sel-fish. So
confused are the doctrines of the Samoans.(2)

(1) Turner's Samoa, p. 198.

(2) Turner's Samoa, pp. 1-9.

Perhaps the cosmogonic myths of the less cultivated races have now been
stated in sufficient number. As an example of the ideas which prevailed
in an American race of higher culture, we may take the Quiche legend as
given in the Popol Vuh, a post-Christian collection of the sacred myths
of the nation, written down after the Spanish conquest, and published in
French by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg.(1)

(1) See Popol Vuh in Mr. Max Muller's Chips from a German Workshop, with
a discussion of its authenticity. In his Annals of the Cakchiquels, a
nation bordering on the Quiches, Dr. Brinton expresses his belief in the
genuine character of the text. Compare Bancroft, iii. p. 45. The
ancient and original Popol Vuh, the native book in native characters,
disappeared during the Spanish conquest.

The Quiches, like their neighbours the Cakchiquels, were a highly
civilised race, possessing well-built towns, roads and the arts of life,
and were great agriculturists. Maize, the staple of food among these
advanced Americans, was almost as great a god as Soma among the
Indo-Aryans. The Quiches were acquainted with a kind of picture-writing,
and possessed records in which myth glided into history. The Popol Vuh,
or book of the people, gives itself out as a post-Columbian copy of
these traditions, and may doubtless contain European ideas. As we see
in the Commentarias Reales of the half-blood Inca Garcilasso de la Vega,
the conquered people were anxious to prove that their beliefs were by
no means so irrational and so "devilish" as to Spanish critics they
appeared. According to the Popol Vuh, there was in the beginning nothing
but water and the feathered serpent, one of their chief divine beings;
but there also existed somehow, "they that gave life". Their names mean
"shooter of blow-pipe at coyote," "at opossum," and so forth. They
said "Earth," and there WAS earth, and plants growing thereon. Animals
followed, and the Givers of life said "Speak our names," but the animals
could only cluck and croak. Then said the Givers, "Inasmuch as ye cannot
praise us, ye shall be killed and eaten". They then made men out of
clay; these men were weak and watery, and by water they were destroyed.
Next they made men of wood and women of the pith of trees. These puppets
married and gave in marriage, and peopled earth with