Memorial de Solola (review)

Two of Guatemala's most distinguished historians present six essays which deal with the Memorial de Sololá, the classic Kaqchikel Maya chronicle which covers the late prehispanic period up to ca. 1600. Most readers will be more familiar with either the English or original Spanish language editions of the same work published in 1953 and 1950 respectively by Adrián Recinos. This book is a useful companion volume to a new Kaqchikel/Spanish edition of the Memorial (1999) by a native Kaqchikel speaker, Simon Otzoy, which was edited by Jorge Luján Muñoz with essays by him and Daniel Contreras.

In his first essay, Luján undertakes a meticulous account of the history of the Memorial. He outlines its complex publication history from a partial French version by the cleric Brasseur de Bourbourg in the late 1850s until the Otzoy edition 140 years later. In between, nine other versions have appeared in Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, and Europe in Spanish, English, French and Kaqchikel. Luján points out that Brasseur left a translation in Guatemala that resulted in a French-to-Spanish edition in 1873-74 by a Guatemalan ecclesiastical notary and history aficionado, Juan Gavarrete. Brasseur took the only known manuscript copy to France. Subsequently it was translated into English (1885) by Daniel Brinton. The translator acquired it in 1887 and upon his death in 1899 it was donated to the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

Luján's second essay discusses the Memorial's authorship, arguing convincingly that it contains entries by at least three primary authors, beginning with a grandson of the Kaqchikel ruler or ajauj, Jun Iq'. The grandson wrote or, more likely, copied the prehispanic "mythological" entries (they are very similar to the Popol Vuh ) and wrote the historic parts up to the late 1550s, then Francisco Hernández Arana authored the entries from 1559-60 until 1581, when Francisco Díaz took over. In addition, Luján argues that two additional Sololá vecinos chronicled events in the late sixteenth century. Luján points out the Memorial was a collective work because it gathered together elements of the Kaqchikels' shared secular tradition with regard to their origins and migrations and was documented by "memorialists" who were all members of the xahila' clan and residents of Sololá.

The third essay, by Contreras, looks at the naming of the tinamit, Kaqchikel city or royal court. Contreras points out the name used today for the Tinamit, Iximché, is a more modern usage based on the mis-translation of patinamit chi iximché as the "city of iximché" when it should be the "city in iximché," or the place of the Ramon trees. Contreras calls for changing the name back to Tinamit Kaqchikel, Patinamit, Antiguo Tecpán Guatemala or just Guatemala. He shows that the city was referred to by some of these names or slight variations on them beginning with Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 in his letters to Hernán Cortés and by the chroniclers beginning with Bernal Díaz who first visited the city in 1526. In the next essay Contreras, focuses on the colonial chroniclers' mistakes and fantasies in writing about the founding of the first Spanish city at Iximché in 1524 and its permanent establishment in Santiago in Almolonga in 1527 and the Kaqchikel rebellion. He refutes many of their accounts and contrasts them with the more reliable versions found in the Memorial.

In Contreras' last essay he compares two famous "indigenous warriors," the legendary K'iche' King Tecún Umán and the lesser known Kaqchikel ruler known as Aposotzil Kahi Imox, or simply Sinacán. Ironically, even though Tecún has been officially declared (in 1960) a "National Hero" and is a "symbol of...