POPOL VUH


library of the University. According to Gavarrete's statement in the introduction of the version of the Popol Vuh published in the Guatemalan magazine La Sociedad Económica (1872-73), the first copy of this document, which was taken from Book I of the Historia by Ximénez, was the one which that paleographist "wrote in his hand in the library of the University in 1845." Another transcription "faithfully copied by Don Juan Gavarrete' in Guatemala, October 23, 1847, was, as has been noted, in the collection of Brasseur de Bourbourg, and in addition to the translation of the Popol Vuh also contained Chapters 27 to 36 of Book I of the Historia de la Provincia with the title Historia del antiguo Reino de Quiché, written by "Father Fray Francisco Ximénez." Brasseur de Bourbourg observes that "this document is a copy taken from the Historia General de Guatemala by Father Ximénez which was in manuscript in the library of the University of that City," and adds that this same copy is the original which Scherzer used for the Vienna edition. Nevertheless, this statement is correct only so far as it concerns Chapters 27 to 35 and the beginning of Chapter 36, which were included by Gavarrete in the Escolios a las Historias de el Origen de los Indios, printed at the end of the Historias in 1857. The text of the Historias, which forms the first part of the Vienna edition, was taken from the Arte de las tres lenguas.

The transcription of Father Ximénez' Historia which Gavarrete made contains six volumes totaling about 2,200 pages in folio, and is preserved in the National Library of Guatemala.

Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks of two and even three copies of the Historia by Ximénez. An article about Francisco Jiménez in the Diccionario Enciclopédico Hispano-Americano states that "in the Provincial Library of Cordoba in Spain, there must be another incomplete copy" of this work. Ramón A. Salazar, who for several years was director of the National Library of Guatemala, says in a work published in 1897 that there are in the library two copies of the Historia by Ximénez; the modern one copied under the direction of Don Juan Gavarrete, and another "old and faded, although legible, with difficulty, which was the one taken from the Convent of Santo Domingo and placed in the library of the University in 1830, at the time of the expulsion of the friars." This copy has now disappeared from the National Library, and it is likely that it is the same one that Walter Lehmann obtained in Guatemala and took to Germany in 1909, and which the Duke of Loubat gave to the Royal Library of Berlin. The Newberry Library has photographic copies of 183 pages of one part of the Berlin manuscript, which is entitled Historia de la Provincia de Predicadores de Chiapa y Guatemala.

5. The Translations of the Popol Vuh

In a convincing argument in favor of the authenticity of the Popol Vuh, Lewis Spence declares: "The very fact that it was composed in the Quiché tongue is almost sufficient proof of its genuine American character. The scholarship of the nineteenth century was unequal to the adequate translation of the Popol Vuh; the twentieth century has as yet shown no signs of being able to accomplish the task. It is therefore not difficult to credit that if modern scholarship is unable to properly translate the work, that of the eighteenth century was unable to create it."

Despite his undeniable and profound knowledge of the Quiché language, Father Francisco Ximénez by himself alone would not have been able to compose the Manuscript of Chichicastenango, the most notable literary expression of native American genius. On the other hand, this distinguished historian and linguist does not claim other than the title of discoverer of the Indian document. Defects, unfortunately, appear in his two versions of this work which have come down to us; these defects reveal that sometimes Ximénez was not able to perceive the meaning of the text, showing that the thought and phraseology of the ancient Quiché frequently escape comprehension even by those Europeans best qualified to interpret it.

The two principal translations which have been made, both in Spanish and in French, of the Quiché document are well known. The first, as has been said, is the work of Father Ximénez, who translated, verbatim, the histories of the Indians into the Spanish language from the Quiché, in which they had been written from the time of the Conquest. This first is a literal translation,

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