The author and translator of this magnificent and careful edition has been an ethnologist in Guatemala for almost half a century, especially working at Momostenango (Highlands of Guatemala), which guarantees his experience in the historical and religious subject of the K’iche’ peoples. But, in addition, Allen Christenson is an expert who possesses rare qualities in our time, even in the academic environment, such as empathy and humility in the face of the intellectual baggage of other cultures, and this is revealed throughout his work.
This work is the first complete translation of the manuscript of The Title of Totonicapán from K’iche’ into English. In the words of the Christenson, The Title of Totonicapán is one of the most important historical documents of the K’iche’ Maya; the translation was elaborated by Christenson from an ancient copy of the original manuscript found by Robert Carmack in 1973. The manuscript was composed around 1554, shortly after the conquest of the region in 1524, and is a later copy of an alphabetical land title in the K’iche’ language completed by surviving K’iche’ nobility. The title also bears the names of the descendants of the three K’iche’ ruling lineages at the end, as signal of veracity. But the title was more than a weapon of legal negotiation during colonial times. In the beautiful foreword to this unique translation, Stephen Houston recalls how migration paths were of great importance to native AmSerican Indians: “[t]hey were thought vitally important, validating history by referring to a visible, treadable landscape, one that might be revisited and ritually venerated” (XVI). The edition of The Title of Totonicapán includes abundant notes that discuss the link between this ancient text and the discourses and practices of contemporary highland Maya, which not only show Christenson’s scholarship but could in and of themselves constitute a separate study. Regarding the difficulty of translating this manuscript, it is a complex undertaking, to say the least; The Title of Totonicapán involves esoteric language and numerous puns, as well as words that were chosen not only for their meaning but also for their sound and rhythm. Christenson’s translation offers the reader, moreover, a literal, word-for-word translation of the K’iche’ text into English, especially because of the author’s desire that the K’iche’ themselves be able to read the text in their original language. As Christenson points out, language is, after all, a reflection of the flavor of a culture.
For his undertaking, Allen J. Christenson benefited from the impressive dictionaries, grammars, and theological treatises in the K’iche’ language and relied on the collaboration, for which he is deeply grateful, of Indigenous K’iche’ from towns and villages in the Highlands of Guatemala, among them several ritual specialists. Land titles, as Christenson points out, especially those elaborated during the early stage after the conquest of Guatemala in 1524, not only abound in information related to territory, limits, and lands but are also narratives in which the peoples affirmed their local identity. Therefore, as in The Title of Totonicapán, they contain passages referring to the creation of the world, the creation and migrations of their first ancestors, their religious beliefs and the relationship of the K’iche’ with the gods, sociocultural organization, and the supernatural source of the rulers’ power. In fact, The Title of Totonicapán is very similar in form and content to the K’iche’ document the Popol Vuh—both documents complement each other.
Undoubtedly, this is an important work for specialists; students of history, anthropology, and literature; and even, owing to the beautiful translation and its content, for a public interested the rich Indigenous history and tradition.
