The
Popol Vuh ("Council Book") is
the Maya book of scripture, containing the Maya civilization's Creation
myth followed by the religously important stories of the hero twins.
The best known and most complete manuscript of the Popul Vuh is in the
Quiche Maya language. After the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, some Maya
clandestinely made copies of older heiroglyphic books, but using latin
letters. One of these was discovered about 1702 by a priest named Francisco
Ximénez in the Guatemalan town of Chichicastenango, and to his credit,
rather than burning it Father Ximénez made a copy of it, and added a translation
into Spanish. This copy found its way the to a neglected corner of the
University of San Carlos library in Guatemala City, where it was discovered
by Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg and Carl Scherzer in 1854. They published
French and Spanish translations a few years later, the first of many translations
that have kept the Popul Vuh in print ever since.
After the after the mythological sections, this manuscript continues
with details of the foundation and history of the Quiché Kingdom in Guatemala;
tying in the royal family with the legendary gods in order to assert rule
by divine right. The manuscript is now in the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Pre-Columbian Maya funeral pottery often contains sections of text from
the Popul Vuh in heiroglyphs, and illustrations of scenes from the legends.
Some stories from the Popul Vuh continued to be told by modern Maya as
folk legends; some stories recorded by anthropologists in the 20th century
may preserve portions of the ancient tales in greater detail than the Ximénez
manuscript.
