64 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



then in a few strong words bids a last farewell to his bow, his shield, 

 his war-club and battle-axe, and is slain by the warriors of the king." 



Now, there is another story of Canek related by Brasseur, and taken 

 from ancient Quiche tradition, that resembles the tale of Paris of Troy 

 and the fair Helen. It may have formed the theme of a lost drama. 

 " The king of Chichen, about to be married, had, as was customary, sent 

 the chief nobles of his court to the abode of his fother-in-law to bring 

 home his bride. The i)rocession returned to Chichen to the sound of 

 musical instruments, amid dancing and all kinds of rejoicing, escorting 

 the young princess with great pomp, seated in a litter surrounded by 

 noble matrons charged to wait upon her. But the marriage was taking 

 place against her liking, for she loved Canek, distinguished for his cour- 

 age and tine appearance above all the nobles of Chichen, and who on his 

 part had vowed inviolable atfection. "With her consent he had formed 

 the project of carrying her otf. He assembled his vassels and posted 

 them beside a road through which the procession had to pass. It was 

 night ; the moment the convoy arrived, he fell upon it unexpectedly 

 with his little troop, dispersing without dilîîculty the lords and dames 

 and seizing the princess, with whom he fled to the sea-shore. There a 

 little fleet was waiting for him, in which he embarked with the princess 

 and his friends, making sail for the coast of Zinibacan, whence, by the 

 adjoining rivers of Bacalar. he gained the interior of Peten." Here then 

 is Canek in another form as the Young Lochinvar x)r Jock o' Hazeldean 

 of ancient Guatemala. 



Dr. Brinton's Aboriginal Authors is unfortunately so little known, 

 and is such an admirable résumé of native literature, that 1 trust 1 may 

 be pardoned for again quoting from it. He says : "From the solemn reli- 

 gious representations on the one hand, and the diverting masquerades on 

 the other, arose the two forms of tragedy and comedy, both of which 

 were widely popular among the American aborigines. The eflete notion 

 that they were either unimaginative or insusceptible to humour is, to be 

 sure, still retained by a few writers who are either ignorant or preju- 

 diced ; but it has been refuted so often that I need not stop to attack it. 

 In fact, so many tribes were of a gay and frolicsome disposition, so much 

 given to joking, to playing on words, and to noticing an humorous aspect 

 of occurrences, that the}' have not infrequently been charged hy the 

 whites best acquainted with them, the missionaries, with levity and a frivol- 

 ous temperament. Among the many losses which American ethnology 

 has suffered, that of the text of the native dramas is one of the most regret- 

 table. It is, however, not total. Two have been published which claim to be, 

 and 1 think are, faithful renditions of the ancient texts as they were 

 transmitted verbally from one to another in pre-Columbian times." One 

 of those mentioned by Dr. Brinton, the Eabinal Achi, has already been 

 considered. '' The most celebrated of these is the drama of Ollanta in the 



