The three divinatory calendars presented in this volume are examples of a K’iche’an¹ literary tradition that includes the Popol Vuh, Annals of the Cakchiquels (Memorial de Solola), and the Titles of the Lords of Totonicapan. Two of the calendars were written in indigenous Kaqchikel or K’iche’ languages, but in European script, sometime before or during the eighteenth century. The third example was written in K’iche’ and Spanish in 1854. They demonstrate that although linguistic and literary traditions were still being adhered to, there was at the same time an obvious element of adaptation and acculturation, the use of European script....

An important volume comprising transcriptions of two original documents is curated in the collections of the library at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. These manuscripts are identified as “Calendario de los indios de Guatemala 1685. Kaqchikel” and “Calendario de los indios de Guatemala 1722. Kiche.” Both transcriptions were prepared in Guatemala City between 1875 and 1878 by the German philologist Carl Hermann Berendt. Daniel Garrison Brinton, who later acquired Berendt’s manuscript collection, describes the two manuscripts: “Two precious pieces beautifully copied in facsimile by Dr. Berendt from ancient manuscripts he discovered in Guatemala. They present a...

The second manuscript, “Calendario de los indios de Guatemala 1722. Kiche,” was written in K’iche’ in 1722 and was copied by Karl Hermann Berendt in 1877 from a manuscript in the Museo Nacional de Guatemala. Berendt believed that the calendar came from the Quetzaltenango area and that it was the one given to Cortés y Larraz by the resident priest (Carmack 1973:166).

The 1722 K’iche’ calendar is the most complex and interesting of the three manuscripts in this volume. It consists of nine parts arranged in three sections indicated by A, B, and C. Individual annual cycles within these three...

A third calendar was recorded by the resident priest of Santa Catarina Ixtlahuacán, Vicente Hernández Spina. Pedro Cortés y Larraz (1958, 2:150) describes the eighteenth-century village of Santa Catarina Ixtlahuacán:

The town of Santa Catarina, which they speak about in the parish of San Miguel Totonicapan, is located in a ravine at the base of high mountains. The houses are covered with terra-cotta tiles, there are no streets, and the entire area is surrounded by ravines. They grow many potatoes, wheat, and maize, and have commerce with the coast, the Indians are very rich, but with bad reputations of being...