Brinton.] t)dU [jq-oy, 4^ 



" Sun, Grandmother of Light ; let the seed grow, the light 

 " come." p. 210. 



Sucli was the prayer, wliicli according to Kiche traditions, tlieir early 

 ancestors addressed to the divinities, in those far-off j^ears when they 

 dwelt in the distant Orient, in the fertile land of Paxil and Cayala, before 

 they had yet gone to Tulan to receive the tribal and famih' gods which 

 they adored in later days. 



There is no trace of Christian doctrine in these names ; clearly they are 

 all handed down from a generation who knev.^ nothing of missionaries 

 and their teachings. Most of them I have already analyzed, and I shall 

 now take up the remainder. 



The term Qabauil is in Kiche the generic Avord for divinity. Thus we 

 find in the Popol Vuh such expressions as : Xavi e qabauil, truly they were 

 gods (p. 34) ; are u hiri qabauil, this is the name of God (p. 8). It is from 

 the root qab, for the correct signification of which we must perhaps go to 

 the Maya, where it means to create, to make out of nothing. ( Chah, crear, 

 sacar de la nada, Pio Perez, Diccionario de la Lengua Maya.) The word 

 had so many heathenish associations that the Franciscan missionaries 

 dropped it, and substituted the Spanish Dios, from which they formed de- 

 rivatives according to the rules of native grammar. Thus Goto translates 

 divina cosa by diosil and adds : " antiguamente decian galiovi al, de gabo- 

 "vzl, nombre del dios que adoraban." He gives other derivatives, also : 

 " Idolatrar : qui gabovikm ; idolo, gabovil. * * Lo mesmo dicen de las 



' ' pinturas que antiguamente hacian ; gabul vel gabuil. Gabuilhay, casa 



"de idolatria ; gabuil clialial, el sacerdote, vel guarda de los idolos." 



Father Varea seems to derive gabuyl from g'ibak, to paint : 

 "Gal)uyl: estatua o ydolo propriameute de bulto 6 pintada la figura o 



"ymagen de lo q adoraban los gentiles." 



The Dominican missionaries, however, in their writings in the native 

 language adopted gabuyl as the correct rendering of Dios, God, and this 

 difterence of opinion between them and the Franciscans led to some acri- 

 monious linguistic polemics. 



Father Hieronimo Roman, from the narratives at his command, states 

 that the name was that of a definite being, the supreme God of the natives 

 of Guatemala.* 



The names CMpi-nanauac, Raxa-nanauac, ai*e supposed by Brasseur to 

 refer to the Aztec divinity Nanahuatl. They are, however, easily explicable 

 by the Kiche itself. They are derived from the root nao, to know, under- 

 stand, absolute form, qui nao, which, says Goto, "signifies everything, 

 which is known or learned by custom or experience;" naoli, is under- 

 standing, reason, intellectual power ; ahnaoh is the Cakchiquel for artium 

 magister. It also applies to understanding the thoughts of another ; 



* "El Dios que tenian por supremo, como nosotroF, Uamavanlo en la Provin- 

 cia de Guatemala Cabouil." Republicas del Mundo, Tercera Parle, De la Repub- 

 lica de las Indias Occidentales. Lib. il, Cap. xv. 



