It is not surprising, therefore, that some writers have regarded this legend with suspicion, and have spoken of it as but little better than a late romance concocted by a shrewd native, who borrowed many of his incidents from Christian teachings. Such an opinion will pass away when the original is accurately translated. To one familiar with native American myths, this one bears undeniable marks of its aboriginal origin. Its frequent obscurities and inanities, its generally low and narrow range of thought and expression, its occasional loftiness of both, its strange metaphors, and the prominence of strictly heathen names and potencies, bring it into unmistakable relationship to the true native myth. This especially holds good of the first two-thirds of it, which are entirely mythological. As a contribution to the study of this interesting monument, I shall undertake to analyze some of the proper names of the divinities which appear in its pages. The especial facilities that I have for doing so are furnished by two MS. Vocabularies of the Cakchiquel dialect, presented to the library of the American Philosophical Society by the Governor of Guatemala in 1836. One of these was written in 1651, by Father Thomas Coto, and was based on the previous work of Father Francisco Varea. It is Spanish-Cakchiquel only, and the final pages, together with a grammar and an essay on the native calendar, promised in a body of the work, are unfortunately missing. What remains, however, makes a folio volume of 972 double columned pages, and contains a mass of information about the language. The second MS. is a copy of the Cakchiquel-Spanish Vocabulary of Varea, made by Fray Francisco Ceron in 1699. It is a quarto of 493 pages. I have also in my possession copies of the _Compendio de Nombres en Lengua Cakchiquel_, by P. F. Pantaleon de Guzman (1704), and of the _Arte y Vocabulario de la Lengua Cakchiquel_, by the R. P. F. Benito de Villacañas, composed about 1580. Father Coto observes that the natives loved to tell long stories, and to repeat chants, keeping time to them in their dances. These chants were called _nugum tzih_, garlands of words, from _tzih_, word, and _nug_, to fasten flowers into wreaths, to set in order a dance, to arrange the heads of a discourse, etc. As preserved to us in the _Popol Vuh_, the rhythmical form is mostly lost, but here and there one finds passages, retained intact by memory no doubt, where a distinct balance in diction, and an effort at harmony are noted.