Popol Vuh

Popol Vuh (modern K'iche': Poopol Wuuj [ˈpʰoːpʰol ˈʋuːχ]) is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic K'iche' kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community", "Book of Counsel", or more literally as "Book of the People". Popol Vuh's prominent features are its creation myth, its diluvian suggestion, its epic tales of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, and its genealogies. The myth begins with the exploits of anthropomorphic ancestors and concludes with a regnal genealogy, perhaps as an assertion of rule by divine right.

As with other texts (e.g., the Chilam Balam), a great deal of Popol Vuh's significance lies in the scarcity of early accounts dealing with Mesoamerican mythologies. Popol Vuh's fortuitous survival is attributable to the Spanish 18th century Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez.

Popol Vuh encompasses a range of subjects that includes creation, ancestry, history, and cosmology. There are no content divisions in the Newberry Library's holograph, but popular editions have adopted the organization imposed by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1861 in order to facilitate comparative studies. Though some variation has been tested by Tedlock and Christenson, editions typically take the following form:

Preamble

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

All editions of Popol Vuh come from the records of the Dominican priest Francisco Ximénez who lived around the turn of the 18th century. His manuscript, presently housed at The Newberry library, is faded or stained in places, has no organizational divisions, and does not exhibit consistent punctuation or capitalization. For all of these reasons, editing the manuscript has been a challenge and even successful editors are forced to exercise a great deal of judgment in preparing print editions. Recently some editors (Tedlock, Colop, and Christenson) have endeavored to versify Ximénez's text. The preamble below is presented, with minor modifications, in Father Ximénez's prose and is followed by a sample of the versified renderings.

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