The K'iche' Preserve Their Creation Story in the Popol Vuh
A Dominican priest transcribes the K'iche' Maya sacred book of creation, likely copying an older manuscript written in Latin script by a Maya scholar
Quick facts
- Transcriber
- Francisco Ximenez, Dominican priest
- Transcription
- 1700-1715, Chichicastenango, Guatemala
- Current location
- Newberry Library, Chicago
What happened
The Popol Vuh, translated variously as the Book of the Council or the Book of the People, is the creation account of the K'iche' Maya of highland Guatemala, weaving together cosmology, the story of the Hero Twins, and the dynastic history of K'iche' rulers. The manuscript now held at Chicago's Newberry Library was transcribed between 1700 and 1715 in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, by the Dominican priest Francisco Ximenez, a linguist fluent in K'iche', who presented the Maya text in Latin script alongside his own Spanish translation. Newberry Library's research materials note that Ximenez's copy was likely derived from an even earlier manuscript, probably written in the 16th century by a Maya author who had learned the Latin alphabet from Spanish missionaries, since the older Maya tradition recorded such texts in painted codices with glyphs used as memory aids for oral recitation. The manuscript left Guatemala after 1853, passed through French and American collectors, and reached the Newberry Library in 1912.
Why it matters
The Popol Vuh is the single most complete surviving account of Maya cosmology and creation mythology in the Maya's own words, and it is the source for the Hero Twins narrative that underlies Classic-period ballgame imagery centuries older than the manuscript itself. Without it, most of what is known about Maya religious storytelling would come only through the filter of Spanish colonial commentary.
How we know
The manuscript survives as a physical object with a documented ownership chain from Ximenez's transcription through French priest Charles-Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, collector Alphonse Pinart, bookseller Charles Leclerc, and collector Edward E. Ayer, who brought it to the Newberry Library in 1912.
Sources
- Newberry Library. Popol Vuh · Primary source (author-declared)newberry.org · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Popol Vuh · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Part of a timelineThe Maya Civilization25 events · How villages in the Guatemalan jungle grew into rival kingdoms with the most advanced writing and astronomy in the pre-Columbian Americas, and why the last free Maya city held out against Spain until 1697View all →