The Popul Vuh is a collection of the mythology of the Quiché Maya of Guatemala. Originally sourced in the folk beliefs and other oral traditions of the Quichés, the myths and legends and, to a limited extent, something of the history of the Quichés is found within the text of what we know today to be the Popul Vuh.

The Popul Vuh is actually comprised of the sacred traditions of the Quiché Maya people. An excellent history of its evolution from the oral tradition to its ultimate publication as a coherent text is to be found in the English version of Popul Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya, by Delia Getz and Sylvanus Morley, translated into English by Adrian Recinos and published by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. What follows is a synopsis of that history as developed in this text.

The Conquest of Guatemala
Pedro Alvarado, a lieutenant of Cortéz, entered Guatemala in 1524, engaging the various Maya groups and subdueing them. The last of the Maya groups to capitulate was the Quiché Maya whom he engaged at Utatlán. Their subjugation was the beginning of Spanish domination. In the attempt to convert the Maya groups to Christianity, many of the artifacts of the traditional religions were destroyed. With Utatlán destroyed, the Quiché leadership moved to what is today the town of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango where the Spanish established a church at the central plaza of the town, the Church of Santo Tomás.

The Manuscript of Chichicastenango
In 1703, a trusted friend of the Quiché Maya, Father Francisco Jiménez received a document which the Quichés had guarded carefully for more than 150 years. Written in the 1550's in the Quiché language by a Mayan scribe who had learned the Spanish alphabet, the manuscript contained the sacred myths and legends of the Quiché Maya. Father Jiménez worked to translate the work into Spanish. While the original document has been lost, Father Jimenez' translation survives. It is from that Spanish translation that the Popul Vuh has come to the attention of the world.

Known for almost two hundred years as the "Manuscript of Chichicastenango," the document received its current name, "the Popul Vuh," from the Frenchman Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg who translated it into French in 1861. It was the Abbe who gave it the name "Popul Vuh" which has come to denominate it to the present day.

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