Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T19:22:02.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THEOLOGY AND ECONOMY IN THE POPOL WUJ AND THEOLOGIA INDORUM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Timothy W. Knowlton Open the ORCID record for Timothy W. Knowlton [Opens in a new window]
Timothy W. Knowlton*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Berry College, 2277 Martha Berry Highway NW, Box 495010, Mount Berry, Georgia 30149, United States
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on modern ethnography, scholars often characterize ancient Maya religion as “covenants” involving human beings generating merit through ritual activity in order to repay a primordial debt to the gods. However, models based on modern ethnography alone would not allow us to recognize the impact on Maya religions of those Christian discourses of debt and merit that accompanied sixteenth-century colonization. This article attempts to historicize our understanding of indigenous Mesoamerican theologies by examining how early Colonial indigenous language texts describe moral and ritual obligations to the gods in terms of their societies’ economies. The specific case study here compares two contemporaneous sixteenth-century K'iche' Maya texts: the Popol Wuj by traditionalist K'iche' elites and the Theologia Indorum by the Dominican friar Domingo de Vico. Comparison of these texts’ use of exchange-related lexicon illustrates that the traditionalist theological discourse of the Popol Wuj, which emphasizes reciprocal obligations between different beings within an ontological hierarchy, came to exist alongside Christian K'iche' discourses with a more mercantile religious language of spiritual debt payment. It is argued that these results have potential implications for our assessment of ethnohistorical sources on indigenous theology from elsewhere throughout Mesoamerica as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Summer 2023 , pp. 476 - 488
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acuña, René 1983 El Popol Vuh, Vico y la Theologia Indorum. In Nuevas perspectivas sobre el Popol Vuh, edited by Carmack, Robert M. and Santos, Francisco Morales, pp. 1–16. Piedra Santa, Guatemala.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas 1920 The Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. 2nd rev. ed. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online ed. copyright © 2017 by Knight, Kevin. Electronic document, https://www.newadvent.org/summa, accessed November 17, 2021.Google Scholar
Babcock, Thomas F. 2012 Utatlán: The Constituted Community of the K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Beliaev, Dimitri, and Davletshin, Albert 2006 Los sujetos novelísticos y las palabras obscenas: Los mitos, los cuentos, y las anécdotas en los textos mayas sobre la cerámica del periodo clásico. In Sacred Books, Sacred Languages: Two Thousand Years of Ritual and Religious Maya Literature, edited by Rivera, Rogelio Valencia and Fort, Geneviève Le, pp. 21–44. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben.Google Scholar
Braswell, Geoffrey E. 2001 Post-Classic Maya Courts of the Guatemalan Highlands: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Approaches. In Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya. Volume 2: Data and Case Studies, edited by Inomata, Takeshi and Houston, Stephen D., pp. 308–334. Westview Press, Boulder.Google Scholar
Braswell, Geoffrey E. 2003 K'iche'an Origins, Symbolic Emulation, and Ethnogenesis in the Maya Highlands, A.D. 1450–1524. In The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Smith, Michael E. and Berdan, Francis F., pp. 297–303. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Breton, Alain 1999 Rabinal Achi: Un drama dinástico maya del siglo XV. Translated by Martínez, Jorge Mario. Centre Français d’Études Mexicaines et Centraméricaines, Guatemala.Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle R. 1983 Préstamos lingüísticos en el Popol Vuh. In Nuevas perspectivas sobre el Popol Vuh, edited by Carmack, Robert M. and Santos, Francisco Morales, pp. 81–86. Piedra Santa, Guatemala.Google Scholar
Carmack, Robert M. 1973 Quichean Civilization: The Ethnohistoric, Ethnographic, and Archaeological Sources. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Carmack, Robert M. 1981 The Quiché Mayas of Utatlán: The Evolution of a Highland Guatemala Kingdom. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Carmack, Robert M., and Mondloch, James L. (translators) 1983 El Título de Totonicapán. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Carmack, Robert M., and Mondloch, James L., trans. 1989 El Título de Yax y otros documentos quichés de Totonicapán, Guatemala. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1967 Don Juan Cortés, cacique de Santa Cruz Quiché. Estudios de Cultura Maya 6:251–266.Google Scholar
Carrasco Vargas, Ramón, Vásquez López, Verónica A., and Martin, Simon 2009 Daily Life of the Ancient Maya Recorded on Murals at Calakmul, Mexico. PNAS 106:19245–19249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo 1999 Título de los Nimak Achi de Totonicapán (1545). Mesoamérica 38:77–84.Google Scholar
Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo 2017 Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Christenson, Allen J. 2003 Popol Vuh: Literal Poetic Version. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Christenson, Allen J. 2007 Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Christenson, Allen J. 2016 The Burden of the Ancients: Maya Ceremonies of World Renewal from the Pre-Columbian Period to the Present. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chuchiak, John F. IV 2006 De Extirpatio Codicis Yucatanensis. The 1607 Colonial Confiscation of a Maya Sacred Book: New Interpretations on the Origins and Provenience of the Madrid Codex. In Sacred Books, Sacred Languages: Two Thousand Years of Ritual and Religious Maya Literature, edited by Rivera, Rogelio Valencia and Fort, Geneviève Le, pp. 113–140. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D. 1978 Lords of the Underworld: Masterpieces of Classic Maya Ceramics. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D., and Houston, Stephen D. 2015 The Maya. 9th ed. Thames and Hudson, New York.Google Scholar
Contreras R., J. Daniel 1965 El último cacique de la casa de Cavec. Cuadernos de Antropología 5:37–48.Google Scholar
Cummins, Thomas B.F. 2011 The Indulgent Image: Prints in the New World. In Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, edited by Katzew, Ilona, pp. 203–225. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
de Ara, Domingo 1986 Vocabulario de lengua tzeldal según el orden de Copanabastla. Edited by Ruz, Mario Humberto. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
de Coto, Fray Thomás 1983 Thesaurus Verborum. Edited by Acuña, René. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
de Zorita, Alonso 1963 Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain. Translated by Benjamin Keen. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.Google Scholar
Dürr, Michael, and Sachse, Frauke (editors) 2017 Diccionario k'iche' de Berlin: El vocabulario en lengua 4iche otlatecas. Edición crítica. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Earle, Duncan M. 1986 The Metaphor of the Day in Quiché: Notes on the Nature of Everyday Life. In Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas, edited by Gossen, Gary H., pp. 155–172. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany.Google Scholar
Edmonson, Munro S. 1965 Quiche–English Dictionary. Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Edmonson, Munro S. 1971 The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala. Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Edmonson, Munro S. 1997 Quiché Dramas and Divinatory Calendars. Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Eire, Carlos M.N. 1995 From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Feldman, Lawrence H. 1985 A Tumpline Economy: Production and Distribution Systems in Sixteenth-Century Eastern Guatemala. Labyrinthos, Culver City.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Masson, Marilyn A., and Rich, Michelle 2016 Imagining a Complex Maya Political Economy: Counting Tokens and Currencies in Image, Text and the Archaeological Record. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27:29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graeber, David 2014 Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Updated and expanded ed. Melville Press, Brooklyn.Google Scholar
Hanks, William F. 2000 Intertexts: Writings on Language, Utterance, and Context. Rowman & Littlefield, London.Google Scholar
Hanks, William F. 2010 Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Christophe, Andres, Christopher R., Morton, Shawn G., and Wrobel, Gabriel D. 2015 For Love of the Game: The Ballplayer Panels of Tipan Chen Uitz in Light of Late Classic Athletic Hegemony. PARI Journal 16(2):1–30.Google Scholar
Henne, Nathan C. 2020 Reading Popol Wuj: A Decolonial Guide. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Robert M. II 1992 Colonial Cakchiquels: Highland Maya Adaptation to Spanish Rule, 1600–1700. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York.Google Scholar
Hill, Robert M. II 1998 Land, Family, and Community in Highland Guatemala: Seventeenth-Century Cakchiquel Maya Testaments. In Dead Giveaways: Indigenous Testaments of Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Kellogg, Susan and Restall, Matthew, pp. 163–179. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Hill, Robert M. II 2012 Three Families: Genealogies and Processes among the Sixteenth-Century Kaqchikel Maya. Ethnohistory 59:569–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinojosa y Naveros, Eduardo de 1908 Bull of the Crusade. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. Appleton, Robert, New York. Electronic document retrieved from New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543b.htm, accessed July 2, 2021.Google Scholar
Hirth, Kenneth G. 2016 The Aztec Economic World: Merchants and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica. Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, Kerry 2000 Cosmological and Ritual Language in Ch'orti'. Report submitted to the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. Electronic document, http://www.famsi.org/reports/99036/index.html, accessed November 18, 2021.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Terrence, with Justeson, John 2003 A Preliminary Mayan Etymological Dictionary. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. Electronic document, http://www.famsi.org/reports/01051/index.html, accessed November 18, 2021.Google Scholar
Kent, William 1910 Indulgences. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton, New York. Electronic document retrieved from New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm, accessed July 1, 2021.Google Scholar
King, Eleanor M. 2015 The Ancient Maya Marketplace: The Archaeology of Transient Space. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Knowlton, Timothy W. 2010 Maya Creation Myths: Words and Worlds of the Chilam Balam. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Laughlin, Robert M., with Haviland, John B. 1988 The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantán, with Grammatical Analysis and Historical Commentary. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Law, Danny 2007 Poetic Style in Colonial Ch'olti' Mayan. Latin American Indian Literatures Journal 23(2):142–168.Google Scholar
León-Portilla, Ascensión H. de, and León-Portilla, Miguel 2009 Las primeras gramáticas del Nuevo Mundo. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.Google Scholar
León-Portilla, Miguel (editor) 1986 Coloquios y doctrina cristiana: con que los doce frailes de San Francisco, enviados por el papa Adriano VI y por el emperador Carlos V, convirtieron a los indios de la Nueva España. En lengua mexicano y española. Los diálogos de 1524. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Little, Lester K. 1983 Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.Google Scholar
López Ixcoy, Saqijix Candelaria 2011a Theologia Indorum, Fray Domingo de Vico: Reproducción facsimilar, transcripción paleográfico al K'iche' actual, traducción al español, Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Instituto de Lingüística e Interculturalidad, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.Google Scholar
López Ixcoy, Saqijix Candelaria 2011b Theologia Indorum, Fray Domingo de Vico: Reproducción facsimilar, transcripción paleográfico al K'iche' actual, traducción al español, Vol. 2. Instituto de Lingüística e Interculturalidad, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.Google Scholar
López Ixcoy, Saqijix Candelaria 2012 Theologia Indorum, Fray Domingo de Vico: Reproducción facsimilar, transcripción paleográfico al K'iche' actual, traducción al español, Vol. 3. Instituto de Lingüística e Interculturalidad, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.Google Scholar
López Ixcoy, Saqijix Candelaria 2017 Theologia Indorum: BnF manuscrit américain 10. Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.Google Scholar
Lovin, Robin W., and Reynolds, Frank E. 1985 Cosmogony and Ethical Order. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
MacLeod, Murdo J. 2008 Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 1520–1720. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Macri, Martha J., and Looper, Matthew G. 2003 Nahua in Ancient Mesoamerica: Evidence from Maya Inscriptions. Ancient Mesoamerica 14:285–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malamoud, Charles 1983 The Theology of Debt in Brahmanism. In Debts and Debtors, edited by Malamoud, Charles, pp. 21–40. Vikas Publishing, New Delhi.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon 2010 The Dark Lord of Maya Trade. In Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea, edited by Finamore, Daniel and Houston, Stephen D., pp. 160–162. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, and Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon 2012 Hieroglyphs from the Painted Pyramid: The Epigraphy of Chiik Nahb Structure Sub 1–4, Calakmul, Mexico. In Maya Archaeology 2, edited by Golden, Charles, Houston, Stephen, and Skidmore, Joel, pp. 60–81. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Mallory E. 2017 Land, Politics, and Memory in Five Nija'ib' K'iche' Títulos: “The Title and Proof of Our Ancestors.” University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel 2002 [1950] The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Halls, W.D.. Routledge, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, Judith M., and Hill, Robert M. 2006 Kaqchikel Chronicles: The Definitive Edition. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
McAnany, Patricia A. 2010 Ancestral Maya Economies in Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAnany, Patricia A. 2013 Artisans, Ikatz, and Statecraft: Provisioning Classic Maya Royal Courts. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Hirth, Kenneth G. and Pillsbury, Joanne, pp. 229–253. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Monaghan, John D. 2000 Theology and History in the Study of Mesoamerican Religions. In Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 6: Ethnology, edited by Bricker, Victoria R. and Monaghan, John D., pp. 24–49. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondloch, James L. 2017 Basic K'ichee' Grammar: Thirty-Eight Lessons. Rev. ed. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moyes, Holly, Christenson, Allen J., and Sachse, Frauke (editors) 2021 Myths of the Popol Vuh in Cosmology, Art, and Ritual. University Press of Colorado, Louisville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okoshi Harada, Tsubasa 2009 Códice de Calkiní. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Orellana, Sandra L. 1981 Idols and Idolatry in Highland Guatemala. Ethnohistory 28:157–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quezada, Sergio, and Harada, Tsubasa Okoshi 2001 Papeles de los Xiu de Yaxá, Yucatán. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Quiroa, Néstor 2011 The Popol Vuh and the Dominican Religious Extirpation in Highland Guatemala: Prologues and Annotations by Fr. Francisco Ximénez. The Americas 67:467–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pezzarossi, Guido 2014 Tribute, Antimarkets, and Consumption: An Archaeology of Capitalist Effects in Colonial Guatemala. In Archaeology of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America, edited by Pedro Paulo, A. Funari and Sentatore, María Ximena, pp. 79–102. Springer, Cham.Google Scholar
Rafael, Vicente L. 1993 Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Restall, Matthew 1998 Maya Conquistador. Beacon Press, Boston.Google Scholar
Romero, Sergio 2015a Language and Ethnicity among the K'ichee' Maya. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romero, Sergio 2015b Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala: Addressing “God” after the Spanish Conquest. Ethnohistory 62:623–649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roys, Ralph L. 1965 Ritual of the Bacabs. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Roys, Ralph L. 1967 The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Sachse, Frauke 2016 The Expression of Christian Concepts in Colonial K'iche' Missionary Texts. In La transmisión de conceptos cristianos a las lenguas amerindias: Estudios sobre textos y contextos de la época colonial, edited by Sáenz, Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar, pp. 93–116. Academie Verlag, St. Augustin.Google Scholar
Smailus, Ortwin 1975 El Maya-Chontal de Acalán: Análisis lingüístico de un documento de los años 1610–12. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E., and Berdan, Francis F. (editors) 2003 The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Sparks, Gary G. 2019 Rewriting Maya Religion: Domingo de Vico, K'iche' Maya Intellectuals, and the Theologia Indorum. University Press of Colorado, Louisville.Google Scholar
Sparks, Gary G., Sachse, Frauke, and Romero, Sergio (editors) 2017 The Americas’ First Theologies: Early Sources of Post-Contact Indigenous Religion. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Speal, C. Scott 2014 The Evolution of Ancient Maya Exchange Systems: An Etymological Study of Economic Vocabulary in the Mayan Language Family. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:69–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuart, David 2006 Jade and Chocolate: Bundles of Wealth in Classic Maya Economics and Ritual. In Sacred Bundles: Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, edited by Guernsey, Julia and Reilly, F. Kent, pp. 127–144. Boundary End Archaeology Research Center, Barnardsville.Google Scholar
Tanabe, George J. Jr. 2004 Merit and Merit-Making. In Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Vol. 1, edited by Buswell, Robert E. Jr., pp. 532–534. Macmillan Reference, New York.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl A. 1994 The Birth Vase: Natal Imagery in Ancient Maya Myth and Ritual. In The Maya Vase Book: A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases, Vol. 4, edited by Kerr, Justin, pp. 652–685. Kerr Associates, New York.Google Scholar
Tedlock, Barbara 1992 Time and the Highland Maya. Rev. ed. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Tedlock, Dennis 1996 Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life. Rev. ed. Simon and Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Tedlock, Dennis 2003 Rabinal Achi: A Mayan Drama of War and Sacrifice. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric. S. 1970 Maya History and Religion. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Tokovinine, Alexandre, and Beliaev, Dmitri 2013 People of the Road: Traders and Travelers in Ancient Maya Words and Images. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Hirth, Kenneth G. and Pillsbury, Joanne, pp. 169–200. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Van Akkeren, Ruud W. 2003 Authors of the Popol Wuj. Ancient Mesoamerica 14:237–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Oss, Adriaan C. 1986 Catholic Colonialism: A Parish History of Guatemala, 1524–1821. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Weeks, John M., Sachse, Frauke, and Prager, Christian M. 2009 Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Wells, E. Christian, and Davis-Salazar, Karla L. (editors) 2007 Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Wisdom, Charles 1940 The Chorti Indians of Guatemala. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar