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.
