Excerpts
Father Ximénez's manuscript contains the oldest known text of Popol Vuh. It is mostly written in parallel K'iche' and Spanish as in the front and rear of the first folio pictured here.All editions of Popol Vuh come from the records of the Dominican priest Francisco Ximénez who lived around the turn of the 18th century. His manuscript, presently housed at The Newberry library, is faded or stained in places, has no organizational divisions, and does not exhibit consistent punctuation or capitalization. For all of these reasons, editing the manuscript has been a challenge and even successful editors are forced to exercise a great deal of judgment in preparing print editions. Recently some editors (Tedlock, Colop, and Christenson) have endeavored to versify Ximénez's text. The preamble below is presented, with minor modifications, in Father Ximénez's prose and is followed by a sample of the versified renderings.
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