nteenth century, by a Christianized
native. His manuscript of five or six folios, in the Tzendal tongue, came
into the possession of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, about 1690,
and later into the hands of Don Ramon Ondonez y Aguiar, where it was seen
by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, about 1790. What has become of it is not known.

No complete translation of it was made; and the extracts or abstracts
given by the authors just named are most unsatisfactory, and disfigured by
ignorance and prejudice. None of them, probably, was familiar with the
Tzendal tongue, especially in its ancient form. What they tell us runs as
follows:--

At some indefinitely remote epoch, Votan came from the far East. He was
sent by God to divide out and assign to the different races of men the
earth on which they dwell, and to give to each its own language. The land
whence he came was vaguely called _ualum uotan_, the land of Votan.

His message was especially to the Tzendals. Previous to his arrival they
were ignorant, barbarous, and without fixed habitations. He collected them
into villages, taught them how to cultivate the maize and cotton, and
invented the hieroglyphic signs, which they learned to carve on the walls
of their temples. It is even said that he wrote his own history in them.

He instituted civil laws for their government, and imparted to them the
proper ceremonials of religious worship. For this reason he was also
called "Master of the Sacred Drum," the instrument with which they
summoned the votaries to the ritual dances.

They especially remembered him as the inventor of their calendar. His name
stood third in the week of twenty days, and was the first Dominical sign,
according to which they counted their year, corresponding to the _Kan_ of
the Mayas.

As a city-builder, he was spoken of as the founder of Palenque, Nachan,
Huehuetlan--in fact, of any ancient place the origin of which had been
forgotten. Near the last mentioned locality, Huehuetlan in Soconusco, he
was reported to have constructed an underground temple by merely blowing
with his breath. In this gloomy mansion he deposited his treasures, and
appointed a priestess to guard it, for whose assistance he created the
tapirs.

Votan brought with him, according to one statement, or, according to
another, was followed from his native land by, certain attendants or
subordinates, called in the myth _tzequil_, petticoated, from the long and
flowing robes they wore. The