Today we explore the Popol Vuh, the foundational sacred narrative of the K’iche people. This Mayan epic tells the story of creation, the role of the gods in human affairs, and the history of migration and settlement in Central America up to the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. The story of the Popol Vuh is pretty amazing itself. It was passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years, first orally and then written in Mayan glyphs in the mid sixteenth century. The original Mayan text was hidden from Spanish invaders—until the K’iche people allowed a Dominican friar, Francisco Ximenez, to make a Spanish translation in the early 1700s. Today there are many translations of the Popol Vuh—but it’s not nearly as well known as other texts, like the Bible or the Epic of Gilgamesh, even though it’s considered by many to be the oldest book in the Americas. 

One incredible thing about the translation we’ll be talking about today is that it’s a family affair. Juan Coy Tení was born into an Indigenous community in Coban, Guatemala; he studied law and is now a social worker living in Kansas. When he married the poet Jesse Nathan’s sister, Juan and Jesse began translating poetry together over email and at gatherings—and now Juan’s son, Josué, an undergraduate student who was raised in the US, has joined in their work as a family of translators. To guest editor Srikanth Reddy, Jesse, Juan, and Josue’s translation—made across borders, languages, and generations—marks an important new chapter in this epic poem’s story.

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