  Gaussianity of the cosmological perturbations in the universe is one of the
key predictions of standard inflation, but it is violated by other models of
structure formation such as topological defects. We present the first test of
the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on sub-degree angular
scales, where deviations from Gaussianity are most likely to occur. We apply
the methods of moments, cumulants, the Kolmogorov test, the $\chi^2$ test, and
Minkowski functionals in eigen, real, Wiener-filtered and signal-whitened
spaces, to the MAXIMA-1 CMB anisotropy data. We conclude that the data, which
probe angular scales between 10 arcminutes and 5 degrees, are consistent with
Gaussianity.
