Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya - Mesoweb

few scribes at the Quiché court were familiar enough with such books in their possession that
they could read them in at least a cursory way.
Beginning in March 1555, a judge from the province of Mexico named Alonso de Zorita
began a tour of inspection through the province of Guatemala in order to moderate tribute
levies and correct administrative abuses inflicted on the local Maya population. As part of his
duties, Zorita visited the ancient city of Utatlan to learn what he could about the ancient
political system of the Quichés. There he was shown “paintings that they had which
recorded their history for more than eight hundred years back, and which were interpreted for
me by very ancient Indians” (Zorita 1963, 271-2).
There must have been hundreds of hieroglyphic books in the Maya world at the time of
the Spanish conquest. It is one of the great tragedies of New World history that the vast
majority of these were destroyed. Las Casas witnessed the destruction of a number of such
books which were burned to “protect” the Maya from their traditional religion:
These books were seen by our clergy, and even I saw part of those which were burned
by the monks, apparently because they thought [they] might harm the Indians in matters
concerning religion, since at that time they were at the beginning of their conversion.
(Las Casas 1958, 346)
Diego de Landa was particularly zealous in his efforts to destroy any hieroglyphic books
which he could find in northern Yucatán: “We found a large number of books of these
characters and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and
lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree and which
caused them much affliction” (Landa 1941, 78).
Only four lowland Maya codices are known to have escaped these purges. We can only
add our own laments to those of the Maya over the irretrievable loss of a people’s literary
heritage. Of the many hieroglyphic books that once existed in the highlands, including the
Precolumbian version of the Popol Vuh, not a single one is known to have survived.
The fact that the contents of the original Popol Vuh predated the Spanish conquest gave
them an aura of mystery and power. Its authors referred to the ancient book upon which the
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