The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rig Veda Americanus, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Rig Veda Americanus
Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl

Author: Various

Release Date: February 9, 2005 [EBook #14993]

Language: English and Nahuatl

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIG VEDA AMERICANUS ***

Produced by David Starner, Ben Beasley and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

LIBRARY
OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN
LITERATURE.

No. VIII.

EDITED BY
D.G. BRINTON

[Illustration: XIPPE TOTEC, GOD OF SILVERSMITHS, IN FULL COSTUME. HYMN
XV.]

BRINTON'S LIBRARY OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN LITERATURE.
NUMBER VIII.

RIG VEDA AMERICANUS.

SACRED SONGS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS,
WITH A GLOSS IN NAHUATL.

EDITED, WITH A PARAPHRASE, NOTES AND
VOCABULARY,

BY
DANIEL G. BRINTON

1890

PREFACE.

In accordance with the general object of this series of volumes--which
is to furnish materials for study rather than to offer completed
studies--I have prepared for this number the text of the most ancient
authentic record of American religious lore. From its antiquity and
character, I have ventured to call this little collection the RIG VEDA
AMERICANUS, after the similar cyclus of sacred hymns, which are the most
venerable product of the Aryan mind.

As for my attempted translation of these mystic chants I offer it with
the utmost reserve. It would be the height of temerity in me to pretend
to have overcome difficulties which one so familiar with the ancient
Nahuatl as Father Sahagun intimated were beyond his powers. All that I
hope to have achieved is, by the aid of the Gloss--and not always in
conformity to its suggestions--to give a general idea of the sense and
purport of the originals.

The desirability of preserving and publishing these texts seems to me to
be manifest. They reveal to us the undoubtedly authentic spirit of the
ancient religion; they show us the language in its most archaic form;
they preserve references to various mythical cycli of importance to the
historian; and they illustrate the alterations in the spoken tongue
adopted in the esoteric dialect of the pries