A member of the Inca family, already referred to, Don Luis Inca, is reported to have written a series of historical notes, _Advertencias_, "with his own hand and in his own tongue;" but what became of his manuscript is not known.[44] There is another class of historical documents, which profess to be the production of native hands, and which are moderately numerous. These are the official letters and petitions drawn up by the chiefs in their own tongues, and forwarded to the Spanish authorities. Of these, two interesting specimens, one in the "Abolachi" tongue (a dialect of Muskokee), and the other in Timucuana, were published in fac-simile by the late Mr. Buckingham Smith, but in a very limited number of copies (only fifty in all). Others in Nahuatl and Maya, also in fac-simile, appear in that magnificent volume, the _Cartas de Indias_, issued by the Spanish Government in 1880. Doubtless more examples could be found in the public Archives in Spain, and they should all be collected into one volume. They were probably prompted by the Spanish local authorities; but it is likely that they show the true structure of the language, and, of course, they have a positive historical value. It is related in the Proceedings of the Municipal Council of Guatemala that, in 1692, the Captain Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman laid before the Council seven petitions, written in the native language, on the bark of trees.[45] Whatever of interest they contained was, no doubt, extracted by that laborious but imaginative writer, and included in his _History_, which has never been published, though several manuscript copies of it are in existence. It will be seen that some of the so-called historical literature I have mentioned rests uncertain on the border line between fact and fancy. These old stories may be vague memories of past deeds, set in a frame of mythical details; or they may be ancient myths, solar or meteorological, which came to receive credence as actual occurrences. The task remains for special students of such matters to sift and analyze them, and settle this debateable point. There is another class of narrations, about which there can be no doubt as to their purely imaginative origin. These are the animal myths, the fairy stories, the fireside tales of giants and magicians, with which the hours of leisure are whiled away. Several collections of these have been made, the words and phrases taken down precisely as the native story-teller delivered them, and thus they come strictly within the lines of aboriginal literature. They are the spontaneous outgrowth of the native mind, and are faithful examples of native speech. Over a hundred such tales have been collected by Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, as narrated by the Tupis of Brazil, and many of them have been published with all desirable fidelity, and with a philosophical introduction and notes, in a volume issued by the Brazilian government, under his editorial care.[46]