Pre-Hispanic America's most celebrated literary monument, the
Popol Wuj, was written in the 1550s, although our only copy is
an early-eighteenth-century text by the Dominican friar Francisco
Ximénez. We lack direct information about the Popol
Wuj's authors. Some scholars have proposed that the
indigenous scribe Diego Reinoso was its creator. However, Reinoso wrote
another K'iche' document, the Título de
Totonicapan, and a close examination of that text learns that he
disapproved of the political faction represented in the Popol
Wuj. Its advocates were a lineage called Nim Ch'okoj, Great
Kinkajou. Dennis Tedlock has suggested that the Nim Ch'okoj were
the Popol Wuj's composers. They introduce themselves at
the end of the text as the Fathers and Mothers of the Word. A scrutiny
of both documents and early Colonial papers reveals that, by the 1550s,
a political conflict was under way between the two highest offices in
the K'iche' power structure: the Keeper of the Mat and the
Vice-Keeper of the Mat. The Popol Wuj seems to have supported
the first faction, and the Título de Totonicapan
supported the second faction.5 My translation here is
tentative. Wachib'al(al) means “image” or
“depiction” but also “representative.” The
author may actually refer to a drawing in a pictographic document or
may want to say that, through these offices, the three main
chinamit were represented in the power structure of Ismachi,
and later in that of Q'umarkaj.