Whose Popul Vuh Is It, Anyway, The Ki'che' Maya or the Chol?

May 28, 2012, La Antigua, Guatemala: A speaker at the Fifth Mayan Archaeology Convention in Antigua, Guatemala, this June, Dutch anthropologist and ethnologist Ruud van Akkeran revealed evidence today that the Popul Vuh was written by the Chol Maya of the Verapaz region of Guatemala, not by the Ki'che' of the highlands. With a smile, he told Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre that he believed he might be lynched for espousing such a theory.

Based on 20 years of research, Akkeran also presented evidence, that Xibalba, the Underworld of the Maya, had a physical location and that it was in the Verapaz region of eastern Guatemala. This makes sense, because the Great Abyss that leads to Xibalba, according to the Dennis Tedlock translation of the Popul Vuh, is thought to have been near Coban in the Verapaz.

New Lost Cities of the Maya
Akkeran's thesis is based on ancient Mayan works such as the Rabinal Achi' and research and fieldwork in Guatemala that led him to ancient sites still unnamed and unrecorded. (A Prensa Libre story from May 27 reported there are thousands of such sites in Guatemala and southern Mexico.) One of them, he says, is the site of the biggest sacred ball court, though he did not specify if this is the biggest in Guatemala or all of Mesoamerica. The ball court at Chichen Itza is currently recognized as the largest ball court of the Maya.

One of his key points is that the Maya lineage most frequently mentioned in the Popul Vuh is the Caweq (called the Cauec in Tedlock's classic translation. But he describes the Cauec as a Ki'che' tribe, who lived mainly in the Verapaz region of Guatemala, not in the Ki'che' strongholds in the highlands).

This is significant, because the Verapaz region is south of El Mirador, where Dr. Richard Hansen's excavations have turned up one of the earliest carvings that depict the Popul Vuh legend of the Hero Twins. This frieze was recently restored by Franciso Lopez, a Mayan artist and archaeologist with 20 years experience with the hieroglyphs and who continues his work with Hansen at El Mirador and other archaeologists and epigraphers at various sites in the Peten.

The Aztec Connection
Akkeran says that some of the Maya in the Guatemalan highlands came from Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec. Previously, it has been thought that they came from Teotihuacan, Puebla and other cities in what is now Mexico. This is the first report we have heard linking the Aztecs with the Mayan migration to Guatemala.

Akkeran's thesis is part of of his new book, Xibalba y el naciomento del nuevo sol: una vision posclasico del colapso Maya (Xibalba and the birth of the new sun: a postclassic vision of the Collapse of the Maya).

I will report more on this and other groundbreaking news about the ancient Maya, their calendar systems and the events of 2012 -- which is the theme of the convention in Antigua -- after the event, which runs from June 15-17. For more information on the Fifth Mayan Archaeology Convention in Antigua, see www.eventosantiguaguatemala.com.

Shay Addams
La Antigua, Guatemala
6 Ix, May 2012