The derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes the term in Maya dialects for a…
- Date of account
- Revised nineteenth-century edition
- Source
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America
- Reference
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America · selected passage 40
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English comparative scholarship drawing on Indigenous American sources
- Translation
- Daniel G. Brinton
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or phantom.[251-3] Under the influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiche legends portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant and powerful; but as I have before poi…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or phantom.[251-3] Under the influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiche legends portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant and powerful; but as I have before pointed out, they do so, protesting that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim associations by the imaginations of later generations.[252-1]
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.