Popol Vuh

The Popol Vuh, often called the 'Council Book', is the sacred narrative of the K'iche' Maya of highland Guatemala. It was written in K'iche' in the Latin alphabet in the mid-1550s, after the Spanish conquest, by anonymous K'iche' nobles who say it replaces an older painted book that could no longer be seen. The only early copy was made in the early 1700s by a Dominican friar, Francisco Ximenez, in Chichicastenango, with a Spanish translation, and his manuscript is now in the Newberry Library in Chicago.¹

The book has three parts. The first tells of creation: the gods shape the earth and try to make beings who can praise them, failing with mud and wood before succeeding with people made of maize. The second tells of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who beat the lords of Xibalba, the underworld, through trickery and a ball game, avenge their father and uncle, and rise to become the sun and moon. The third gives the history of the K'iche' lords down to the Spanish arrival. Its stories echo scenes found on Classic Maya vases from centuries earlier, so the oral tradition is far older than the manuscript. It is the most important surviving Maya mythic text and a pillar of Guatemalan identity.¹²