relations and all accessories. In addition to this,
essentially the same figures recur in all three manuscripts. Their number
is not especially large. There are about fifteen figures of gods in human
form and about half as many in animal form. At first we were inclined to
believe that further researches would considerably increase the number of
deities, but this assumption was incorrect. After years of study of the
subject and repeated examination of the results of research, it may be
regarded as positively proved, that the number of deities represented in
the Maya manuscripts does not exceed substantially the limits mentioned
above. The principal deities are determined beyond question.

The way in which this was accomplished is strikingly simple. It amounts
essentially to that which in ordinary life we call "memory of persons" and
follows almost naturally from a careful study of the manuscripts. For, by
frequently looking attentively at the representations, one learns by
degrees to recognize promptly similar and familiar figures of gods, by
the characteristic impression they make as a whole, or by certain details,
even when the pictures are partly obliterated or exhibit variations, and
the same is true of the accompanying hieroglyphs. A purely inductive,
natural science-method has thus been followed, and hence this pamphlet is
devoted simply to descriptions and to the amassing of material. These
figures have been taken separately out of the manuscripts alone,
identified and described with the studious avoidance of all unreliable,
misleading accounts and of all presumptive analogies with supposedly
allied mythologies.

Whatever cannot be derived from the manuscripts themselves has been wholly
ignored. Hypotheses and deductions have been avoided as far as possible.
Only where the interpretation, or the resemblance and the relations to
kindred mythologic domains were obvious, and where the accounts agreed
beyond question, has notice been taken of the fact so that the imposed
limitations of this work should not result in one-sidedness.

Since, for the most part, the accounts of Spanish authors regarding the
mythology of the Mayas correspond only slightly or not at all with these
figures of gods, and all other conjectures respecting their significance
are very dubious, the alphabetic designation of the deities, which was
tentatively introduced in the first edition of this work, has been
preserved. This designation has pro