The Highland Maya in Fact and Legend: Francisco Ximenez, Fernando Alva de Ixtlilxochitl, and Other Commentators on Indian Origins and Deeds (review)

The Highland Maya in Fact and Legend: Francisco Ximénez, Fernando Alva de Ixtlilxóchitl, and Other Commentators on Indian Edited by Marshall N. Peterson. (Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 1999. xviii + 105 pp. preface, introduction, maps, tables, illustrations, bibliography. $12.50 paper.)

Marshall Peterson’s The Highland Maya in Fact and Legend provides a brief historical overview of Guatemala’s Mayan population. To illustrate some aspects of the precontact and colonial life of this indigenous people, Peterson translates and annotates two selected writings; one by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl and one by Fray Francisco Ximénez. The passage from Ximénez provides an especially insightful perspective of an enlightened Spanish priest’s impressions of the indigenous population of Guatemala. Peterson then writes a summary essay on the plight of the Highland Maya from 1730 to the present in which he relies solely on secondary sources. The focus of this short essay is the conservative president and military hero Rafael Carrera. Finally, Peterson dedicates two and a half pages to the history of the indigenous people of Guatemala since 1865. The book’s main strength lies in the translation of two short excerpts from contemporaries of the indigenous people during the colonial period.

Peterson translates Ixtlilxóchitl’s account of the fall of the Toltec capital of Tula (found in Ixtlilxóchitl’s Obras historicas, vol. 1) and the tremendous loss of life suffered by the indigenous people of Mexico. Ixtlilxóchitl was a learned indigenous man of Toltec descent (although three of his grandparents were Spaniards) who wrote about the history, culture, and life of his native people. According to Ixtlilxóchitl, some of the survivors of Tula fled to Guatemala. In a footnote, Peterson explains that some scholars do not believe Tula was the original capital of Guatemala’s aboriginal people. Peterson does not offer any definitive conclusions, however. Instead he moves into his translation of Ximénez’ (the exact source is unclear) firsthand account of the Mayan people.

Ximénez was a Dominican friar who arrived in Central America in 1687. Like Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Ximénez was a defender of the indigenous people, one of the few such defenders in the seventeenth century. He learned the languages of Kaqchikel, K’iche’, and Tz’utujjil and thereby gained an in-depth understanding of these indigenous groups. He wrote several works that cover the precontact and colonial periods in Guatemala. Peterson selects an excellent passage to show that Ximénez did not idealize the Indians yet had a profound respect for them and encouraged the Spanish to emulate some of the Maya social and political models. Ximénez’s commentary on the Maya is insightful but clouded by his Catholic thinking and desire to convert the Indians. Unfortunately, Peterson’s footnotes and addendum provide little analysis of the writings of Ximénez or Ixtlilxóchitl.

The remainder of the book focuses on Carrera, who became involved in a popular uprising in 1837 and eventually led a peasant army that usurped power in Guatemala City in February 1838. Although Carrera’s desired vocation was as an expert military leader, he also served as president of Guatemala. This caudillo was so popular that in 1854 he became president for life. Although Carrera was an influential leader of the indigenous people, Peterson primarily explores Carrera’s life and career, not how his military leadership and government affected the Mayan people.

The Highland Maya in Fact and Legend is a concise book that lacks focus and original research. It is by no means a comprehensive work. Because he never clearly defines a thesis, the reader is unsure of both Peterson’s intentions in writing the book and his desired conclusions. The title is misleading; the author fails to explore, or even define, the relationship between fact...