the
'Popol Vuh,' or that the 'Popol Vuh; was the original of the
'Teo-Amoxtli,' or the sacred book of the Toltecs. All we know is, that
the author wrote his anonymous work because the 'Popol Vuh'--the
national book, or the national tradition--was dying out, and that he
comprehended in the first two sections the ancient traditions common
to the whole race, while he devoted the last two to the historical
annals of the Quiches, the ruling nation at the time of the Conquest
in what is now the republic of Guatemala. If we look at the MS. in
this light, there is nothing at all suspicious in its character and
its contents. The author wished to save from destruction the stories
which he had heard as a child of his gods and his ancestors. Though
the general outline of these stories may have been preserved partly in
the schools, partly in the pictographic MSS., the Spanish Conquest had
thrown everything into confusion, and the writer had probably to
depend chiefly on his own recollections. To extract consecutive
history from these recollections, is simply impossible. All is vague,
contradictory, miraculous, absurd. Consecutive history is altogether
a modern idea, of which few only of the ancient nations had any
conception. If we had the exact words of the 'Popol Vuh,' we should
probably find no more history there than we find in the Quiche MS. as
it now stands. Now and then, it is true, one imagines one sees certain
periods and landmarks, but in the next page all is chaos again. It may
be difficult to confess that with all the traditions of the early
migrations of Cecrops and Danaus into Greece, with the Homeric poems
of the Trojan war, and the genealogies of the ancient dynasties of
Greece, we know nothing of Greek history before the Olympiads, and
very little even then. Yet the true historian does not allow himself
to indulge in any illusions on this subject, and he shuts his eyes
even to the most plausible reconstructions.
The same applies with a force increased a hundredfold to the ancient
history of the aboriginal races of America, and the sooner this is
acknowledged, the better for the credit of American scholars. Even the
traditions of the migrations of the Chichimecs, Colhuas, and Nahuas,
which form the staple of all American antiquarians, are no better than
the Greek traditions about Pelasgians, AEolians, and Ionians; and it
would be a mere waste of time to construct out of such elements a
systematic history, only to be destroyed again sooner or later by some
Niebuhr, Grote, or Lewis.
But if we do not find history in the stories of the ancient races of
Guatemala, we do find materials for studying their character, for
analysing their religion and mythology, for comparing their principles
of morality, their views of virtue, beauty, and heroism, to those of
other races of mankind. This is the charm, the real and lasting charm,
of such works as that presented to us for the first time in a
trustworthy translation by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg.
Unfortunately there is one circumstance which may destroy even this
charm. It is just possible that the writers of this and other American
MSS. may have felt more or less consciously the influence of European
and Christian ideas, and if so, we have no sufficient guarantee that
the stories they tell represent to us the American mind in its
pristine and genuine form. There are some coincidences between the Old
Testament and the Quiche MS. which are certainly startling. Yet even
if a Christian influence has to be admitted, much remains in these
American traditions which is so different from anything else in the
national literatures of other countries, that we may safely treat it
as the genuine growth of the intellectual soil of America. We shall
give, in conclusion, some extracts to bear out our remarks; but we
ought not to part with Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg without expressing
to him our gratitude for his excellent work, and without adding a hope
that he may be able to realise his plan of publishing a 'Collection of
documents written in the indigenous languages, to assist the student
of the history and philology of ancient America,' a collection of
which the work now published is to form the first volume.
_Extracts from the 'Popol Vuh.'_
The Quiche MS. begins with an account of the creation. If we read it
in the literal translation of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, with all
the uncouth names of divine and other beings that have to act their
parts in it, it does not leave any very clear impression on our minds.
Yet after reading it again and again, some salient features stand out
more distinctly, and make us feel that there was a groundwork of noble
conceptions which has been covered and distorted by an aftergrowth of
fantastic nonsense. We shall do best for the present to leave out all
proper names, which only bewilder the memory and which convey no
distinct meaning even to the scholar. It will require long-continued
research before it can be determined whether the names so profusely
applied to the Deity were intended as the names of so many distinct
personalities, or as the names of the various manifestations of one
and the same Power. At all events, they are of no importance to us
till we can connect more distinct ideas than it is possible to gather
from the materials now at hand, with such inharmonious sounds as
Tzakol, Bitol, Alom, Qaholom, Hun-Ahpu-Vuch, Gucumatz, Quax-Cho, &c.
Their supposed meanings are in some cases very appropriate, such as
the Creator, the Fashioner, the Begetter, the Vivifier, the Ruler, the
Lord of the green planisphere, the Lord of the azure surface, the
Heart of heaven; in other cases we cannot fathom the original
intention of names such as the feathered serpent, the white boar, _le
tireur de sarbacane au sarigue_, and others; and they therefore sound
to our ears simply absurd. Well, the Quiches believed that there was a
time when all that exists in heaven and earth was made. All was then
in suspense, all was calm and silent; all was immovable, all peaceful,
and the vast space of the heavens was empty. There was no man, no
animal, no shore, no trees; heaven alone existed. The face of the
earth was not to be seen; there was only the still expanse of the sea
and the heaven above. Divine Beings were on the waters like a growing
light. Their voice was heard as they meditated and consulted, and when
the dawn rose, man appeared. Then the waters were commanded to retire,
the earth was established that she might bear fruit and that the light
of day might shine on heaven and earth.
'For, they said, we shall receive neither glory nor honour from all we
have created until there is a human being--a being endowed with
reason. "Earth," they said, and in a moment the earth was formed. Like
a vapour it rose into being, mountains appeared from the waters like
lobsters, and the great mountains were made. Thus was the creation of
the earth, when it was fashioned by those who are the Heart of heaven,
the Heart of the earth; for thus were they called who first gave
fertility to them, heaven and earth being still inert and suspended in
the midst of the waters.'
Then follows the creation of the brute world, and the disappointment
of the gods when they command the animals to tell their names and to
honour those who had created them. Then the gods said to the animals:
'You will be changed, because you cannot speak. We have changed your
speech. You shall have your food and your dens in the woods and crags;
for our glory is not perfect, and you do not invoke us. There will be
beings still that can salute us; we shall make them capable of
obeying. Do your task; as to your flesh, it will be broken by the
tooth.'
Then follows the creation of man. His flesh was made of earth (_terre
glaise_). But man was without cohesion or power, inert and aqueous;
he could not turn his head, his sight was dim, and though he had the
gift of speech, he had no intellect. He was soon consumed again in the
water.
And the gods consulted a second time how to create beings that should
adore them, and after some magic ceremonies, men were made of wood,
and they multiplied. But they had no heart, no intellect, no
recollection of their Creator; they did not lift up their heads to
their Maker, and they withered away and were swallowed up by the
waters.
Then follows a third creation, man being made of a tree called tzite,
woman of the marrow of a reed called sibac. They, too, did neither
think nor speak before him who had made them, and they were likewise
swept away by the waters and destroyed. The whole nature--animals,
trees, and stones--turned against men to revenge the wrongs they had
suffered at their hands, and the only remnant of that early race is to
be found in small monkeys which still live in the forests.
Then follows a story of a very different character, and which
completely interrupts the progress of events. It has nothing to do
with the creation, though it ends with two of its heroes being changed
into sun and moon. It is a story very much like the fables of the
Brahmans or the German Maehrchen. Some of the principal actors in it
are clearly divine beings who have been brought down to the level of
human nature, and who perform feats and tricks so strange and
incredible that in reading them we imagine ourselves in the midst of
the Arabian Nights. In the struggles of the two favourite heroes
against the cruel princes of Xibalba, there may be reminiscences of
historical events; but it would be perfectly hopeless to attempt to
extricate these from the mass of fable by which they are surrounded.
The chief interest of the American tale consists in the points of
similarity which it exhibits with the tales of the Old World. We shall
mention two only--the repeated resuscitation of the chief heroes, who,
even when burnt and ground to powder and scattered on the water, are
born again as fish and changed into men; and the introduction of
animals endowed with reason and speech. As in the German tales,
certain peculiarities in the appearance and natural habits of animals
are frequently accounted for by events that happened 'once upon a
time'--for instance, the stumpy tail of the bear, by his misfortune
when he went out fishing on the ice--so we find in the American tales,
'that it was when the two principal heroes (Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque)
had caught the rat and were going to strangle it over the fire, that
_le rat commenca a porter une queue sans poil_. Thus, because a
certain serpent swallowed a frog who was sent as a messenger,
therefore _aujourd'hui encore les serpents engloutissent les
crapauds_.'
The story, which well deserves the attention of those who are
interested in the origin and spreading of popular tales, is carried on
to the end of the second book, and it is only in the third that we
hear once more of the creation of man.
Three attempts, as we saw, had been made and had failed. We now hear
again that before the beginning of dawn, and before the sun and moon
had risen, man had been made, and that nourishment was provided for
him which was to supply his blood, namely, yellow and white maize.
Four men are mentioned as the real ancestors of the human race, or
rather of the race of the Quiches. They were neither begotten by the
gods nor born of woman, but their creation was a wonder wrought by the
Creator. They could reason and speak, their sight was unlimited, and
they knew all things at once. When they had rendered thanks to their
Creator for their existence, the gods were frightened and they
breathed a cloud over the eyes of men that they might see a certain
distance only, and not be like the gods themselves. Then while the
four men were asleep, the gods gave them beautiful wives, and these
became the mothers of all tribes, great and small. These tribes, both
black and white, lived and spread in the East. They did not yet
worship the gods, but only turned their faces up to heaven, hardly
knowing what they were meant to do here below. Their features were
sweet, so was their language, and their intellect was strong.
We now come to a most interesting passage, which is intended to
explain the confusion of tongues. No nation, except the Jews, has
dwelt much on the problem why there should be many languages instead
of one. Grimm, in his 'Essay on the Origin of Language,' remarks: 'It
may seem surprising that neither the ancient Greeks nor the ancient
Indians attempted to propose or to solve the question as to the origin
and the multiplicity of human speech. Holy Writ strove to solve at
least one of these riddles, that of the multiplicity of languages, by
means of the tower of Babel. I know only one other poor Esthonian
legend which might be placed by the side of this biblical solution.
"The old god," they say, "when men found their first seats too narrow,
resolved to spread them over the whole earth, and to give to each
nation its own language. For this purpose he placed a caldron of water
on the fire, and commanded the different races to approach it in
order, and to select for themselves the sounds which were uttered by
the singing of the water in its confinement and torture.'"
Grimm might have added another legend which is current among the
Thlinkithians, and was clearly framed in order to account for the
existence of different languages. The Thlinkithians are one of the
four principal races inhabiting Russian America. They are called
Kaljush, Koljush, or Kolosh by the Russians, and inhabit the coast
from about 60 deg. to 45 deg. N.L., reaching therefore across the Russian
frontier as far as the Columbia River, and they likewise hold many of
the neighbouring islands. Weniaminow estimates their number, both in
the Russian and English colonies, at 20 to 25,000. They are evidently
a decreasing race, and their legends, which seem to be numerous and
full of original ideas, would well deserve the careful attention of
American ethnologists. Wrangel suspected a relationship between them
and the Aztecs of Mexico. These Thlinkithians believe in a general
flood or deluge, and that men saved themselves in a large floating
building. When the waters fell, the building was wrecked on a rock,
and by its own weight burst into two pieces. Hence arose the
difference of languages. The Thlinkithians with their language
remained on one side; on the other side were all the other races of
the earth.[99]
[Footnote 99: Holmberg, 'Ethnographische Skizzen ueber die Voelker des
Russischen Amerika,' Helsingfors, 1855.]
Neither the Esthonian nor the Thlinkithian legend, however, offers any
striking points of coincidence with the Mosaic accounts. The
analogies, therefore, as well as the discrepancies, between the ninth
chapter of Genesis and the chapter here translated from the Quiche MS.
require special attention:
'All had but one language, and they did not invoke as yet
either wood or stones; they only remembered the word of the
Creator, the Heart of heaven and earth.
'And they spoke while meditating on what was hidden by the
spring of day; and full of the sacred word, full of love,
obedience, and fear, they made their prayers, and lifting
their eyes up to heaven, they asked for sons and daughters:
'"Hail! O Creator and Fashioner, thou who seest and hearest
us! do not forsake us, O God, who art in heaven and earth,
Heart of the sky, Heart of the earth! Give us offspring and
descendants as long as the sun and dawn shall advance. Let
there be seed and light. Let us always walk on open paths,
on roads where there is no ambush. Let us always be quiet
and in peace with those who are ours. May our lives run on
happily. Give us a life secure from reproach. Let there be
seed for harvest, and let there be light."
'They then proceeded to the town of Tulan, where they
received their gods.
'And when all the tribes were there gathered together, their
speech was changed, and they did not understand each other
after they arrived at Tulan. It was there that they
separated, and some went to the East, others came here. Even
the language of the four ancestors of the human race became
different. "Alas," they said, "we have left our language.
How has this happened? We are ruined! How could we have been
led into error? We had but one language when we came to
Tulan; our form of worship was but one. What we have done is
not good," replied all the tribes in the woods and under the
lianas.'
The rest of the work, which consists altogether of four books, is
taken up with an account of the migrations of the tribes from the
East, and their various settlements. The four ancestors of the race
seem to have had a long life, and when at last they came to die, they
disappeared in a mysterious manner, and left to their sons what is
called the Hidden Majesty, which was never to be opened by human
hands. What it was we do not know. There are many subjects of interest
in the chapters which follow, only we must not look there for history,
although the author evidently accepts as truly historical what he
tells us about the successive generations of kings. But when he brings
us down at last, after sundry migrations, wars, and rebellions, to the
arrival of the Castilians, we find that between the first four
ancestors of the human or of the Quiche race and the last of their
royal dynasties, there intervene only fourteen generations, and the
author, whoever he was, ends with the confession: