LITMIR.BIZ

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settlements. During the conquest of the Maya, the new Toltec-created tzijs recorded the clashes between the various houses or bloodlines (the Ajaw K’iche’, the Kaweq, and the Nija’ib’ab’). A testimony of the conflicts between the K’iche’ of K’umarcaaj and those of Rabinal or the Cakchiqueles was recorded in the Rabinal Achi and the Memorial de Solola. This means that the texts narrating those events were in constant interaction with other texts and within the collection of social, political, and religious realities in a process of transformations originating from within the culture itself. As of 1555, all of this was wiped out owing to a sudden interruption of that historic dynamic when both the society and its cultural texts were subjected to colonial rule.

      Setting down the tzijs as a single piece during transcription into Western writing not only eliminated the dynamics and differences within the core of the corpus, but also determined and imposed the impossibility of its evolution. It became fixed as a document, which is to say a text that informs about the past but will not be able to change in accordance with new realities. It enters, literally, the shelves of the monastery, the administration, or overseas powers. Thus it is transformed into an informant, an object of scrutiny, a tool of power. This transmutation is of course much more complex, but we can say that the aforementioned impacts comprise the most important repercussions of the entry of the Maya-K’iche’ tzij into the “lettered city” of the Spanish colony and those which followed.

      The Evangelizing Period

      The friar Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566) recorded, early on, the existence of tzijs referring to Xb’alanke, Jun B’atz’, and Jun Chowen. In his Apologética Historia Sumaria (1559) he claims to have had knowledge of the belief in these “gods” in the region of K’iche’ (chs. CXXIV, CCXXXV). The friars knew that many oral “stories” circulated about and also knew of the existence of “books” which the natives had hidden. They were also cognizant of the large number of rituals practiced by the K’iche’. However, neither in Las Casas nor in later chronicles that refer to the K’iche’ region can one find more information about these tzijs or kab’awils. It is puzzling that Las Casas, a Dominican friar and bishop of Chiapas in Mexico who assiduously kept abreast of the news from the recently invaded territories, did not have more precise information about the tzijs which we now know under the name Popol Wuj. Likewise notable is his lack of mention of this first document written in Latin characters, of which there were 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”

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