INTRODUCTION 1. The Chronicles
of the Indians When
the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards was completed, Hernán Cortés,
who had heard of the existence of rich lands inhabited by a number of
tribes in Guatemala, decided to send Pedro de Alvarado, the most fearless
of his captains, to subdue them. In
the sixteenth century, the territory immediately to the south of Mexico,
which is now the Republic of Guatemala, was inhabited by various independent
nations which were descended from the ancient Maya, founders of the
remarkable civilization whose remains are to be found throughout northern
Guatemala and western Honduras, in Chiapas, and in Yucatán, Mexico.
Of the nations located in the interior of Guatemala, the most important
and numerous, without doubt, were the kingdoms of the Quiché and of
the Cakchiquel, rival nations which had often made war upon each other
for territorial, political, and economic reasons, and which continually
disputed with each other for supremacy. At the time of the Spanish Conquest,
the Quiché nation was the most powerful and cultured of all those that
occupied the region of Central America. In 1524, when Alvarado attacked
the Quiché, the Indians offered vigorous resistance, but after bloody
battles they were forced to surrender before the superiority of the
arms and tactics of the Spaniards. As a last desperate measure, the
Quiché kings decided to receive Alvarado in peace at Utatlán, their
capital. But once within its walls, the astute Spanish captain suspected
that they were trying to destroy him and his army in the narrow streets
between the fortifications, and so he withdrew to the surrounding fields
and there seized the kings, condemned them to death as traitors, and
executed them before their terrorized subjects. Then he ordered the
city razed to the ground and the inhabitants scattered in all directions. When
the conquest of the Quiché was completed, it is likely that a
part of the inhabitants of Utatlán, especially members of the nobility
and the priesthood, who had their houses in the capital and saw them
disappear in the devouring flames, moved to Chichicastenango, the next
town, which the ancient Quiché called Chuilá, or "place of nettles."
Later the Spaniards named this town Santo Tomás and entrusted its pacification
to missionaries of the religious orders, who converted the inhabitants
to the Roman Catholic faith and introduced them to the civilization
of the Old World. In this way, Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, as it
is still called, became an important center of the Quiché Indians,
which prospered throughout the three hundred years of Spanish rule and
which today is still one of the most industrious and extensive Indian
communities of Guatemala and the Mecca of foreigners, who are strongly
attracted by the natural beauty of the place and the picturesque dress
and customs of its people. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century, Father Francisco Ximénez of
the Dominican Order lived within the thick walls of the convent of Chichicastenango.
Father Ximénez was a wise and virtuous man, who knew the languages
of the Indians and had a lively interest in converting them to the Christian
faith. It is probable that in his dealings with them, and through his
help and fatherly advice, he had won their confidence and had succeeded
in having them tell him the stones and traditions of their race. Ximénez,
as I have said, was an accomplished linguist and, therefore, had the
advantage of being able to communicate with his parishioners directly
in the Quiché language, concerning which he has left valuable grammatical
studies. All of these favorable circumstances helped to overcome the
natural distrust of the Indians, and it is probably due to this fact
that, finally, the book which they so jealously guarded, and which contained
the ancient histories of their nation, came into the hands of this Dominican
friar. This
document, written shortly after the Spanish Conquest by a Quiché
Indian who had learned to read and write Spanish, is generally known
as the Popol Vuh, Popol Buj, Book of the Council, Book of the Community,
the Sacred Book, or National Book of the Quiché, and it
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