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.

I have been told that there are other versions of the _Popol Vuh_
still preserved among the Kiches, and it were ardently to be desired
that they were sought out, as there are many reasons to believe that the
copy we have is incomplete, or, at any rate, omits some prominent
features of their mythology.

One branch of the Maya race, the Tzendals, inhabited a portion of the
province of Chiapas. One of their hero-gods bore the name of
_Votan_, a word from a Maya root, signifying the breast or heart,
but from its faint resemblance to "Odin," and its still fainter
similarity to "Buddha," their myth about him has given rise to many
whimsical speculations. This myth was written down in the native tongue
by a Christianized native, in the seventeenth century. The MS. came into
the possession of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, who quotes from
it in his _Constituciones Diocesanas_, printed in Rome, in 1702.
The indefatigable Boturini tells us that he tried in vain to find it,
about 1740, and supposed it was lost.[40] But a copy of it was seen and
described by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, in 1790.[41] Possibly it is still in
existence, and there are few fragments of American literature which
would better merit a diligent search. As to the meaning of the Votan
myth, I have ventured an explanation of it in another work.[42]