"The ""Popol Vuh"" and the Dominican Friar Francisco Ximenez: The Maya -Quiche Narrative as a Product of Religious Extirpation in Colonial Highland Guatemala"

My dissertation provides an inter-disciplinary, revisionist approach to the Popol Vuh that encompasses the fields of literature and anthropology. I challenge traditional approaches to this manuscript by placing it within the historical, cultural, and religious context of colonial contact. My study addresses the fundamental question of what the manuscript was originally and what it represents today, given that it has been solely studied as an independent, self-contained text apart from its original context. My main hypothesis, based on examination of Friar Ximenez's text itself, is that he initially compiled this indigenous narrative as part of a larger religious treatise to convert the Maya population to Christianity and ultimately to extirpate the Quiche religion. As such, I demonstrate how Friar Ximenez's religious mentality ultimately influenced his Spanish translation of the Quiche manuscript at linguistic and symbolic levels. Consequently, I redefine the Popol Vuh as having both indigenous and Dominican facets since the text is a product of the colonial conditions that prevailed in highland Guatemala as the missionary friars conducted the spiritual conquest of the Maya-Quiche.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Quiroa, Nestor Ivan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Susan D. Gillespie
• John Wilcox

• Anthropology, Cultural

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3044205

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86116