Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/229

 Science of Religion” (Philadelphia, 1876, 284 pp.), and “American Hero-Myths” (Philadelphia, 1882, 261 pp.), the last a masterly treatment of a characteristic myth of the American Indians, the legend of the hero-child and wonder-worker, civilizer and savior. Already in 1867 Dr. Brinton had touched upon this topic in his “Myths of Manibozho and Ioskcha (Histor. Mag., July, 1867). The same year (1882) Dr. Brinton began the publication of “The Library of Aboriginal American Literature,” each volume of which was to contain “a work composed in a native tongue by a native,” with such translation, glosses, notes, editing, etc., as would make it intelligible to the general student. To this series Dr. Brinton himself contributed six volumes, viz: “The Chronicles of the Mayas” (1882, pp. 279); “The Comedy-Ballet of Güegüence” (1883, pp. 146); “The Lenâpé and their Legends” (1885, pp. 262); “The Annals of the Cakchiquels” (1885, pp. 234); “Ancient Nahuatl Poetry” (1890, pp. 176); “Rig-Veda Americanus” (1890, pp. 95), the other two being furnished by Horatio Hale, “The Iroquois Book of Rites” (1883, pp. 222) and Dr. A. S. Gatschet, “A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians”  (1884, pp. 251). The publication of this series, in which native chronicles (such as those of Mays and Cakchiquels) ceremonial songs, speeches, and rituals (such as those of the Iroquois), dialogue-dances (such as those of the Aztecs of Central America), national and tribal legends (such as those of the Creeks and the Delawares), sacred and profane songs (such as those of the ancient Mexicans), were sympathetically edited and interpreted, and a most welcome mass of native literature, made accessible to the increasing numbers of the students of American aboriginal life and history, was discontinued, “not from lack of material, but because I had retired in 1887 from my connection with the publishing business, and became more and more interested in general anthropological pursuits.”

During the years 1867-1870 Dr. Brinton had published several brief essays of the Phonetic Alphabet of the Mayas and the languages of Central American; and his “Chronicles of the Mayas” (1882), and “Annals of the Cakchiquels” (1883),—in the intervening period several kindred essays and studies of a briefer sort appeared,—were naturally followed by “The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico” (Philadelphia, 1893, pp. 56), “Nagualism: A Study in Native American Folk-Lore and History” (Philadelphia, 1894, pp. 62), and “A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics” (Boston, 1895, pp. 152), besides a number of briefer essays upon less extended topics. In these volumes the author shows his remarkable power of interpretation and synthesis, his wonderful Sprachgefühl, and his keen eye for resemblances and incongruities.