The Book Review
10.5 Review of a Recent Translation of The Popol Vuh by Dr. Allen J. Christenson.
The Popol Vuh is perhaps the most important among the handful of pre-Columbian books that have survived Spanish Conquest. As such, it has received a great deal of attention from LDS readers who are interested in the authentic reminiscences of people of possible Lamanite heritage. Dennis Tedlocks's recent translation of the Popol Vuh (Simon and Schuster, 1985) is a landmark contribution to a proper understanding of this Native American text. Although there have been many translations of the Popol Vuh over the years, this one must rank as the best and most authoritative to date.
The original text of the Popol Vuh was composed in highland Guatemala by anonymous lords of the Quiche Maya, shortly before the year 1558. Their stated intention was to preserve the religious and cultural knowledge of their people. It is written in elegant Quiché, and was, at least in part, based on an ancient hieroglyphic codex. The Popol Vuh is an acknowledged literary masterpiece, an expression of the Maya's most profound thoughts on the creation, the cycles of universal death and rebirth, and the origin of the Quichés as a great nation.
It is important to remember that the Popol Vuh was compiled more than a thousand years after the Book of Mormon account was completed, and its historical accounts refer to event dating no further back in time than the thirteenth century after Christ. It is therefore unreasonable to expect extensive references to Book of Mormon events of theology. Nevertheless, there are several intriguing passages which may represent Book of Mormon period influences. The authors of the Popol Vuh declared in their preamble to the text that the Quiché people arrived in Guatemala from "across the sea." This agrees with other Highland Maya documents such as the Annals of the Cakchiquels, which gives their place of origin as "the other side of the sea," or the Title of the Lords of Totonicapán, which speaks of the original Quiché home as being beyond "the other part of the ocean, from where the sun rises."
The Quiché version of the creation contained in the first section of the Popol Vuh is remarkably similar to that in the scriptural account of the Bible. The creator gods are arranged as a trinity, and it is by their divine word alone that the world is formed. The universe was said to have begun as a vast, lifeless sea from which dry land, vegetation, animals, birds, and finally man was created. As in Genesis, the first men were destroyed by a universal flood when they said to have descended voluntarily into the realm of death where he was slain and hung on a "Tree of Life" which instantly bore fruit (a reference perhaps to both the crucifixion, and the Tree of Life, which Nephi associates with the sacrifice of the Savior). The twin gods which brought life back into the world were miraculously born of a virgin, Xquic, possibly a dim recollection of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
As a result of these Biblical parallels, some scholars have discounted this section as being heavily influenced by European Catholicism as taught to the Maya soon after the Conquest. For a number of reasons this is very unlikely. First of all, the Popol Vuh is otherwise free of intrusive European material. The gods have native Maya names and are authentically pre-Columbian in character. The chief creator god is described as a feathered serpent deity, similar in iconography and character to other feathered serpent gods worshipped throughout Mesoamerica even in Book of Mormon times. Other than the preamble, there are no intrusive Spanish words in the Popol Vuh. This is unique, since most Maya texts written during the sixteenth century contain a great number of Spanish words and concepts. In many cases this was to please any non-Maya readers with the Christianization of the text.
The stated purpose of the Quichés transcription of the Popol Vuh was to preserve it from destruction, presumably by Spanish Christians. It contains extensive accounts of pagan polytheism, mythology, and human sacrifice, which would have been offensive to Christian priests who were then actively seeking out such writings to destroy them. The authors of the Popol Vuh apparently had no intention of showing it to their new European overlords, and it is known that the text was kept hidden from outsiders for over a century. It is unlikely that given the otherwise authentic nature of the Popol Vuh text, that there would be any incentive for the Maya to include intrusive Christian material in their account.
Another indication of the authenticity of these portions of the Popol Vuh is their extensive use of chiasmus (Allen Christenson, "Chiasmus in Mayan Texts," Ensign, October 1988). Chiasmus is a poetic form that matches elements in reverse order; that is, the first element parallels the last, the second element very infrequently and the form was not characteristic of Spanish writings of the sixteenth century. Exciting research has been carried out recently by Dr. John Welch, identifying extensive passages of the Book of Mormon which employ chiasmus, thus identifying it as an ancient text (John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in the Authorship," Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 1982, pp. 33-52). This selection from the speech of King Benjamin is a simple example: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give" (Mosiah 4:24; italics added). In this light it is significant that the Popol Vuh is rich in chiasms. The following example is from the creation account:
The face of the earth was not yet visible.
All by itself lay dammed
the sea, and the womb of heaven, everything.
There was nothing whatever, all was
silenced,
or at rest.
Each thing was made silent,
Each thing was made calm, was made
invisible,
was made to rest in heaven.
There was not, then, anything in fact that
was standing there.
Only the pooled water, only the flat sea.
All by itself it lay dammed.
There was not, then, anything in fact that might have existed.
Longer chiasms are also evident in the Popol Vuh. The creation account itself is arranged as a single, large chiasmus. Each phase of creation is outlined in detail, from primordial darkness to the division of the rivers. The final ten lines of the section then summarize the events in reverse order.
One criticism I have of Tedlock's new translation is his neglect of the purely poetic nature of large sections of the Popol Vuh. Tedlock organizes his version of the Popol Vuh in a flowing prose. This stands in marked contrast to previous translations, particularly that of Munro Edmonson, who organized his translation completely into a long string of parallel couplets. This type of arrangement admittedly became rather forced in places, and also ignored other poetic devices, such as chiasmus.
It is one of the great tragedies of the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century that most Maya texts were purposely destroyed. Native Maya literacy steadily declined thereafter. I have not been able to identify any examples of chiasmus in Quiché-Maya documents after the first generation of native scribes had passed away. With very few exceptions, the Quichés were essentially an illiterate people within a century after the Conquest. As a result ' the rich literary heritage of the Quichés was lost to its own people.
Fortunately, modem Quichés are vigorously conservative in spiritual matters, preserving a surprising amount of pre-Columbian ritual and calendric knowledge in their ceremonies. In preparing his new translation, Dr. Tedlock realized that the Quichés themselves would have a unique insight into the language and religious significance of the Popol Vuh. He therefore spent more than a year in Guatemala working on his translation in close cooperation with Quiché shaman-priests in the village of Momostenango. Having worked off-and-on as a Quiché translator for the past fifteen years, I have felt that native informants are essential to such an endeavor. I knew many of Tedlock's informants in Momostenango, particularly Vicente de León, and know them to be proud of their heritage and eager to preserve it for the future.
For the most part, the contributions of Tedlock's Quiché informants are remarkable, demonstrating the subtle genius of the text itself, and the wisdom of modem native priests. Having said this, however, I must admit to some reservations about relying too heavily on this approach. The Quiché language has not been widely used in written form over the past several centuries. It is therefore unusually dynamic, varying widely from village to village. Much of the ancient vocabulary and grammatical constructions of the Popol Vuh have inevitably fallen out of use. A modem Quiché priest would have little more insight into such passages than a typical twentieth century American would have in understanding the archaic language of Medieval England.
To his credit, Dr. Tedlock did an admirable amount of more traditional research in preparing his translations. He refers frequently to early Quiché dictionaries compiled by post-Conquest Spanish priests. He evidently also spent a great deal of time combing through major manuscript archives for relevant documents, including the Gates Collection at BYU, and Chicago's Newberry Library where the oldest known copy of the Popol Vuh is preserved.
Tedlock does not claim personal fluency in the Quiché language. This is evident in a number of minor errors in grammar and interpretation. Another possible source of difficulty is his translation of the original Quiché form. In some cases half a name is translated into English, while leaving half in Quiché, as in the name of the progenitor hero "Jaguar Quitze." Translation of proper name is for the most part unnecessarily confusing and some of the translations are certainly questionable. We do not bother to translate the name derivations of cities like Seattle or Minneapolis, nor do we automatically think of the adjective "pretty" when we say the name Linda. By the same token, modem Quichés do not think of "monkey" when they use the common family name Batz, although that would be an acceptable translation. The royal capital of the once mighty Quiché nations was K'umarcaj. I doubt very much that the great city was always thought of in terms of the name's obscure original derivation, "Rotten Cane."
Dennis Tedlock's translation of the Popol Vuh is perhaps not the "Definitive Edition" the title page suggests. Such a thing cannot ever be derived from an ancient text like the Popol Vuh, unless one has generous access to the shades of the learned Quiché lords who originally penned it. Tedlock has however succeeded in bringing us closer to the book's spirit and nobility. Minor criticisms aside, it is an impressive work and unquestionably the best edition of the text available in English.