Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/318

308 Tahiti, about a certain buoy that was stolen from the 'Bounty' nearly thirty years before, was settled at once by a couple of lines from a native song,

Among the mass of Central American traditions which have become known through the labours of the Abbé Brasseur, there occur certain passages in the story of an early migration of the Quiché race, which have much the appearance of vague and broken stories derived in some way from high northern latitudes. The Quiche manuscript describes the ancestors of the race as travelling away from the rising of the sun, and goes on thus:—"But it is not clear how they crossed the sea, they passed as though there had been no sea, for they passed over scattered rocks, and these rocks were rolled on the sands. This is why they called the place 'ranged stones and torn up sands,' the name which they gave it on their passage within the sea, the water being divided when they passed." Then the people collected on a mountain called Chi Pixab, and there they fasted in darkness and night. Afterwards it is related that they removed, and waited for the dawn which was approaching, and the manuscript says:—"Now, behold, our ancients and our fathers were made lords and had their dawn; behold, we will relate also the rising of the dawn and the apparition of the sun, the moon, and the stars." Great was their joy when they saw the morning star, which came out first with its resplendent face before the sun. At last the sun itself began to come forth; the animals, small and great, were in joy; they rose from the watercourses and ravines, and stood on the mountain tops with their heads towards where the sun was coming. An innumerable crowd of people were there, and the dawn cast light on all these nations at once. "At last the face of the ground was dried by the sun: like a man the sun showed himself, and his presence warmed and dried the surface of the ground. Before the sun appeared,