probably copies existing in Santa Cruz del Quiché or in other areas such as Chichicastenango, Rabinal, Momostenango, or Quetzaltenango (Gavarrete, 1872: 3).
According to Friar Francisco Ximénez in his Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapas y Guatemala, apparently the Augustinian friar Jerónimo Román was the first chronicler to meticulously collect some of the tzijs and traditions included in the Popol Wuj. Father Román incorporated into his text parts of the work of Bartolomé de Las Casas and added other details about the K’iche’ that the Dominican friar had omitted. This leads one think that Las Casas must have had further concrete information. Why did he not record it in writing? We do not know, but one thing is certain: his work formed a part of a large debate among mainland Spanish intellectuals, in particular Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494–1573), during the Controversia de Valladolid in 1550. Because Las Casas was himself a part of the colonial system but also a defender of the indigenous people, perhaps he preferred not to record in writing information that might be used to justify greater abuses. This silencing of the contents of the Popol Wuj was henceforth one of its dominant characteristics: previously the tzijs were alive in the communities as oral tradition that was invisible to the eyes of the colonizers, and when they surfaced they were considered by colonial powers to be dangerous and damaging and therefore were (and continue to be) targeted for eradication, suppression, or appropriation. In this way, from the sixteenth century on, the tzijs of the Popol Wuj have been mired in the tension between conversion and resistance.
Of the chronicles of the first years of Spanish domination, only Father Francisco Ximénez includes the stories preceding colonization. The other chroniclers, although they probably had knowledge of them, left them out and concentrated on the record referring to administrative branches and control of power in the occupied territories. This approach could not erase the underlying theological–linguistic struggles that appeared in documents such as artes, vocabularios, and confesionarios. In the Ximénez transcription these confrontations are also present, reflecting the manipulation to which the text was subjected. For example, from the earliest days of evangelization, the Franciscan and Dominican orders were divided over whether or not cavoil or cabovil were equivalent to the Castilian word Dios (God). The Franciscans maintained that they were not, and therefore in translating indigenous texts they substituted the word cabovil with Dios in order to avoid the perpetuation of “pagan” vocabulary. On the other hand, the Dominicans held that the native word should be kept intact (Suárez Roca, 1992: 276–87). In the Popol Wuj manuscript archived at the Newberry Library (Ayer MS 1515), Ximénez, in 29 of the pages in which the word cabauil appears, translated it as ídolo (idol) and not as Dios, and only on one page (fo. 40r) does he render it into Castilian as cabauil. Ximénez was to a certain extent an exception among the various chroniclers, but he did not escape the contradictions resulting from his membership in the colonizing system.
In his “Prologue” two things are evident. First, at the end of the seventeenth century there were many versions of what had been the precolonial tzij, and in the opinion of the friar, they differed quite a bit from each other. Second, approaching this corpus of tzijs involved a two-sided attitude on his part as a colonizer: on the one hand he sees the stories as somewhat worthy, but at the same time replete with errors, so he feels obliged to eliminate them from the native culture – an attitude linked with the strategy of indoctrination. The task of this exegesis was to find as many similarities between the tzij and biblical texts as possible, in order to later attack those specific elements that the Catholic Church considered heretical. In this way the aboriginal narratives were legitimized, but at the same time they were destroyed at their religious, philosophical, and epistemological core. The intent was for an indigenous person to feel that upon baptism only a few parts of his beliefs had been changed — those parts the Christians considered dogmas of the faith. Through these modifications alone, the missionaries changed the meanings of what remained of the native tzijs. In the case of the Popol Wuj coinciding elements were highlighted, such as the Creation, the Flood, the virgin conception of princess Xkik’ (for which Junajpu came to be the heretical replica of Jesus Christ), or the resurrection of Xb’alanké. They are presented as the “same” tales from the Bible, but distorted by Satan. The friars also looked enthusiastically for a connection between the natives and one of the ancient tribes from the Old Testament that had been lost after the Flood, or for an unknown visit from one of the Apostles whose preachings were twisted by Satan. This was one of the explanations for the cross of the four corners of the universe found by preachers in some Mayan temples.
This evangelistic strategy requires a close understanding of the beliefs and narratives of the indigenous people. In his efforts to absorb them, a genuine admiration awoke in the scholarly colonizer, and even a respect for the texts and beliefs. But it is also true that as he recorded this admiration, Ximénez also had the intention of “correcting” theological-doctrinal errors. The coexistence of these two stances in the same person — or group, as was the case with the Dominican order — seems paradoxical, but it is the inevitable result of the purpose of the mission with which the friar was charged by the colonial apparatus.
The collection of tzijs we now know as Popol Wuj, organized in the form they were recorded and distributed, is the result of choices made by one – or more likely – various scribes in 1555. Later, if Ximénez or another copyist made further changes, we do not know. Given the extremely high level of overall coincidence between these tzijs and the narratives that have persisted to this day in oral form in K’iche’ communities, we can conclude that no significant changes have been made, effectively “fossilizing” them. Accepting how these characteristics and influences served to set down and make immutable the Popol Wuj manuscript that we find today does not in any way detract from or destroy its cultural legitimacy. But the facts show that the version we have available today is one that gained its fixed character from colonial interference. On the other hand, the manuscript archived at the Newberry Library is the product of a desire to preserve the tzijs, but in addition it is the result of a series of fortuitous coincidences. Among these indeterminate factors, it can be noted, for example, that the tzijs that the first scribes recorded – and those that they forgot or omitted – owed much to chance, or to some unknown agenda. Others occurred with those they recorded and the form in which they were written. A further problem is the lack of accuracy with which the manuscripts were transcribed by successive copyists, among them Father Ximénez, the degree of arbitrariness in the phonetization of the K’iche’ language in adjusting it to the Castilian ear, and lastly how Ximénez at the very least read the orthography and calligraphy of the document he found in the church in Chichicastenango. In neither of these cases was there any rigor or bias.
This tumultuous process resulted in the manuscript that we now know as the Popol Wuj, which before colonization did not exist as a text limited to a certain set of tzijs recorded in an untouchable and immutable form.
Modernity and “Ladinization”
The events that shook Europe and North America at the end of the eighteenth century impacted upon the K’iche’ as well as the colonies of the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch empires. In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, a process of breaking from the colonizing powers arose, promoting a Creole independence and the formation of modern nation-states. The founding of these states was inspired by the political, judicial, and doctrinal organizations of the bourgeois states of Europe – especially France – and of the United States. Nevertheless, for the K’iche’, as for almost all indigenous peoples, these happenings did not have the positive consequences that they did for creoles or ladinos (mixed-blood, Spanish-speaking inhabitants).
Modernization did not in fact bring positive changes for the vast majority of the population. In particular the cases of indigenous Guatemalans such as the K’iche’, Kaqchi’, Tz’utujiil, Kaqchiquel, Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi’’, Q’anjob’al, and Mam, among others,
