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Book, page 21 / 68 and follows their fortunes to the lifetime of the writer. In respect both to mythology, history and language, it is one of the most noteworthy monuments of American antiquity. A loose paraphrase of it was made by Brasseur de Bourbourg, based upon which, a Spanish rendering was published by the "Sociedad Economica de Guatemala," under the auspices of Senor Gavarrete. Neither the original nor any correct translation has been printed. A copy of this MS. is in my collection, and both the original and a second copy are in Europe; but there were a number of similar historical accounts, committed to writing by this people and their immediate neighbors, of which we know little but the titles and a few extracts. Thus, the historian of Guatemala, Don Domingo Juarros, quotes from the MSS. of Don Francisco Gomez, _Ahzib Kiche_, or Chief Scribe of the Kiches, of Don Francisco Garcia Calel Tzumpan, of Don Juan Macario, nephew, and Don Juan Torres, son, of the Chief Chignavincelut, and "the histories written by the Quiches, Cakchiquels, Pipils, Pocomans, and others, who learned to write their tongues from their Spanish teachers." These MSS. gave the genealogies of their families and the migrations of their ancestors "from the time when the Toltecs, from whom they trace descent, first entered the territory of Mexico, and found it inhabited by the Chichimecs."[34] One of the motives prompting to the composition of these works was to vindicate the claims of families to the sovereignty, or to the possession of land. They were, in fact, a sort of briefs of titles to real estate. One such is preserved, in the original, in the Brasseur collection, and is catalogued as "The Royal Title of Don Francisco Izquin, the last Ahpop Galel, or King, of Nehaib, granted by the lords who invested him with his royal dignity, and confirmed by the last King of Quiche, with other sovereigns, November 22, 1558."[35] A Spanish translation of the title of a female branch of this same family was printed at Guatemala in 1876, but the original text has never been put to press, although it is said to be still preserved in one of the ancient families of the Province of Totonicapam.[36] Another Kiche work, which has excited a lively but not very intelligent interest among European scholars, is the _Popol Vuh_, National Book, a compendious account of their mythology and traditional history. A Spanish translation of it by Father Francisco Ximenez was edited in
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