Description:
This is the first complete version in English of the "Book of the People" of the Quiche Maya, the most powerful nation of the Guatemalan highlands in pre-Conquest times and a branch of the ancient Maya, whose remarkable civilization in pre-Columbian America is in many ways comparable to the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. Generally regarded as America's oldest book, the Popol Vuh, in fact, corresponds to our Christian Bible, and it is, moreover, the most important of the five pieces of the great library treasures of the Maya that survived the Spanish Conquest.
Brief description:
Adri n Recinos-who made a new Spanish translation from the original Xim'nez manuscript in Quiche after he had discovered differences, omissions, and changes in the text published by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1861?is a distinguished diplomat as well as linguist, archaeologist, and ethnologist. For sixteen years (1928- 44), minister and ambassador to the United States from his native Guatemala, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from George Washington University in 1942. Now retired, he lives in Guatemala City, where he pursues his linguistic and archaeological avocations.