stars of
heaven. On his return, he emerged from the bowels of the earth and the
place of darkness, at a point far to the east of Utatlan, at some place
located by the Kiches near Coban, in Vera Paz, and came again to his
people, looking to be received with fitting honors. But like Viracocha,
Quetzalcoatl, and others of these worthies, the story goes that they
treated him with scant courtesy, and in anger at their ingratitude, he
left them forever, in order to seek a nobler people.

I need not enter into a detailed discussion of this myth, many points in
which are obscure, the less so as I have treated them at length in a
monograph readily accessible to the reader who would push his inquiries
further. Enough if I quote the conclusion to which I there arrive. It is
as follows:--

"Suffice it to say that the hero-god, whose name is thus compounded of two
signs in the calendar, who is one of twins born of a virgin, who performs
many surprising feats of prowess on the earth, who descends into the world
of darkness and sets free the sun, moon and stars to perform their daily
and nightly journeys through the heavens, presents in these and other
traits such numerous resemblances to the Divinity of Light, the Day-maker
of the northern hunting tribes, reappearing in so many American legends,
that I do not hesitate to identify the narrative of Xbalanque and his
deeds as but another version of this wide-spread, this well-nigh universal
myth."[1]

[Footnote 1: _The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Central America_,
by Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., in the _Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society_ for 1881.]

Few of our hero-myths have given occasion for wilder speculation than that
of Votan. He was the culture hero of the Tzendals, a branch of the Maya
race, whose home was in Chiapas and Tabasco. Even the usually cautious
Humboldt suggested that his name might be a form of Odin or Buddha! As for
more imaginative writers, they have made not the least difficulty in
discovering that it is identical with the Odon of the Tarascos, the Oton
of the Othomis, the Poudan of the East Indian Tamuls, the Vaudoux of the
Louisiana negroes, etc. All this has been done without any attempt having
been made to ascertain the precise meaning and derivation of the name
Votan. Superficial phonetic similarities have been the only guide.

We are not well acquainted with the Votan myth. It appears to have been
written down some time in the seve