UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Colonial K'iche' in Comparison with Yucatec Maya: Language, Adaptation, and Intercultural Contact Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2c23t4jq Author Jones, Owen H. Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Colonial K’iche’ in Comparison With Yucatec Maya: Language, Adaptation, and Intercultural Contact A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Owen Harold Jones June 2009 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Robert W. Patch, Chairperson Dr. James P. Brennan Dr. Kevin Terraciano Copyright by Owen Harold Jones 2009 The Dissertation of Owen Harold Jones is approved: _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge all of the scholars who have lent their expertise to the completion of this dissertation. First, I would like to express my thanks to my advisor, Dr. Robert W. Patch for his advice, several letters, and never faltering support for my project. I would like to thank Dr. James P. Brennan for his words of encouragement and letters. I would also like to thank Dr. Kevin Terraciano for accepting the invitation to be on my dissertation committee. His expertise with indigenous notarial documents was greatly valued. I would especially like to acknowledge Sharon Mujica for allowing me the opportunity to learn Yucatec Maya with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Duke Consortium for Latin American Studies Yucatec Maya Intensive Language program in 2001, again in 2004, and for a third advanced level in 2008. I also extend my gratitude for the Foreign Language and Area Studies grants that I received from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the University of Madison, Wisconsin, and Duke University for the three years that I studied Yucatec Maya. I give my thanks to the expertise iv of Dr. Fidencio Briceño Chel for his instruction in Yucatec Maya, for his friendship, and for his dedication to Maya linguistics and to Maya anthropology. I also extend my thanks to Miguel Güemez Piñeda for my first lessons in Yucatec Maya. I would like to thank the Maya people of Xocen, Santa Elena, and Tihosuco including Don Tómas, Doña Jacinta, Don Teodoro Canul Canul, Don Lauro, his lovely mother Doña María, Doña Berta and her family, Don Miguel Chan, director of the Caste War Museum, Don Telesporo and his family, Don Justino, and the many residents of these three towns in the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, Mexico. I would like to acknowledge the fine support and instruction in K’iche’ that I received working with Eduardo Elias. His dedication to teaching modern K’iche’ and his patience with learning along with me the classic structure of the K’iche’ language does not pass without recognition. I thank the Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco (P.L.Q.) for their unwavering support, even when it did not seem like they would have enough room to accommodate me. I would also like to thank Lucas Xuruc for opening his home to me in Xela when I had nowhere else to go. v I also extend my thanks to the staff of galería 4 at the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City (AGN) and to the staff at the Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán (AGEY). My thanks, also, to the staff at the Archivo General de Centroamérica (AGCA) for their assistance with the card catalogue and for their dedication to locating extremely difficult to find notarial documents in K’iche’. I would also like to acknowledge that the research for this dissertation was made possible by a generous grant from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS), which allowed me the opportunity to spend time doing research both in Mexico and Guatemala. My thanks also go out to many thoughtful instructors in other fields of history at the University of California Riverside who have lent their support to me over the years. They include but are not limited to, Dr. Ray Kea (thanks for the many letters of recommendation), Dr. Rebecca “Monte” Kugel (thanks for the thought provoking discussions on indigenous ideology and culture), Dr. Randy Head (thanks for encouraging me to look at more than just Latin America in a world context), and Dr. Linda Bell (thanks for being genuinely concerned about my wellbeing). My thanks also to Dr. Matthew vi Restall who informed me of and encouraged me to use the K’iche’ wills in the Gates Collection and my thanks to Dr. Pedro Bracamonte y Sosa for inviting me to work in Yucatán with C.I.E.S.A.S. I would like to thank the staff of the History Department at the University of California, Riverside without whom I would not have been able to finish. I especially would like to thank Susan Komura for always making sure that I had things turned in on time and for having an extensive knowledge of graduate school procedures. I would also like to thank Christina Cuellar, Rosie Mamaril, Connie Young, and Deisy Escobedo for all of your assistance and friendship. I would like to thank the History Department for several departmental grants that I received specifically for dissertation research and I would like to thank the Marcoux family for establishing the Marcoux grant for Latin American history at the University of California, Riverside. The Marcoux grant allowed me to accomplish at least two summers of research in Guatemala that I would not have been able to do had it not been for this source of funding. I extend my appreciation to my colleagues, family, and friends who have inspired me and kept me sane through vii this entire process. My friends and colleagues include Frank Prue, Tom Brown, Tim Russell, Jon Ille, Ian Chambers, Isaac Stephens, Kiera Crago-Schneider, Michael Drake, Kathleen McGuire, Dana Velasco-Murillo, Margarita Ochoa, Karen Wilson, Vanessa Wilke, Peter Villella, Ramsey Tracy, John Tuxill, Rosalia Carillo, Akiko Nomura, Connie Chow, John Bawden, Joe Green, Mark Lentz, Asiris Cruz, Keith Cox, Moises Medina, and Omar Ronquillo. Thank you to my mom, Patricia Reynolds and to my siblings, Tom, Matt, John, David, Mark, Andrew, and Rebecca for your constant, unfailing support. I accept full responsibility for any errors made in this dissertation. Any friends or family that I did not include, I thank you as well. viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Colonial K’iche’ in Comparison with Yucatec Maya: Language, Adaptation, and Interethnic Contact by Owen Harold Jones Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, June 2009 Dr. Robert W. Patch, Chairperson In “Colonial K’iche’ in Comparison with Yucatec Maya: Language, Adaptation, and Interethnic Contact,” I examine K’iche’ and Yucatec Maya language and literacy and its relationship to the development of indigenous social, religious, and political structures in the period from the 1540’s, when indigenous literacy using Latin letters began, to 1825, the end of Spanish colonialism. It focuses on how native peoples in Guatemala and southern Mexico were able to adapt Spanish imposed institutions according to ideologies of community structure from their common Mesoamerican culture. It reveals Spanish colonialism from an indigenous ix perspective and highlights the adaptive conservatism of native societies in Mesoamerica. K’iche’ government provided protection from exploitation – the family protected its interests with the aide of chinamitales who protected them as their vassals from the indigenous governor and municipal council who protected the tinamit amaq’ from colonial officials. The K’iche’ people were the creators of the Popol Vuh, “The Book of the Mat,” the mat being a symbol of marriage and the adjective “ popol” a metaphor for an elite lineage. The family and its extended lineages were the basis for K’iche’ and Yucatec Maya social structure. Even though Spanish colonialism aggressively attempted to impose the Spaniards’ preclusive religion, the K’iche’ adapted and grafted in Christianity to their inclusive religion. Male town council members, indigenous lay religious leaders, and moiety leaders received a title, the q’a chuch q’ahaw , “our mothers, our fathers,” which identified them as diviners and made them mediators between their communities and the outside world as well as mediators between their living charges and the community’s ancestors. K’iche’ ideologies of land conjoined the concepts of their community’s sacred space with the practical life- x giving sustenance of the cornfield. Elites protected the right to work it and allowed commoners usufruct rights and familial possession. Community leaders made ritual processions to measure lands and marked off terrain with border markers, calling them by the name of individuals, families, saints, or chinamitales . It identifies the adaptation of colonial K’iche’ and Yucatec Mayan languages to Spanish and Nahuat. The K’iche’ language in colonial texts is somewhere between “Modern” and “Classical” K’iche’. xi Table of Contents Preface: xiii. – xiv. Chapter I.: Introduction 1 – 41 Chapter II.: K’iche’ Government – a Quasi- Autonomous Colonial Structure 42 – 104 Chapter III.: K’iche’ Religion 105 – 168 Chapter IV.: εa chuch εahau: K’iche’an Divination, Sacred Space, and Time 169 – 199 Chapter V.: K’iche’ Land and Inheritance 200 – 248 Chapter VI.: K’iche’ Language Adaptation – Texts and Genres 249 – 285 Chapter VII.: Conclusions 286 – 291 Bibliography 292 – 308 xii Preface In this dissertation, I attempt to present the scribal orthography as found in the colonial documents written in K’iche’. With that in mind, I had to find equivalent symbols that would stand for the letters that the K’iche’ scribes utilized for sounds not found in the Romance languages.