One thing is certain: a hell, an abode of bad spirits as distinguished from beneficent gods, Xibalba was not. The American Indian was innocent of the idea of maleficent deities pitted in everlasting warfare against good and life-giving gods until contact with the whites coloured his mythology with their idea of the dual nature of supernatural beings. [16] The transcriber of the "Popol Vuh" makes this clear so far as Kiché belief went. Dimly conscious that the "Popol Vuh" was coloured by his agency with the opinions of a lately adopted Christianity, he says of the Lords of Xibalba, Hun-Came and Vukub-Came: "In the old times they did not have much power. They were but annoyers and opposers of men, and, in truth, they were not regarded as gods." If not regarded as gods, then, what were they? "The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is called by them Xibilba, which means he who disappears or vanishes." The derivation of Xibalba is from a root meaning "to fear" from which comes the name for a ghost or phantom. Xibalba was, then, the Place of Phantoms. But it was not the Place of Torment, the abode of a devil who presided over punishment. The idea of sin is weak in the savage mind; and the idea of punishment for sin in a future state is unknown in pre-Christian American mythology. "Under the influence of Christian catechising," says Brinton, "the Quiché legends portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant and powerful; but as I have before pointed out they do so protesting that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim associations by the imaginations of later generations."