The _Popol Vuh_, the great collection of Quiche myths, presents Gukumatz as one of the four principal gods who created the world. Gukumatz means shining or brilliant snake, and hence seems to be the same character as that known to the Nahuatls, or Aztecs, as Quetzalcohuatl, whose name also means bright or shining snake. But among the Aztecs Quetzalcohuatl is represented as a man, while Gukumatz is purely a god. Quetzalcohuatl was the third of the four Mexican or Aztec gods, and to him is ascribed all the wisdom which came to the Aztecs. He appears under two forms, as a god and as an historical personage. He has been frequently identified with the dawn, but there seems to be good reason for believing that he was a real character, who became deified as his good deeds passed down to successive generations. Such prophets and teachers rise up in all times, in all ages, by the wayside of tribal or national development, like some rare and favoured tree of the forest which out-tops all the others. A divine origin may be claimed for these teachers and prophets, but generally they are only men endowed with an extremely fine moral sense and with a perception and knowledge beyond their time. “Among the Tzendals of Chiapas, the tradition of Votan, who is said to have been the first founder of that tribe, bears great resemblance to Quetzalcohuatl.”[356] After an admirable discussion of the subject of the character and origin of Quetzalcohuatl, Bandelier sifts the matter down to this: that he was “a prominent gifted Indian leader, who certainly preceded the coming of those Nahuatl tribes that subsequently formed the valley confederacy, as well as that of the later tribe of Tlaxcallan. The claim to his origin accordingly rests between the so-called Toltecs on one side and the Olmeca and Xicalanca on the other.”[357] Brinton believed that Quetzalcohuatl was a pure personification of the dawn myth,[358] but there is too much testimony on the opposite side to permit the acceptance of this opinion as final. It must not be forgotten that there were very good, extremely good, almost saintly, men, and women, too, among the Amerinds. The historical Mexican tribes were preceded by other tribes, some of which had apparently reached a higher state of culture than the Aztecs, and Quetzalcohuatl possibly came from one of them as a teacher to the newer and less cultivated people; newer in the sense of having come into that region from some distance off. There is nothing preposterous in supposing that there were teachers and moralists in the early days of this continent. The character of a high-thinking teacher is not incompatible with some of the tribes that have lived and died on North-American soil. As stated previously, never were all the tribes of the continent in one culture condition; there were always tribes that could teach something to other tribes, and undoubtedly philanthropic individuals sometimes attempted the