wonder and applause of some of the most eminent linguists, and are considered by them to testify to remarkable native powers of mind.[1]
The Annals of Xahila.
The MS. from which I print the Annals of the Cakchiquels, is a folio of 48 leaves, closely written on both sides in a very clear and regular hand, with indigo ink. It is incomplete, the last page closing in the middle of a sentence.
What is known of the history of this manuscript, is told us by Don Juan Gavarrete, who, for many years, was almost the only native of Guatemala interested in the early history of his country. He tells us in his introduction to his translation of it, soon to be mentioned, that in 1844 he was commissioned to arrange the archives of the Convent of San Francisco of Guatemala, by order of the Archbishop Don Francisco Garcia Pelaez. Among the MSS. of the archives he found these sheets, written entirely in Cakchiquel, except a few marginal glosses in Spanish, in a later hand, and in ordinary ink. The document was submitted to several persons acquainted with the Cakchiquel language, who gave
- ↑ "Die bewundernswürdige Feinheit und consequente Logik in der Ausbildung des Maya Zeitwortes setzt eine Kultur voraus, die sicherlich weit ueber die Zeiträume hinaus zurückreicht, welche man bis jetzt geneight war, der Amerikanischen Civilization zuzuschreiben." — Otto Stoll, Zur Ethnographie der Republik Guatemala, s. 148 (Zurich, 1884). Compare the remarks of Wilhelm von Humboldt on the Maya conjugation, in his essay on the American verb, as published in my Philosophic Grammar of the American Languages, as set forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 35-39 (Philada., 1885).
