[36]
Another Kiche work, which has excited a lively but not very intelligent
interest among European scholars, is the _Popol Vuh_, National
Book, a compendious account of their mythology and traditional history.
A Spanish translation of it by Father Francisco Ximenez was edited in
Vienna, in 1857, by Dr. Carl Scherzer.[37] The Abbe Brasseur followed, in
1861, by a publication of the original text, and a new translation into
French.[38] This text fills 173 octavo pages, so that it will be seen
that it offers an ample specimen of the tongue.
Neither of these translations is satisfactory. Ximenez wrote with all
the narrow prejudices of a Spanish monk, while Brasseur was a Euhemerist
of the most advanced type, and saw in every myth the statement of a
historical fact. There is need of a re-translation of the whole, with
critical linguistic notes attached. A few years ago, I submitted the
names and epithets of the divinities mentioned in the Popol Vuh to a
careful analysis, and I think the results obtained show clearly how
erroneous were the conceptions formed regarding them by both the
translators of the document.[39] I shall not here go into the question of
its age or authorship, about which diverse opinions have obtained; but I
will predict that the more sedulously it is studied, the more certainly
it will be shown to be a composition inspired by ideas and narratives
familiar to the native mind long before the advent of Christianity.
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