Editing Popol Vuh (section)

==History==

===Francisco Ximénez's manuscript===
In 1701, Francisco Ximénez, a [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] priest, came to Santo Tomás [[Chichicastenango]] (also known as Santo Tomás Chuilá). This town was in the Quiché territory and is likely where Ximénez first recorded the work.<ref>Ximénez's title page reads in part, "cvra doctrinero por el real patronato del pveblo de Sto. Tomas Chvila" ('doctrinal priest of the district of Santo Tomás Chuilá').</ref> Ximénez transcribed and translated the account, setting up parallel [[Kʼicheʼ language|Kʼicheʼ]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]] language columns in his manuscript. (He represented the Kʼicheʼ language  phonetically with [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] and [[Parra letter|Parra]] characters.) In or around 1714, Ximénez incorporated the Spanish content in book one, chapters 2–21 of his ''Historia de la provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la orden de predicadores''. Ximénez's manuscripts were held posthumously by the Dominican Order until General [[Francisco Morazán]] expelled the clerics from [[Guatemala]] in 1829–30. At that time the Order's documents were taken over largely by the [[Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala|Universidad de San Carlos]].

From 1852 to 1855, [[Moritz Wagner (naturalist)|Moritz Wagner]] and [[Carl Scherzer]] traveled in Central America, arriving in [[Guatemala City]] in early May 1854.<ref>Woodruff 2009</ref> Scherzer found Ximénez's writings in the university library, noting that there was one particular item "del mayor interés" ('of the greatest interest'). With assistance from the Guatemalan historian and archivist [[Juan Gavarrete]], Scherzer copied (or had a copy made of) the Spanish content from the last half of the manuscript, which he published upon his return to Europe.<ref>Scherzer also published a detailed inventory of the contents in an 1857 edition that coincides with the Ayer ms. Scherzer's [[copyscript]] and edition beginning at the third internal title: 1) ''Arte de las tres lengvas Kakchiqvel, Qvíche y Zvtvhil'', 2) ''Tratado segvndo de todo lo qve deve saber vn mínístro para la buena admínístraçíon de estos natvrales'', 3) ''Empiezan las historias del origen de los indíos de esta provinçia de Gvatemala'', 4) ''Escolíos a las hístorías de el orígen de los indios'' [note: spelling is that of Ximénez, but capitalization is modified here for stylistic reasons].</ref> In 1855, French Abbot [[Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg]] also came across Ximénez's manuscript in the university library. However, whereas Scherzer copied the manuscript, Brasseur apparently stole the university's volume and took it back to France.<ref>Woodruff 2009 pp. 46–47. Brasseur mentions Ximénez's ''Popol Vuh'' manuscript in three different works from 1857–1871, but never cites the library document as the source of his 1861 French edition. See ''Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale'' (1857), ''Popol vuh. Le livre sacré'' (1861), and ''Bibliothèque Mexico-Guatémalienne'' (1871). It was not until fifteen years after his return to Europe that Brasseur suggested a specific provenance of his source material; he said that it had come from Ignacio Coloche in Rabinal. The inconsistency among his statements led Munro Edmonson (1971) to postulate that there had been multiple manuscripts in Guatemala.</ref> After Brasseur's death in 1874, the Mexico-Guatémalienne collection containing ''Popol Vuh'' passed to [[Alphonse Pinart]], through whom it was sold to [[Edward E. Ayer]]. In 1897, Ayer decided to donate his 17,000 pieces to [[Newberry Library|The Newberry Library]] in [[Chicago]], a project that was not completed until 1911. Father Ximénez's transcription-translation of ''Popol Vuh'' was among Ayer's donated items.

Priest Ximénez's manuscript sank into obscurity until [[Adrián Recinos]] rediscovered it at the Newberry in 1941. Recinos is generally credited with finding the manuscript and publishing the first direct edition since Scherzer. But [[Munro S. Edmonson|Munro Edmonson]] and Carlos López attribute the first rediscovery to [[Walter Lehmann (ethnologist)|Walter Lehmann]] in 1928.<ref>Edmonson 1971 p. viii; Lopez 2007</ref> Experts Allen Christenson, Néstor Quiroa, Rosa Helena Chinchilla Mazariegos, John Woodruff, and Carlos López all consider the Newberry volume to be Ximénez's one and only "original."

'Popol Vuh' is also spelled as 'Popol Vuj', its sound in Spanish use is close to German term for 'book': 'buch', in the translation of title meaning by Adrián Recinos, both phonetics and etymology connect to 'People's book', in the  line of 'people' used as a synonym for the whole nation or tribe, as in 'Bible, book of Lord's people'.

===Father Ximénez's source===
{{multiple image
   | width     = 109
   | footer    = Father Ximénez's manuscript contains the oldest known text of ''Popol Vuh''. It is mostly written in parallel Kʼicheʼ and Spanish as in the front and rear of the first folio pictured here.
   | image1    = Empiezan las historias(titlepage).jpg
   | alt1      = Title page
   | image2    = Empiezan las historias(preamble).jpg
   | alt2      = Preamble
   | image3    = Empiezan las historias(Popol vuh).jpg
   | alt3      = Creation
}}
It is generally believed that Ximénez borrowed a phonetic manuscript from a parishioner for his source, although Néstor Quiroa points out that "such a manuscript has never been found, and thus Ximenez's work represents the only source for scholarly studies."<ref>Quiroa, "Ideology" 282)</ref> This document would have been a phonetic rendering of an oral recitation performed in or around [[Santa Cruz del Quiché]] shortly following [[Pedro de Alvarado|Pedro de Alvarado's]] 1524 conquest. By comparing the genealogy at the end of ''Popol Vuh'' with dated colonial records, Adrián Recinos and [[Dennis Tedlock]] suggest a date between 1554 and 1558.<ref>Recinos 30–31 (1947); Goetz 22–23 (1950); Tedlock 56 (1996)</ref> But to the extent that the text speaks of a "written" document, Woodruff cautions that "critics appear to have taken the text of the first folio recto too much at face value in drawing conclusions about ''Popol Vuh''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s survival."<ref>Woodruff, "Ma(r)king Popol Vuh" 104</ref> If there was an early post-conquest document, one theory (first proposed by Rudolf Schuller) ascribes the phonetic authorship to Diego Reynoso, one of the signatories of the ''[[Título de Totonicapán]]''.<ref>Recinos 34; Goetz 27; see also Akkeren 2003 and Tedlock 1996.</ref> Another possible author could have been Don Cristóbal Velasco, who, also in ''Titulo de Totonicapán'', is listed as "Nim Chokoh Cavec" ('Great Steward of the Kaweq').<ref>Christenson 2004</ref><ref>After the list of rulers, the narrative recounts that the three Great Stewards of the principal ruling Kʼicheʼ lineages were "the mothers of the word, and the fathers of the word"; and the "word" has been interpreted by some to mean the ''Popol Vuh'' itself.{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} Since a prominent place is given to the Kaweq lineage at the end of ''Popol Vuh'', the author / scribe / narrator / storyteller may have belonged to this lineage as opposed to another Kʼicheʼ lineage.</ref> In either case, the colonial presence is clear in ''Popol Vuh''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s preamble: "This we shall write now under the Law of God and Christianity; we shall bring it to light because now the ''Popol Vuh'', as it is called, cannot be seen any more, in which was clearly seen the coming from the other side of the sea and the narration of our obscurity, and our life was clearly seen."<ref>Goetz 79–80</ref> Accordingly, the need to "preserve" the content presupposes an imminent disappearance of the content, and therefore, Edmonson theorized a pre-conquest glyphic codex. No evidence of such a codex has yet been found.

A minority, however, disputes the existence of pre-Ximénez texts on the same basis that is used to argue their existence. Both positions are based on two statements by Ximénez. The first of these comes from ''Historia de la provincia'' where Ximénez writes that he found various texts during his curacy of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango that were guarded with such secrecy "that not even a trace of it was revealed among the elder ministers" although "almost all of them have it memorized."<ref>"y así determiné el trasuntar de verbo ad verbum todas sus historias como las traduje en nuestra lengua castellana de la lengua quiché, en que las hallé escritas desde el tiempo de la conquista, que entonces (como allí dicen), las redujeron de su modo de escribir al nuestro; pero fue con todo sigilo que conservó entre ellos con tanto secreto, que ni memoria se hacía entre los ministros antiguos de tal cosa, e indagando yo aqueste punto, estando en el curato de Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, hallé que era la doctrina que primero mamaban con la leche y que todos ellos casi lo tienen de memoria y descubrí que de aquestos libros tenían muchos entre sí [...]" (Ximenez 1999 p. 73; English translation by WP contributor)</ref> The second passage used to argue pre-Ximénez texts comes from Ximénez's addendum to ''Popol Vuh''. There he states that many of the natives' practices can be "seen in a book that they have, something like a prophecy, from the beginning of their [pre-Christian] days, where they have all the months and signs corresponding to each day, one of which I have in my possession."<ref>"Y esto lo ven en un libro que tienen como pronostico desde el tiempo de su gentilidad, donde tienen todos los meses y signos correspondientes á cada dia, que uno de ellos tengo en mi poder" (Scherzer 1857; English translation by WP contributor). This passage is found in ''Escolios a las historias'' as appearing on p. 160 of Scherzer's edition.</ref> Scherzer explains in a footnote that what Ximénez is referencing "is only a secret calendar" and that he himself had "found this rustic calendar previously in various indigenous towns in the Guatemalan highlands" during his travels with Wagner.<ref>"El libro que el padre Ximenez menciona, no es mas que una formula cabalistica, segun la cual los adivinos engañadores pretendían pronosticar y explicar ciertos eventos. Yo encontré este calendario gentilico ya en diversos pueblos de indios en los altos de Guatemala."</ref> This presents a contradiction because the item which Ximénez has in his possession is not ''Popol Vuh'', and a carefully guarded item is not likely to have been easily available to Ximénez. Apart from this, Woodruff surmises that because "Ximenez never discloses his source, instead inviting readers to infer what they wish [. . .], it is plausible that there was no such alphabetic redaction among the Indians. The implied alternative is that he or another missionary made the first written text from an oral recitation."<ref>Woodruff 104</ref>