DANIEL G. BRINTON

1890




PREFACE.

In accordance with the general object of this series of volumes--which
is to furnish materials for study rather than to offer completed
studies--I have prepared for this number the text of the most ancient
authentic record of American religious lore. From its antiquity and
character, I have ventured to call this little collection the RIG VEDA
AMERICANUS, after the similar cyclus of sacred hymns, which are the most
venerable product of the Aryan mind.

As for my attempted translation of these mystic chants I offer it with
the utmost reserve. It would be the height of temerity in me to pretend
to have overcome difficulties which one so familiar with the ancient
Nahuatl as Father Sahagun intimated were beyond his powers. All that I
hope to have achieved is, by the aid of the Gloss--and not always in
conformity to its suggestions--to give a general idea of the sense and
purport of the originals.

The desirability of preserving and publishing these texts seems to me to
be manifest. They reveal to us the undoubtedly authentic spirit of the
ancient religion; they show us the language in its most archaic form;
they preserve references to various mythical cycli of importance to the
historian; and they illustrate the alterations in the spoken tongue