126 THE QUICHE STORY OF CREATION. 
but what they say is totally different in form and 
Spirit.’ 
3. Both say that God (in the Hebrew account), or ‘‘the 
gods’’ (in the Chaldean) made cattle, beasts, and creep- 
ing things.’ 
It is difficult to see how there could be less agreement 
between any two accounts purporting to speak of the 
earth and its inhabitants. 
If we must choose either the Quiché or the Chaldean 
as the source whence the Hebrews derived their cos- 
mogony, the internal evidence is greatly in favor of the 
Quiché. 
Not even the boldest advocate of the human origin of 
the Mosaic account has thought that it came from the 
(Quichés, and if we may dismiss that, a fortiort we may 
dismiss the claim for the Chaldean inscriptions. 
Letting all this pass, the question arises as to the 
origin of this Quiché story. 
The many points of resemblance to the account in 
Genesis, and the fact that the earliest written record we 
have of it, came into existence a number of years subse- 
quent to the Spanish conquest, suggest that the story is 
a corrupted version of the Bible account. 
But to this easy solution there are insuperable ob- 
jections. It seems incredible that the Quichés, unless 
Christianized, would accept the Bible story from the 
hated hands of their conquerors and oppressors. On 
the other hand, converted Indians would not have piled 
on the Bible account, such an enormous amount of poly- 
theistic myths; and those Indians who remained at- 
‘tached to their ancient religion, would not have ac- 
cepted it at all. We, therefore, must look for some 
other origin for this story. 
Does not the possession of an account so resembling 
1 Idem ; page 495. 
2 Idem ; page 497. 
L@ 
