B6 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



arches, must have been a painful experience, one to dwell long in the 

 nation's memory. But, as the author of the Bible Book of Chronicles 

 says in one place, "these are ancient things." 



More intelligible is the Maya Chronicle of Chac Xulub Chen, which 

 Dr. Brinton includes in his volume. Its author was a chief, named 

 jtfakuk Pech, in 1562, wlio gives an account of the arrival of the 

 Spaniards in his part of Yucatan. The Chronicle contains a prophecy 

 -of the arrival of the conquerors similar to that of Montezuma among 

 the Mexicans. A grateful reference to the Auditor, Don Tomas Lopez, 

 who came to Yucatan in 1553, is of double interest, as indicating the 

 cruelty of the Spaniards on the one hand, and the progress of the 

 Mayas in agriculture and the arts on the other. 



'•He put a stop to our being burned by the Spaniards ; he put a stop 

 to our being bitten by dogs. He introduced the appointing of chiefs in 

 each village by the giving of the baton. He also adjusted the tribute for 

 the third time, the tribute introduced by the Spaniards, mantles, wax, 

 pheasants, maize, buckets, salt, pe2)pers, broad beans, narrow beans, jars, 

 pots, vases, all for tribute to our Spanish rulers which we paid before the 

 Auditor had given his attention to these things." 



For the history of Guatemala, Brasseur de Bourbourg relies chiefly 

 on the Quiche Manuscript of Chichicastenango, this long name being that 

 of the town in which it was discovered. The leai*ned abbé says that it 

 is Avritten in Quiche (£une t/rande élégance, and that its author must have 

 been a prince of the rojal lamily of Gruatemala. He thinks it was written 

 soon after the arrival of the Spaniards, and at the time when the ancient 

 books of the Quiches disappeared. The expression " disappeared " is very 

 euphemistic, and not calculated to hurt the feelings of ecclesiastics dis- 

 posed to champion the persecuting Landa. With the exception of its 

 historical account of the later Quiche kings, it is largely copied from a 

 ranch older book, known as The Popol A^uh, or book of the people, 

 which Dr. Brinton calls a compendious account ol' the mythology and 

 traditional history of the Quiches of Guatemala. Spanish and French 

 translations of it have been published, and Max Muller has an essay on it 

 in the fir.st volume of his Chips from a German Workshop. Elsewhere 

 I have called it the wildest, most fantastic history that the world con- 

 tains. The fall of the hated kingdom of Xibalba is the theme of this epic. 



The Quiches had once been victorious over Xibalba, but had lost 

 their power, and the hated kingdom became strong again under its two 

 kings Huncame and Wucubcame, when the Quiche monarch Exbalanque 

 died. His brother Hunahpu remained at Tula, where he had two sons, 

 whom he taught to be skilful warriors and magicians. After his wife's 

 death, Hunahpu and his bachelor brother are represented as journeying 

 towards Xibalba to play ball or lacjosse with its two kings and their 

 tributaries. This playing ball was very deadly work, for it cost the two 



