The people of Rabinal, the Cakchiquel, and the people of Tziquinahá rejoiced. Before them they showed the insignia of the grandeur of the kingdom. Great, too, were the tribes, although they had not finished showing their might. And they were there in Hacavitz, all were there with those who came from the East. There they spent much time;[348] there on the summit of the mountain they were in great numbers.
There, too, the wives of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, and Mahucutah died.
Later they left, abandoning their country, and searching for other places in which to settle. innumerable were the places in which they settled, where they were, and which they named. There our first mothers and our first fathers were reunited and increased. So said the old people when they told how they left their first capital, called Hacavitz, and went to found another capital, called Chi-Quix.[349]
They were a long time in this other town, where they had daughters and sons. There were many of them there, and there were four other places, to each of which they gave the name of their town. Their daughters and sons married; they simply gave them away [in marriage] and the presents and favors they received they considered as the price for their daughters, and, in this way, they lived happily.[350]
Afterward they went through each one of the wards of the town, the different names of which are: Chi-Quix, Chichac, Humetahá, Culbá, and Cavinal. These were the names of the places where they settled. And they surveyed the hills and their towns and sought the uninhabited places, for, all together, they were now very many.
Those who had gone to the East to receive the sovereignty were now dead. They were already old when they arrived at each of the towns. They did not become accustomed to the different places through which they passed; they suffered many hardships and troubles and only after a long time did the grandfathers and fathers arrive at their town. Here is the name of the city to which they came.
give us means so that in the future our enemies shall never overcome us, so that never shall our noble birth be made light of; that he designate honors for us and for all our descendants, and, that, finally, he send public offices for those who deserve them." With this aim, the chiefs; elected Qocaib and Qocavib, both sons of Balam-Quitzé, who received their instructions and set out. "Qocaib went in the direction of the East, and Qocavib in that of the West," says the manuscript, which must be interpreted as indicating that the first went by the east coast of Guatemala and Yucatán in order to go toward Chichén Itzá, the metropolis of the northeastern part of the peninsula, which was the court of Quetzalcoatl, Acxitl, or Kukulcán; while the second probably followed the course of the Chixoy River, which flows close to Hacavitz, and the Usumacinta River, which carried him to the west coast of Yucatán. After a long journey of no less than a year, Qocaib arrived in the presence of the Emperor Nacxit Kukulcán and fulfilled his mission; but Qocavib, "encountering some obstacles on the shores of the Lake of Mexico [undoubtedly the Laguna de Términos] returned without doing anything." However, on his return to his own people and "finding a weak soul he illicitly knew [carnally] his sister-in-law, the wife of Qocaib."
[348] Naht chicut x-qui ban, "There they lived many years," says the Título de los Señores de Totonicapán, using, it would seem, the same Quiché words. The whereabouts of the original of the Título is not known.
[349] "In the thorns." The Título de Totonicapán, which so effectively supplements the information given in the Popol Vuh, mentions the place of Chi-Quiché, where the tribes were before establishing themselves in Hacavitz, but it does not speak of Chi-Quix, despite the fact that it names some twenty places where the Quiché stopped after they had left Hacavitz. It seems, however, by the text which I translate, that Chi-Quix was only a suburb, or hill, which formed part of the general group of Chi-Quix, Chicac, Humetahá, Culbá, and Cavinal, and these three last names are found also in the Título de Totonicapán as Chi-Humet and Culba-Cavinal, "where they built houses and made huts," before continuing on to Izmachí.
[350] The Quiché married their daughters—says the Título de Totonicapán—with certain ceremonies and water-jars of white batido (a drink made of corn meal to which cacao is sometimes added), and they had a basket of little avocados, a leg of wild pig, and little tamales wrapped and tied with vines. These were the gifts, and with them the marriage was agreed upon.
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