Note 329 — Chapter V

The Popol Vuh was first published by Dr. Scherzer in Vienna, in 1857, under the title of Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de esta Provincia de Guatemala, traducidas de la Lengua Quiché al Castellano para mas Comodidad de los Ministros del S. Evangelio, por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenez, cura doctrinero por el real patronato del Pueblo de S. Thomas, Chuila,—Exactamente segun el texto español del manuscrito original que se halla en la biblioteca de la Universidad de Guatemala, publicado por la primera vez, y aumentado con una introduccion y anotaciones por el Dr. C. Scherzer. Father Ximenez, a Dominican and curate of Chichicastenango of Guatemala, wrote about 1720, and subsequently. His work, because of its condemnation of the oppression of the Indians, was suppressed, but was finally discovered in June, 1854, in the library of the University of San Carlos, in Guatemala, by Dr. Scherzer. Father Ximinez describes the work as a literal copy of an original Quiché book, made in Roman letters by Quiché copyists, after the introduction of Christianity into Guatemala. The copy is stated ambiguously to have been made to replace the original Popol Vuh—national book—which was lost. How a book which had been lost could be copied literally, the Father fails to tell us. Internal evidence, however, sustains the claim that it was written by native Quichés. In 1860, Brasseur de Bourbourg undertook a new translation of the Popol Vuh, from the Ximinez document (containing the Quiché and Spanish). This he did among the Quichés and with the aid of the natives, and as a result it is believed that a much more literal translation than that made by Ximenez was obtained. In our examination of Quiché history we have compared both translations and shall draw from them directly, but shall also take advantage of the excellent condensations and renderings which Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft has made. See Native Races, vol. iii, p. 42, note, for the leading facts as we have stated them.