by the Chichimecs."[34]

One of the motives prompting to the composition of these works was to
vindicate the claims of families to the sovereignty, or to the
possession of land. They were, in fact, a sort of briefs of titles to
real estate. One such is preserved, in the original, in the Brasseur
collection, and is catalogued as "The Royal Title of Don Francisco
Izquin, the last Ahpop Galel, or King, of Nehaib, granted by the lords
who invested him with his royal dignity, and confirmed by the last King
of Quiche, with other sovereigns, November 22, 1558."[35] A Spanish
translation of the title of a female branch of this same family was
printed at Guatemala in 1876, but the original text has never been put
to press, although it is said to be still preserved in one of the
ancient families of the Province of Totonicapam.[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