120 THE QUICHE STORY OF CREATION. 
or the Quiché Indians. Their religion was a gross poly- 
theism, and their gods were monsters of cruelty. 
There was current among them a story of the making 
of the world. It was preserved, after their manner of 
writing by pictures, in a book called the Popol Vuh. 
This book is not now in existence, as it has not been 
Seen since the conquest. Some years after that event, 
how many I do not know, certain of the Quichés gath- 
ered up the traditions of their people, this story of 
creation among others, and wrote them out with Roman 
letters, but in their ancient language. 
About the year 1720, this collection was translated 
into Spanish by Father Francisco Ximines, a Domini- 
can of great repute for his learning and love of truth. 
His position as curate of an Indian town in Guatemala 
probably brought the book to his knowledge and incited 
him to undertake the labor of translation. The manu- 
script lay a long time without attracting attention, 
but in 1856 was brought to the notice of European 
scholars by a paper read by Dr. Schlerzer before the 
Vienna Academy of Sciences. 
Dr. Schlerzer found the MS. in a convent of the Do- 
minicans in Guatemala. It contained the Quiché text 
and the Spanish curate’s translation. The Abbé Bras- 
seur de Bourbourg was dissattisfied with Ximines’ - 
translation, so in 1860, he settled himself among the 
Quichés, and by the help of natives joined to his own 
practical knowledge of their language, elaborated a new 
and literal translation. These facts account for a tinge 
of biblical expression which appears in portions of the 
narrative. 
In giving the Quiché story I shall omit much of the 
verbiage, and shall condense a good deal, without, how- 
ever, intentionally changing the sense. 
It begins thus: ‘‘ And the heaven was formed, and 
all the signs thereof fixed by the Creator and Former— 
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