POPOL VUH


and is different from the original. In the episode of Vucub-Caquix, Ordóñez y Aguiar departs from the simple language of Ximénez and writes a paraphrase in the style of Cervantes, which reveals his gifts of imagination and literary position, but which is very far from the simplicity and ingenuity of the original Quiché, with which the Canon of Chiapas evidently was not familiar.

Brasseur de Bourbourg says that around the middle of the nineteenth century the curator of the National Museum of Mexico, Don Rafael Isidoro Gondra, gave him a draft of the first volume of the work of Ordóñez y Aguiar, which contains the larger part of the translation made by Father Ximénez of the Manuscript of Chichicastenango, published in 1851.

The Viennese doctor, Carl Scherzer, visited Central America In 1853 and 1854. He was in Guatemala for six months and had occasion to visit the library of the University, where he found the volumes of the works of Ximénez kept there after the expulsion of the friars and the closing of the convents in 1829.1n the Memoria which he sent to the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna in 1856, Scherzer claims the honor of having been the first to have called the attention of the educated world to the writings of Ximénez and to have been, in part, responsible for their publication.

Scherzer found only the third volume of the Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala in the University library in 1854, and although he searched elsewhere for the remaining three volumes of that work, all his efforts were in vain. On the other hand, he found in the library a vocabulary of the Quiché and Cakchiquel languages and the volume which contains the Arte de las tres lenguas, a Confesionario, a Catecismo de Indios, and the Historias del origen de los Indios de esta provincia de Guatemala, traducidas de la lengua Quiché a la Castellana. This last treatise is the one which was first published by Scherzer in 1857. The text of the Vienna edition agrees, in general, with the Ximénez manuscript; but it contains many errors, due in part to the foreign printer and also in part to the inaccuracy of the copyist who made the transcription which Scherzer used, and who evidently was not familiar with the ancient writing. Only the first chapter of the Escolios, which formed the appendix of the book, appears in the manuscript of the Historias. Scherzer says that he completed them by means of a copy, "taken from the original," which was given to him by Don Juan Gavarrete.

The same Señor Gavarrete who had collaborated in the preparation of the Vienna edition had the opportunity years later to make known the opinion he had formed of it, and said that "it is very incorrect because of the little ability of those who copied it and the printers in the Spanish language." Gavarrete added this comment, which since has been repeated by other historians: "We shall note, in passing, that the publication of this book has changed the whole course of the historical studies which are now being made about Central America."

Scherzer's reports about the culture and traditions of the Quiché Indians gave rise to many discussions in European Journals, which at that period were first concerning themselves with these matters. The German weekly Das Ausland in its edition of July 6, 1855, published an interesting article on "the pre-Columbian history of Guatemala," in which it gave an analysis of the content of the Historias del origen de los Indios, which Scherzer had found and proposed to publish. The Americanist editor, Nicolaus Trübner, reproduced, in part, the German writer's analysis, and discussed the question of priority in bibliographical data relative to Father Ximénez in an extensive article entitled "Central American Archaeology" published in the London Athenaeum of May 31, 1856.

Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, the well-known French Americanist, arrived in Guatemala in 1855. Following the footsteps of Scherzer, he traveled through the Central American countries, and, like Scherzer, he also became interested in the ancient history of the country. Previously in Mexico he had made important historical and linguistic studies and had copied many old manuscripts. In Guatemala he found a fertile field for his investigations. Dr. Mariano Padilla and Don Juan Gavarrete, who had assisted Scherzer, extended their generosity to Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg to the extent of giving him many documents from the collection of the former as well as from the public archives of which the latter was in charge. Others were

Page 11


Please email us if you are interested
in a PDF of any of the posted books.