that American philology ought to begin.
They are to the student of American antiquities what Manetho is to
the student of Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Berosus to the decipherer of
the cuneiform inscriptions. They are written in dialects not more than
three hundred years old, and still spoken by large numbers of natives,
with such modifications as three centuries are certain to produce.
They give us whatever was known of history, mythology, and religion
among the people whom the Spaniards found in Central and South America
in the possession of most of the advantages of a long-established
civilisation. Though we must not expect to find in them what we are
accustomed to call history, they are nevertheless of great historical
interest, as supplying the vague outlines of a distant past, filled
with migrations, wars, dynasties, and revolutions, such as were
cherished in the memory of the Greeks at the time of Solon, and
believed in by the Romans at the time of Cato. They teach us that the
New World which was opened to Europe a few centuries ago, was in its
own eyes an old world, not so different in character and feelings from
ourselves as we are apt to imagine when we speak of the Red-skins of
America, or when we read the accounts of the Spanish conquerors, who
denied that the natives of America possessed human souls, in order to
establish their own right of treating them like wild beasts.

The 'Popol Vuh,' or the sacred book of the people of Guatemala, of
which the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg has just published the original
text, together with a literal French translation, holds a very
prominent rank among the works composed by natives in their own native
dialects, and written down by them with the letters of the Roman
alphabet. There are but two works that can be compared to it in their
importance to the student of American antiquities and American
languages, namely, the 'Codex Chimalpopoca' in Nahuatl, the ancient
written language of Mexico, and the 'Codex Cakchiquel' in the dialect
of Guatemala. These, together with the work published by the Abbe
Brasseur de Bourbourg under the title of 'Popol Vuh,' must form the
starting-point of all critical inquiries into the antiquities of the
American people.

The first point which has to be determined with regard to books of
this kind is whether they are genuine or not: whether they are what
they pretend to be--compositions about three centuries old, founded on
the oral traditions an