Ethnohistory

Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords

in Highland Guatemala: Addressing “God” after
the Spanish Conquest

Sergio Romero, University of Texas at Austin

Abstract. The textual sources of indigenous Christianities in Guatemala embody

a complex articulation of native thought, European language ideologies, and the
diachronic development of the Christianization of different areas of Mesoamerica.
The evangelization of the K’iche’ became a model for the construction of pastoral
Q’eqchi’. In contrast, the evangelization of the Pipil demanded substantial modifi-
cations of Mexican Nahuatl doctrinal language. Mutual intelligibility was not the
only requisite to persuade and convert the natives. The local organization of speech
genres and the indexical associations they effected were equally crucial. Spanish
imperial designs, including Christianization, were global, but the texts that medi-
ated them were woven with local threads. The creation of Christian registers in
indigenous languages in Guatemala illustrates the confluence of coercion, resis-
tance, and creativity behind the emergence of colonial indigenous religions.
Keywords. language, Christianity, Guatemala, Maya, Nahuatl

Native Languages and Mesoamerican Christianities

The evangelization of Mesoamerica was an arduous but never completely

successful religious and political project. Spanish clergy in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries sought to impose an alien cosmology and ritual and
bodily discipline over a territory more diverse culturally and linguistically
than any other with which they were familiar. Very early, they made the stra-
tegic decision to use Mesoamerican languages as vehicles of indoctrination.
This proved crucial for the development of Mesoamerican religions, hybrid
in symbols and practices but Christian in self-understanding, despite the
persistent doubts of the Spanish (Burkhart 1989; Garcia-Ruiz 1992; Sparks

Ethnohistory 62:3 (July 2015)"DOI 10.1215/00141801-2890273

Copyright 2015 by American Society for Ethnohistory

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624 Sergio Romero

2011; Tavárez 2000). The missionaries failed in turning Mesoamerican men

and women into Spanish Catholics, but they did succeed in radically trans-
forming their societies and their most iconic cultural artefact: their lan-
guage. As William Hanks argues in his book Converting Words (2010), the
“reduction” of Mesoamerican languages was a condition sine qua non for
the emergence of native Christianities. “Reduction” does not mean impover-
ishment but adaptation, such that native languages could be used as vehicles
for Christian doctrine and ritual and for the regimentation of individual
and social customs demanded by peninsular Catholicism, the political and
moral regime of Spanish policía (ibid.). Not only were European and Meso-
american cosmologies different, the indigenous languages that expressed
the latter were not congruent lexically and discursively with Spanish and
Latin, the languages of Christian theology at the time. Neologisms and new
associations between preexisting words and new meanings had to be cre-
ated as well as discourse registers embodying Christian doctrine and ritual.
The language of Christian prayer, doctrine, sacramental practice, moral dis-
course, and civil authority had to be constructed in close collaboration with
the first native converts (Burkhart 1989; Carmack and Mondloch 1983; Dur-
ston 2007; Duverger 1990; Estenssoro Fuchs 2003; Hanks 2010).
In this article I will show that the solutions to these conundrums were
local but also colored by the first experiences of the missionaries in Meso-
america. I will compare three case studies from Guatemala to examine the
history and implications of the lexical choices made to refer to or address
the Christian God. Each of them will illustrate a different stage in the Span-
ish evangelization project and a different genealogy of doctrinal registers in
indigenous languages. I will start with the K’iche’, the first linguistic group
together with the Kaqchikel to be systematically evangelized in the western
highlands of Guatemala. Next, I will discuss the Q’eqchi’, in the north-
central highlands, whose evangelization followed models first established
among the K’iche’ (see fig. 1). Finally, I will examine the Pipil, speakers of
at least two different Nahuatl varieties, who inhabited the southern pied-
mont of Guatemala. The catechetical language used in their evangelization
was initially an extension of Mexican Nahuatl doctrinal registers, but mis-
sionaries were soon forced to make several crucial adjustments, as we will
see. The order in which I will address each of these case studies follows their
diachronic development and geographic diffusion.

Mesoamerican Deities and the Christian God

Reading Spanish chronicles and the descriptions of native religious ritual

written by indigenous authors, such as the Florentine Codex, the Popol Vuh,

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 625

Figure 1. Geography of Mayan languages in Guatemala. Map by Sergio Romero

or the Memorial de Tecpán-Atitlán,1 one is struck by the conceptual chasm

between Mesoamerican and European theologies (Burkhart 1989; Carmack
and Mondloch 1983; Duverger 1990; Hanks 2010; D. Tedlock 1996). First,
Mesoamerican religions were not monotheistic. A plurality of divine beings
that horrified and bedazzled the Europeans contrasted with one Christian
God presiding over creation. Mesoamerican deities were diverse in history,
ritual role, and representation (Carrasco 1988).

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626 Sergio Romero

Second, the boundaries between the profane and the sacred were easily
blurred in Mesoamerica. As discussed by Alfredo Lopez-Austin (1994),
among others, divine and profane essences appeared intertwined in the
physical world inhabited by human beings. Entities considered inanimate
by the Spanish were regarded as live, sacred things in Mesoamerica (see also
Burkhart 1989; Duverger 1990).
Third, Mesoamerican ritual privileges iconic relationships over other
forms of semiosis. Religious signs act as icons transforming their bearers
into the divine beings the former are meant to represent. This is captured in
the complex concept of ixiptlatl in the Nahuatl tradition: sacrificial victims
wearing the accoutrements of the deity to which they were offered ritually
became the deity themselves in the liminal hours before the sacrifice (Clenn-
dinen 1991). Such transformations are fewer and much more restricted in
Christian ritual, with its rigid regimentation and clerical control. The tran-
substantiation of the Host into the body and blood of Christ during the
mass is perhaps the only regular case of divinization of a mundane object
in Catholic ritual.
The construction of doctrinal registers involved coining new words,
recruiting native-discourse poetics and extirpating linguistic practices
regarded as pagan, or evoking pre-Hispanic ritual or unorthodox forms of
Christianity. Our first case study concerns the first linguistic group evange-
lized in the western highlands of Guatemala: the K’iche’.

The K’iche’: The Pagan Roots of K’iche’ Christianity

The crafting of doctrinal registers in K’iche’ faced enormous challenges.

First of all, given that it was the first incursion of Spanish religious into
the western highlands of Guatemala in the 1520s, the Dominicans involved
were not familiar with highland Mayan languages (Asselbergs 2008; Bier-
man 1960; Carmack 1995). Previous experience was of limited use given the
deep structural and typological differences between the languages of cen-
tral Mexico and Guatemala. However, the Dominicans did draw on their
previous linguistic experience in the realm of orthographic conventions,
for example. The Latin-based alphabets developed to represent highland
Mayan languages used graphemes from the Latin script enriched with addi-
tional diacritics to represent sounds that did not exist in Spanish. The use
of the tresillo to represent the uvular ejective [q’] exploited spelling conven-
tions used in Andalusia to transliterate Arabic and Hebrew (Perry Wong,
pers. comm., 2008). The Spanish also deployed the descriptive template
provided by Antonio de Nebrija’s work on Latin and Spanish and recruited
the crucial collaboration of native speakers (Hanks 2010).

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 627

The Dominicans based in Guatemala managed to acquire oral fluency

in K’iche’ and started to collect ethnographic and historical texts with the
help of native collaborators, which they used as poetic templates to model
doctrinal registers. Despite their qualms about using K’iche’ nouns and per-
sonal names, the missionaries drew freely from the poetic structure of pre-
Christian ceremonial registers: parallelism, metaphors, honorific address,
and so on. In the introduction to his edition of Domingo de Basseta’s
K’iche’-Spanish dictionary from 1698 (2005), Rene de Acuña was the first
to recognize systematic concordances between the Popol Vuh and Basseta’s
dictionary. Dominicans like Basseta perused the Popol Vuh and other, simi-
lar ethnographic/historical accounts. The latter were not only pedagogical
devices to teach Spanish mendicants to identify pre-Christian rituals but
also linguistic materials used judiciously to craft a Christian language, free
of undesired “pagan” connotations. The Popol Vuh was more akin to the
Florentine Codex in its goals and intended audience than to the Books of
Chilam Balam,2 for example (Bricker and Miram 2002; Knowlton 2010;
Maxwell and Hill 2006). The latter were a “forbidden genre” to be hidden
from the inquisitorial eyes of the Spanish (Hanks 2010). The Popol Vuh and
other documents of the same kind, in contrast, were meant for Spanish mis-
sionaries and their native collaborators. The structural parallels between the
Popol Vuh and the Theologia Indorum are so striking that they suggest that
the former was the model for the latter.3
(1) K’iche’ Text (Theologia Indo- Literary Translation
rum, fols. 1–2)
Yx nu4ahol yx numil! Chiya Sons and daughters! Put in your
chi4uxlal, chiya na minds and hearts that you have
ypuch chiraybal, chiraj reta- to learn the word of the great
maxic D.n. Xere lo3 xere nim lord Dios. It is most dear, most
chuach uleuh etamabal D.n. ru4 important on this earth to learn
naipuch retamaxic vba about his works. Let obedi-
noh. Ahnim, ahlo3 chi vinak chi- ent, good people listen, medi-
taonic, chi4uxlanik, chilo3on tate and love the name of Dios,
naipuch vbi D.n. rumal 4ut the great lord. It is most neces-
kitzih chahauaxic chilo3oh chi sary for you all to truly place in
raih chi4ux v3alahobiçaxic, your hearts the word of Dios.
v4habal D., v4olem D.n. Oxlo3, Let it be precious to you all, the
ox4axtah chi4ux retamaxic yx ri so- called K’iche’ people here!
yx varalic vinak, ix Let the word of Dios, which I
pu 4iche vinak quixuchaxic. am going to start to explain,
Lo3maihtah chiue v4habal be dear to you! Let it awaken

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628 Sergio Romero

D.n. canutiquiba ubixic chiue your eyesight, let it warm you up,
vacamic. Are ta chi4aztah let it warm your hearts; let your
vi yuach. Are ta puch quixmi3 soul be calmed in the lord Dios!
ui, chi4atanob ta y4ux ru Let your heart twitch; let your
mal. Are ta bii cubeni y4ux heart spark on account of God’s
rumal chirih D.n. Chi4hapu doctrine. (His word) is before
pic, chi3atat ta y4ux rumal reta- riches, before power, before
maxic D.n. 4o nabe 3ino gold, before silver, before quetzal
mal 4o pu ahauabal 4o pu 3ana- feathers, before bird of paradise
puak, 4o pu çakipuak, 4o pu feathers. It is before anything
3u3 raxon 4o naipuch ronohel that you might possess on this
chiuexic chu4axic varal chu earth for which your heart is not
ach uleuh maui cuberinak v4ux- at rest. It overtakes wealth and
lal. Xa chi4ouic 3inomal aha power, it is more precious than
varem xa xchi4o ui ronohel ve jade, silver, cacao, quetzal and
xit vue puak, vue pek vue caco, bird of paradise feathers.
vue 3u3
vue raxon.
As shown in text (1), the Theologia Indorum used lexical repetitions
such as couplets and triplets as a poetic device to enhance the rhetorical
force of the sermon, even though they were also metric elements of pre-
Christian ritual. Parallelisms include phrasal and nominal pairs as well as
triplets as in the first, penultimate, and last lines in (1). These were stan-
dard kennings, couplets, and tropes used in ceremonial genres rather than
ad hoc missionary compositions. Clearly, the recruitment of such poetic fig-
ures required a solid acquaintance with native poetics.
(2) K’iche’ Text, Popol Vuh (fol. 1) Literary Translation
Varal xchicatzibah vi xchicati- Here we will write, we will set
quiba vi oher tzih, down the ancient word, the
vticaribal, vxenabal puch beginning of what happened in
ronohel xban pa tinamit quiche, the town of K’iche’, the amaq’
ramac quiche vinac. of the K’iche’ people. We will
Are cut xchicacam vi vcutuni- bring forth, we will reveal, we
zaxic vcalahobizaxic vtzihoxic will explain, we will tell about
puch the planting, the dawn of the
euaxibal zaquiribal works of the Creator, the Shaper;
rumal tzacol bitol, the Begetter of Sons of Men and
alom qaholom quibi Women, whose names are Hun
hun ahpu vuch hun ahpu vtiu, Ahpu Vuch, Hun Ahpu Vtiu
zaquinimac tzÿz tepeu qucumatz, Zaquinimatzyz, Tepew Qucu-

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 629

vqux cho vqux palo, matz the heart of the lake, the
ah raxalae ah raxatzel, heart of the sea. He of the Raxa-
chuqhaxic rachbixic lac, of the Raxatzel, as he is
rachtzihoxic called, invoked, referred to;
rÿ iyom mamom, Begetter of Women’s Grandchil-
xpiyacoc xmucane vbi, dren, Begetter of Men’s Grand-
matzanel chuquenel, children, with the name of
camul yiom camul mamom, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, twice
chuqhaxic pa quiche tzih. Begetter of Women’s Grandchil-
dren, Begetter of Men’s Grand-
children, as they are called in the
language of the K’iche’.
The Popol Vuh is a textual polyphony consisting of various genres: ritu-
als, chants, myths, and historical chronicles. Repetitions and parallelisms,
both phrasal and lexical, as well as tropes mark styles and identify genres. In
text (2) the performative structure of the text is marked by the repetition of
standard phrases (line 1), nominalizations (line 4), and nouns (lines 5–11).
It resembles the incantations and prayers chanted today during shamanic
rituals and calendrical divinations (Ajpacajá 2001; Gomez and Guarchaj
2002; León Chic 2002; B. Tedlock 1992; D. Tedlock 1996). A compari-
son between (1) and (2) will suffice to show that the Theologia Indorum and
the Popol Vuh shared substantial structural similarities. The same poetic
devices—metaphors and repetitions—appear in both. Pre-Christian ritual
was thus implicated from the beginning in doctrinal registers, making the
latter intelligible in terms of native metapragmatic form and practice. A
much more polemical co-optation was involved in the adoption of K’iche’
words to name Christian divine beings and theological categories as dis-
cussed by Jesus García-Ruiz (1992; also see Sparks 2011). European lan-
guage ideologies posited a cosubstantial relationship between words and
their denotations, leading to intense debate among missionaries. K’abawil
is a pre-Christian noun referring to divine essences such as deities, ritual
objects, caves, and so on. Some of the first doctrinal authors chose it as
an appropriate name for the Christian God, presupposing that only native
words could felicitously act as referring expressions in K’iche’. Native words
were preferred to loanwords even when their meaning had to be modified.
Etymologically Spanish loanwords, they argued, would not be as effective
because they would ring strange to K’iche’ ears. However, not everyone
worked under the assumption that the relationship between pre-Christian
signifiers and signified could be broken and re-created. Fear of undesired
“hidden” denotations or, worse, “pagan” connotations bedeviled mission-
ary work well into the eighteenth century (Durston 2007; Remesal 1988;

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630 Sergio Romero

Sparks 2011). This gave rise in the 1540s to the K’abawil controversy pitting
those Spanish friars who preferred translations relying on native lexicon
against those who argued that Spanish words free of undesired connota-
tions should be used instead. The latter camp eventually prevailed, aided by
the inquisitorial atmosphere predominant after the Council of Trent (Dur-
ston 2007; García-Ruiz 1992; Remesal 1988).
(3) K’iche Text, Theologia Indo- Literary Translation
rum (fol. 1)
Uae nimavuh rij theologi This is the great book called the
a indorum vbinaam nima Theologia Indorum, the knowl-
etamabal utzihoxic Dios nima- edge of the great lord “Dios,” the
hau v3alahobiçaxic v clarification of all of his works,
4oheic ronohel ubanoh D.n. the explanation of what lies
v4utuniçaxic naipuch rono behind his words. It is necessary
hel nimabijtz 4o chupam v4habal that good people, Christians,
D. chahauaxic cheta study its content. It is written in
maxic rumal utzilah vinak chris- the K’iche’ language.
tianos u4oheic chupam
4iche 4habal tzibam ui.
In (3), the Christian God is referred to as Dios or Dios nimaahau, a
practice that persists in K’iche’ to this day. Other terms used in the Theologia
Indorum, such as Tzacol Bitol (The Maker, the Shaper) or Alom Kajolom (The
Begetter of Women’s Sons, the Begetter of Men’s Sons) were either doctrinal
neologisms or pre-Christian words deemed congruent with Christian the-
ology as per the Popol Vuh. The use of political terms such as ahau (lord) or
kin terms such as kahau (father) was not controversial because it was consis-
tent with Spanish ritual practices. There were overlaps between some of the
metaphors and symbols used in doctrinal texts in Spanish and pre-Hispanic
ritual and narrative traditions. They were co-opted in translation precisely
because they were active signifiers in both languages. It was hoped that
their referents could be modified to adapt them to the illocutionary goals of
pastoral language (Burkhart 1988).
To summarize, doctrinal K’iche’ illustrates the recruitment of native
ceremonial poetics and lexicon. As Hanks (2010) has argued, the success-
ful evangelization of native peoples entailed a series of crucial changes in
semantic relations and indexical effects in ritual, ethics, and social organi-
zation as well as body discipline, in which native languages played a central
role. Doctrinal language entailed modification of the denotations of sub-
stantial native lexicon as well as indexical recalibration of native poetics.
Our next case will show how doctrinal K’iche’ influenced the development
of similar registers in other highland Maya languages.

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 631

Figure 2. Geography of the Q’eqchi’ before the Spanish invasion. Courtesy of

Ruud Van Akkeren

The Q’eqchi’: Following in the

Footsteps of the Pioneers

The Q’eqchi’ in the sixteenth century were a diverse group of amaq’ speak-
ing mutually intelligible varieties of the same language in a small territory
deep in the forests of north- central Guatemala, in central Alta Verapaz (see
fig. 2) (Saint-Lu 1968; Weeks 1997).4
Although both K’iche’ and Q’eqchi’ are languages of the K’iche’an sub-
group of the Mayan stock, they are substantially different and are not mutu-
ally intelligible (Campbell 1997; Lopez Ixcoy 1997; Stewart 1980). The first
contacts between the Spanish and the Q’eqchi’ were mediated by K’iche’
lords from Sacapulas, north of Utatlán, the ancient K’iche’ capital, around
1537 (Remesal 1988). After the Dominicans entered the Verapaz region, the
conquest of the Q’eqchi’ became less violent, and the latter soon turned
into allies of the Spanish in the long and bloody campaigns to subdue the
Acalá and Manché Chol. The first Dominicans in the Verapaz region had

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632 Sergio Romero

previously spent time in K’iche’ areas under Spanish control. Their attitudes
toward the Q’eqchi’ were influenced by their previous acquaintance with
the K’iche’ as well as by the strategies adopted during their evangelization.
These included what became standardized procedures to construct doctri-
nal language: recruitment of native ceremonial poetics and genres comple-
mented by a careful combination of neologisms and Spanish loanwords as
well as occasional redefinitions of the denotations of key native words.
The earliest K’iche’ books of sermons and doctrines precede the first
Q’eqchi’ manuscripts by more than a decade. None of the latter, however,
approaches the size and theological scope of the Theologia Indorum origi-
nally written in K’iche’ (Sparks 2011). It became a sort of unofficial guide
for the production of homilies and catechisms in highland Maya languages.
Before the first Q’eqchi’ doctrinal texts were drafted, the K’abawil contro-
versy had been resolved in favor of translators advocating for the use of
Spanish loanwords rather than native terms (Garcia-Ruiz 1992). The same
rhetorical and lexical strategies were transferred into the Q’eqchi’ pastoral
literature. For example, the Varias Coplas, versos e himnos en la lengua de
Coban de Verapaz—an early collection of Catholic hymns and sermons writ-
ten in Q’eqchi’ and attributed to the Dominican friar Luís Cáncer (1500–
49) from the middle of the sixteenth century—is a superb instantiation of
Dominican linguistic strategies (see fig. 3).5
(4) Coplas de Luís de Cáncer (fol. 3). My translation
V
Cah ah pac yoobom quech Our Maker, Our Begetter
oçobtacinel ta inyei [and] Benefactor. I will tell
ac erech cherabiac cuin you all [about him]. Listen
quex. up, men!
VI
cuincobresom quech ca na Our Creator, Our Mother,
qa hacua petol rech y cque Our Father, Inciter of the Sun
rubel yoam. before Life.
IX
Num nim yrrucil nim Great is his goodness,
y chabilal nim y çaca great is his grace, great is
hinc y hunez y ahual. his light. He is the only lord.
XI
Dios naqueoc ca cua naque Dios is the one who gives our food
oc cucaha naque e rrabin and drink. He gives us daughters
naque e rralal. and sons.
XVIII
Nacacque ca xul, nacacque You give us animals,

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 633

Figure 3. Folio 1 of the Varias Coplas, versos e himnos en la lengua de Coban de

Verapaz. Courtesy of the Newberry Library

ca car, nacaque ca tul, fish, zapotes.

nacaque ca çarb. You give us water springs.
XX
tamolbec i acach taa Turkeys lay their eggs,
lac y cal nayolac y their chicks hatch. Water
ha ce choch yban y dios nima springs from the ground because
hual. of God,a the great lord.
XXIV
Naquil nimla tzul naquil We see great hills, we see
y tacah naquil y bali- valleys, we see all things,
bal y banuem anchal. all of his works.
a
Spanish dios is used in the Q’eqchi’ text.

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634 Sergio Romero

Text (4) presents a few stanzas from folio 3 of the Coplas displaying
the use of semantic and syntactic parallelism akin to what we saw in the
Popol Vuh and the Theologia Indorum. Parallel constructions include lexi-
cal couplets and triplets as well as juxtaposed phrases and longer strings
with matching syntax, contrasting in noun and verb collocations. Many
of them were idiomatic, as they are attested in other colonial documents.
Examples include -usil/-chaabilal, “goodness/wellness”; -alal/-rabin, “sons
of men, daughters of men”; xul/kar, “land animals, fish”; tzul/tacah, “hills,
valleys”; and cua/ucaha’, “food and drink.” Some of the couplets referring to
the Christian God in (4) appear also in the Popol Vuh and the Theologia Indo-
rum, indicating that certain lexicon had become standard in pastoral regis-
ters. Two examples are the couplets tzacol, bitol—“the Maker, the Shaper”
in K’iche’—and ah pac yoobom, “the Builder, the Creator” in stanza 5 in (4).
Regarding theological concepts and sacred beings, text (4) follows the
referential criteria established after the K’abawil controversy. Every time
the Christian God is directly referenced, Spanish dios is used, usually with
the attribute nimahual, “great lord,” cognate of the K’iche’ nimaahau, which
we saw in the Theologia Indorum (see stanzas IX and XX). Pre-Hispanic
deities and rituals are not directly mentioned in the Coplas, a clear instance
of “erasure,” one of the semiotic strategies used in the construction of pas-
toral texts in indigenous languages. The use of abstract nouns, chaabilal
and usilal, for example, with a semantic overlap between abstract “good-
ness” and theological “grace,” shows the semantic adjustment (reduction or
expansion) of their denotation. The pastoral lexicon and calques borrowed
from Spanish via K’iche’ include names referring to the “Devil” (Lucifer,
Diablo, and Caxtoc), all common in pastoral texts in K’iche’.
(5) Varias Coplas (fol. 5)
XIV
Diablo y caca oru caxtoc o His name is Diablo or “Deceiver.”
ru y caba mahi chic rucil There is no goodness left in his
y chol humah caxtoquil narah heart. All he cares for is
deception.
Stanza XIV from text (5) shows the Spanish loanword Diablo, “Devil,”
and the K’iche’/Q’eqchi’ Caxtoc, “Deceiver,” a direct translation of the
familiar Judeo-Christian epithet for Lucifer. The latter is the most com-
monly used denominator for “Devil” in Q’eqchi’ today, bearing witness to
the endurance of doctrinal lexical standardizations spreading from K’iche’
into other Mayan languages. I have also found K’iche’ loanwords and
calques in doctrinal registers of Awakatek, a Mamean language spoken in
the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 635

The Theologia Indorum acted as ur-text for Q’eqchi’ doctrinal texts.

Q’eqchi’ Coplas based on the Book of Genesis, for example, closely fol-
low the relevant sections of the Theologia Indorum. Due to its extensive dis-
cussion and translation of biblical texts, the Theologia Indorum established
unofficial guidelines for the use of the Bible in sermons and homilies in
highland Maya languages (Carmack and Mondloch 1983). It was copied
and transmitted by generations of Dominicans in spite of the strict Church
strictures against the unauthorized diffusion of catechetical texts.
(6) Varias Coplas (fol. 5)
III
Toha ut nac oyolac y pac: In a moment, was the great lord’s
nimahual limo terre creature begotten. Limo terrae
y caba y choch ocqueec was the name of the earth that
chirixc ca hacua. Our Father gave it.
IV
Hunpatah ocuincoc maco His creature was created at once. It
ohalac yban mamai didn’t have to be fixed. Quickly
obiec roc rucm. were his hands and feet formed.
V
Orocci yrucm orocci He gave them hands.
y baquel y re orocci y cuxbl bones, mouth, voice.
orocci y quiquel. He gave them blood.
VI
Honac ooçoc ypac an And so he finished his creation,
chal cui y tçehual: choch his entire body. Earth,
ha, i3, xambl, oel cui oquec water, wind, fire; this is what
yban y ah pak. the Creator used.
In text (6), the Coplas emphasize the manner in which humans were
created, contrasting it implicitly with Mesoamerican creation myths. The
biblical creation is introduced as a sudden divine intervention; the materi-
als the Christian God used are identified as a type of soil referenced with
the Latin phrase limo terrae, “soil of the earth” in stanza III in text (6). It
seems unlikely that the author/translator was not acquainted with Latin, so
he probably wished to avoid using etymologically Q’eqchi’ words for earth
or mud to avoid undesired connotations. Stanza V lists the four components
of the human body as earth, water, wind, and fire, contrasting them with
the raw materials used in Maya creation myths such as the Popol Vuh and
the Memorial de Tecpán-Atitlán: corn and the blood of mythical creatures
(D. Tedlock 1996; Maxwell and Hill 2006).
In summary, Q’eqchi’ pastoral texts followed the standardized guide-

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636 Sergio Romero

lines established during the evangelization of the K’iche’, opening a second

stage in the history of pastoral registers in the western highlands. Although
the authors of Q’eqchi’ documents did use discursive and grammatical
features absent in K’iche’, standardized lexical choices and poetic struc-
ture first developed in K’iche’ were employed in Q’eqchi’ as well. Our next
example discusses a different genealogy in a pastoral and linguistic tradi-
tion not far from the area we have been examining.

The Pipil: Adapting a Mexican Doctrinal Standard

The Pipil inhabited the Pacific coast and southern piedmont of Guatemala,
El Salvador, and Nicaragua.6 They coexisted for centuries with the highland
Maya, especially with the Tz’utujil, the Kaqchikel, and the K’iche’ (Camp-
bell 1971; Fowler 1989; Van Akkeren 2000). The Popol Vuh includes the
Pipil among the primordial peoples that emerged from the mythic Tulan
together with the various highland Maya groups. The Pipil spoke at least
two distinct Nahuatl varieties, which were mutually intelligible with Cen-
tral Mexican Nahuatl despite the differences (Matthew and Romero 2012).
When the Spanish and their Mexican allies arrived in Guatemala, they
noticed the mutual intelligibility in spite of disjunctions in phonology and
morphology and dubbed Guatemalan Nahual varieties lengua mexicana cor-
rupta (“corrupted Mexican tongue”), believing that any inconsistencies were
due to linguistic loss or impoverishment after the Pipil left what the Spanish
thought to be their ancestral homeland in Mexico (Campbell 1985; Romero
and Matthew 2007). The stigmatization of Guatemalan Nahuatl varieties
presupposed an iconic relationship among wealth, social complexity, and
linguistic sophistication. Mexico City was the linguistic yardstick against
which local varieties were evaluated, and Spanish clergy tried to use it in
evangelization even where it was not the primary vernacular (Schwaller
2012). This was not necessarily problematic in central Mexico and Oaxaca,
as mentioned above, due to the presence of substantial Nahuatl-speaking
populations, intense trade with the Valley of Mexico, and the political and
cultural influence of the Mexica state (Bryce Heath 1972; Lockhart 1992;
Nesvig 2012).
Nevertheless, as the Spanish moved south, they encountered native
societies where knowledge of Nahuatl was less common. When they
crossed into the highlands of Guatemala, Nahuatl was no longer a lingua
franca. Few Maya seemed to know it, and the Kaqchikel and K’iche’ elites
were unacquainted with it, according to the Kaqchikel sources themselves.
The Historia de los Xpantzay de Tecpán-Guatemala7 provides inter-

Published by Duke University Press

 Ethnohistory

Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 637

esting anecdotal evidence that members of the Kaqchikel elite—such as the

Ahpozotzil himself, head of the Zotzil, one of the principal lineages of the
Kaqchikel capital at Iximche’—were not conversant in Nahuatl at the time
of the Spanish invasion (see text [7]; Recinos 2001). While there must have
been individuals fluent in Mayan languages and Nahuatl, there is no evi-
dence that knowledge of the latter was widespread in the highlands.
(7) Kaqchikel text, Historia de los Literary Translation
Xpantzay de Tecpán-Guatemala
(fol. 1) (Recinos 2001)
Yn ahau Cahi Ymox Ahpozotzil, I am the lord Cahi Imox, the
yn mixicochin xuya Dios. Don Ahpozotzil. God graced me with
Pedro mixnubinaah ruquin Don the name Don Pedro together
Jorge Cablahuh Tihax, Don Juan with Don Jorge Cablahuh Tihax,
Uzelut Chicbal, Don Juan Mexa Don Juan Uzelut Chicbal and
Ahau Xpantzay. Ha qabi vae Don Juan Mexa, lord Xpantzay.
mixux cumal Pe. Friar Turibio We received our names from Fr.
Confesario, Fray Pe. de Petazax Pedro Toribio Confessor but
Quartin mixkazan ya pa kavi. it was Friar Pedro de Betanzos
Quartin who baptized us.
Nim kalogoxik mixux rumal We were much appreciated by
Ahau Adelantado rumal mix- the lord Adelantado because we
bekaqula chiri Ynkut Cala. Mani were the ones who went out to
xibih ta ki rumal, mani caxlan meet him at Inkut Cala. We were
chi, mani yaqui chi ketaam. Re not afraid of him, even though
qa huna 1524 años. we knew neither Spanish nor the
Nahuatl language. It happened
in the year 1524.
In the Pacific piedmont of Guatemala, however, and farther east into
El Salvador and Nicaragua, the Spanish encountered Nahua populations
and noticed that their language was intelligible to their Mexican auxiliaries.
The local varieties were known as Pipil, “children,” because their speech
sounded like the speech of children to Mexicans, as they lacked the pho-
neme orthographically represented with “tl” in the colonial script (Camp-
bell 1985; Matthew 2000; Matthew and Romero 2012; Romero 2013).
Despite structural similarities and mutual intelligibility, however, the Pipil
of Guatemala and El Salvador developed an independent writing tradition
using their own adaptation of the Latin script, which deviated from stan-
dard Central Mexican norms.8 Of the more than sixty notarial documents
and annals produced in Pipil areas of Guatemala that Laura Matthew and

Published by Duke University Press

 Ethnohistory

638 Sergio Romero

I found in the Archivo General de Centro América in Guatemala City,

only two were composed in Central Mexican Nahuatl. Both were written
on behalf of Mexican auxiliaries who had received lands from the Span-
ish crown in payment for their services (Asselbergs 2008; Matthew and
Romero 2012). Few documents show evidence of Central Mexican Nahuatl
used as written norm in Central America. A famous example is a corpus of
letters from indigenous towns around Santiago de Guatemala sent to the
Spanish king in the middle of the sixteenth century. They were written at the
behest of Franciscan priests and constitute an orthographic anomaly, show-
ing many hypercorrections, that does not reflect the sociolinguistic status of
Central Mexican Nahuatl beyond Santiago de Guatemala and its hinterland
(Dakin and Lutz 1996; Matthew 2000).
Spanish clergy in Guatemala wrote artes—pedagogical grammars—
and hundreds of pages of texts with the expressed goal of adapting doc-
trinal language to the ánima (the soul) of local Nahuatl varieties, as one of
them put it (see text [8]). This adaptation is particularly surprising given
the inclination of the Spanish to maximize the areas evangelized with stan-
dardized materials (Bryce Heath 1972). This strategy aimed to simplify the
task of writing pastoral texts. Spanish clergy relied on the regional varieties
spoken by their elite allies and early converts when drafting catechisms and
confessionals. For example, the Theologia Indorum was written in the dia-
lect spoken in Utatlán, the ancient capital of the K’iche’ kingdom, not in
the varieties of smaller settlements and rural communities. In fact, the term
K’iche’ acquired its current linguistic denotation around the middle of the
sixteenth century as a direct translation of Spanish lengua utlateca, “lan-
guage of Utatlán.” The Pipil were unique in Guatemala in forcing an accom-
modation of pastoral registers previously developed in a mutually intelli-
gible linguistic variety. If one considers the number of Nahuatl doctrinal
and linguistic texts already existing at the time, the Pipil case truly stands
out. What were the reasons for this extraordinary pastoral re-adaptation
of Nahuatl doctrinal registers? Metalinguistic comments by Spanish clergy
provide some clues to answer this question.
Text (8) is a fragment of the introduction to the Teotamachilizti in iyuli-
liz auh yn imiquiliz Tutemaquizticatzim Jesu Christo quenami in quimpua
teotacuiloque itech teomachti, glossed by its author as Tratado de la vida y
muerte de nuestro Señor Jesu Christo, en lengua vulgar Mexicana de Guate-
mala (TVM),9 published in Guatemalan Nahuatl in Guatemala City in the
seventeenth century. It presents a unique view of Spanish metalinguistic
views of dialectal variation in Nahuatl and valuable clues as to the norms of
honorific address in Pipil communities.

Published by Duke University Press

 Ethnohistory
Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala
(8) Original Spanish, TVM (1)
Mas de passo te quiero dar vna
noticia, que quizá no avrás repa-
rado en ella, y es que la lengua
se divide en tres partes (á imita-
ción de la castellana, como des-
pués te diré) en vulgar, reveren-
cial y pipil. La vulgar es la que
propriamente vssa de la sustan-
cia del vocablo mexicano, y es la
que se habla en esta provincial de
Guatemala, y en esta vulgar he
escrito el dicho tratado. La reve-
rencial es la que no solo vssa de
la sustancia del vocablo mexi-
cano; sino que le añade partícu-
las de reverencia, á los nombres
al fin, y á los verbos al princi-
pio, y al fin tiene mas la reveren-
tial, que la hablan con muchas
LL y de las OO vssan mucho; á
diferencia de nustra vulgar que
no vsta de las LL (219r) LL y de
las OO vssa indiferētemente.
Verbi gratia, tlactlacolli que es el
pecado, se habla assí en la reve-
rencial, Y en la vulgar se dize tac-
taculli. Donde hablan la lengua
Mexicana reverencial es en la
Provincia de Mexico; en nues-
tra vulgar vssan algunas vezes de
las partículas de reverencia, y si
se les huviesse de hablar siempre
con partículas de reverencia no
nos entendieran: porque mal se
pueden tratar y conversar los que
no se entienden. Y por esta causa
devían los Ministros Evangéli-
cos trabajar con gran solicitud, y
diligencia en saber muy bien la
lengua de los Indios si pretenden
Published by Duke University Press
639
Literary Translation
In passing, I want to point out in
case you have not noticed, that
the [Nahuatl] language is divided
into three parts (in imitation of
the Castilian language as I will
explain later): Vulgar, Rever-
ential and Pipil. “Vulgar” is the
one that properly uses the sub-
stance of Mexican vocabulary,
which is spoken in the province
of Guatemala, the one in which
I have written the said treatise.
The “Reverential” is the one
that not only uses the substance
of the Mexican vocabulary, but
also adds reverential particles to
names, at the end, and verbs, at
the beginning. And in the end the
“Reverential” has more as it is
spoken with many LLa and also
OO’s,b in contrast with our ver-
nacular which does not use the
LL at all with only sparing use
of OO. For example, tlactlacolli,
which is “sin,” is said like that in
the reverential. But in the ver-
nacular it is tactaculli. The rever-
ential Mexican language is spo-
ken in the province of Mexico;
in our vernacular sometimes they
use reverential particles; but if
we were to use only reverential
particles, they would not under-
stand us, because it is very diffi-
cult to converse with those who
do not understand the way we
speak. For this reason, minis-
ters of religion should occupy
themselves with great diligence
in learning the language of the
 Ethnohistory
640
hazerlos Buenos Christianos pues
como dize San Pablo cap. 10 ad
Romanos ergo fides ex auditu la fé
se alcança por el oydo, y lo que se
ha de oir es la palabra de Dios, y
esta se ha de predicar en lengua,
que los oientes entiendan; por-
que como dize el mesmo Apóstol:
el que habla será tenido por bár-
baro; y como para declarar los
misterios de nuestra Santa Fé no
basta saber la lengua como quiera
(a retasos) sino entender bien
la propiedad de los bocablos, y
modos de hablar que tienen y
por falta de esto podia acaezer,
que aviendo de ser Predicadores
de verdad lo fuessen de falce-
dad; porque mal se puede llamar
(220r) gramático, el que solo
sabe pedasos de latín sin tener
noticias, y saber los rudimentos
de la gramática, porque assí no
hablara bien, y con perfección la
lengua latina; y assí esta espuesto
siempre, que la hablare á dezir
mil barbarismos. La tercera
parte, ó modo de hablar la lengua
Mexicana es pipil, que quiere
dezir muchachos, y assí comun-
mente á este modo de hablar
llaman lengua pipil, lengua de
muchachos, que ussa de de peda-
zos de vocablos mexicanos, mas
no se habla en todos los pueblos,
sino solo en dos, ó tres, es de
notar que no la hablan con sus
ministros, y vezinos Españoles,
sino solo entre ellos porque para
hablar a sus Ministros y vezinos
vssan de la lengua vulgar.
Published by Duke University Press
Sergio Romero
Indians if they intend to make
good Christians of them because,
as Chap. 10 of Saint Paul’s (gos-
pel) states ergo fides ex audito,
faith is attained from what one
has heard, and what needs to be
heard is the word of God, which
has to be preached in a lan-
guage understood by the audi-
ence, because, as the Apostle
puts it, whoever speaks will
be considered a Barbarian. To
preach the mysteries of our holy
faith it is not enough to know the
language in bits and pieces but
also to understand words with
propriety as well as the ways of
speaking they have. Lacking this,
it could happen that instead of
becoming preachers of truth,
they wind up preachers of false-
hood. Because one cannot call
grammarian someone who only
knows bits of Latin without
knowing the grammar, because
he will be incapable of speaking
with perfection and will be in
risk of using a thousand barba-
risms every time he attempts to
use it. The third part of modality
of speaking the Mexican lan-
guage is “Pipil,” which means
“boys.” They commonly refer
to this way of speaking as Pipil
language, “Language of Boys,”
which uses pieces of Mexi-
can vocabulary. It is not spo-
ken, however, in every town,
but just in two or three. They
do not speak it with their min-
isters and Spanish residents, but
 Ethnohistory

Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 641

only among themselves because

to speak to their ministers and
Spanish residents they use the
vernacular.
a
The “LL” refers to the phoneme /λ/ orthographically represented as TL,
which is often realized as [t] in Pipil. This is illustrated in the left col-
umn with Nahuatl tlactacolli, “sin,” realized as tactaculli in Pipil, in which
Nahuatl /λ/ is realized as orthographic “t” in Pipil.
b
The “OO” stands for the antecessive prefix /o:-/ used as optional comple-
tive marker on Pipil verbs but always required in the past tense in Central
Nahuatl. The absence of the antecessive morpheme is one of the diagnostic
features distinguishing central from eastern dialects (Canger 1989; Kauf-
man 2001).

First, the Spanish considered Guatemalan and Mexican Nahuatl to be

one language based on the criterion of mutual intelligibility. The differences
were construed as merely stylistic. The Guatemalan Nahuatl was regarded
as lacking the full range of styles available in Mexico City. Second, Gua-
temalan varieties followed a different system of reverential norms, called
“Pipil” in text (8), involving the same morphological markers as Nahuatl
but using them more sparingly. Honorific registers10 are constructed mor-
phologically in both Nahuatl and Pipil. The honorific particle -tzin is suf-
fixed to nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and quantifiers, while the reflexive
marker -mo- and either the causative or the applicative markers are suffixed
to verbs.11 Honorific concord12 allows a gradient performance of honorific
deference, which varies geographically and across different genres (Romero
2013). Third, honorific address was not considered normative when engag-
ing Spanish residents and priests. The social hierarchies and interactive roles
triggered by honorific markers excluded Spaniards, in contrast to Mexico,
where Spanish priests expected to be addressed in honorific styles. Text (8)
also draws an analogy between stylistic variation in Guatemalan and Mexi-
can Nahuatl and the stylistic variation distinguishing the Spanish spoken in
cities in Spain, on the one hand, and “villages and small towns” on the other.
In the former, Spanish is spoken entre caballeros y cortesanos, “among gentle-
men and members of the court”; in the latter, Spanish is spoken humilde y
de corto estilo, “simple and lacking in styles,” suggesting that honorific dis-
course was construed as less elaborate and stylistically deprived compared
to the norms followed in Mexico. Early in the Spanish evangelization of
Mexico, the Franciscans opted for tecpillahtolli, “palace speech,” with its
complex honorific concord rules, as model for the polished, rhetorically
forceful speech desirable for the oral delivery of Christian doctrine (Klaus
1999). In Guatemalan Nahuatl, however, such conventions were not used,

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 Ethnohistory

642 Sergio Romero

with the consequence that Mexican doctrines either sounded odd—even

unintelligible, to Pipil ears—or had negative associations as linguistic icons
of the Mexicans who settled in Guatemala after the Spanish Conquest.
Text (9) illustrates the use of honorific concord in doctrinal texts from
central Mexico, a fragment of Father Ignacio Paredes’s Nahuatl translation
of Father Jerónimo Ripalda’s catechism published in 1758.13
(9) Nahuatl Text of Ignacio Literary Translation (HON =
Paredes’s Catechism honorific)
In itlaçohuallalitzin in tote- The coming [HON] of Our Lord
cuiyo Jesu-Christo, in motene- Jesus Christ is called Lent. It
hua Adviento, quîtoznequi, inon means that that is the time that
cahuitl, in ipan in Tonantzin Our Mother the Holy Church
Santa Iglesia, nepapan [HON] left for its followers
tlateomatiliztica, ihuan neyolchi- [HON], the Christian believers
pahualiztica quimmocencahuilia so that through different acts of
in itlaneltocacatzitzi- worship and purification they
huan, in Christianosme; inic celebrate [HON] Our Savior
quimolhuichihuililizque Jesus Christ [HON] who was
in Toteotemaquixticatzin Jesu- incarnated [HON] here on earth
Christo; in topampa in nican on our behalf and afterwards
Tlalticpac saved us [HON] on the cross.
omotlacatili, ihuan quintepan
cruztitech otechmomaquixtili.
Paredes’s translation shows all the diagnostic features of doctrinal
Nahuatl. In particular, honorific forms are used systematically in nouns
and verbs referencing sacred beings. Note the honorific/diminutive suffix
/–tzin/ on nouns and nominalizations and the reflexive /-mo-/ as well as the
applicative /-lia/ or causative /-ltia/ on verbs (Romero 2013). Nouns and
nominalizations include itlaçohuallalitzin, “his coming [HON]” in line 1;
Tonantzin Santa Iglesia, “Our Mother the Church [HON]” in line 2; itlanel-
tocacatzitzihuan, “her followers [HON]” in line 4; and Toteotemaquixtica-
tzin, “Our Savior [HON]” in line 5. Verbs include quimmocencahuilia, “She
left it for them [HON]” in line 3; quimolhuichihuililizque, “They celebrate it
[HON]” in line 4; omotlacatili, “He was born [HON]” and otechmomaquix-
tili, “He saved us [HON]” in line 6.
(10) Nahuatl Text, TVM (fol. 4r) Literary Translation
Nicneztiz centet quenami huel I am going to explain how nec-
munequia in muchintin Chris- essary it is that all of us Chris-
tianosme in ma titaiulcuitican, tians confess and believe the

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 Ethnohistory

Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 643

auh in ma titaneltucacan tena- commandments that Our Lord

huatilli in vtechmacac Tutecuio God gave us. And the Glorious
Dios. Auh inin tenahuatilli huel Mother [HON] the Holy Church
nelli in quiiulcuitia, auh in qui- truly confesses and believes these
taneltucatu mahuiz Nantzim commandments. In the same
Santa Yglesia. Auh yuhqui qui- way the Christian should believe
taneltucaz Christiano itech çan in only one true God who cre-
çe huel nelli Dios muchi helli- ated everything, all things on this
tini [from huellitini], tepiquini, earth. Also, he should believe
muchintin tamantin in yzema- that God is inside all things
nahuac. Nuzam munequi in ma on earth in essence, image and
taneltuca, quenami inin cenca power. The great God is the true
huei Dios nemib itic muchin- Holy Trinity: God the Father
tin tamantin talticpac ieliztica, [HON], God the Son [HON]
teixpantica, auh in huelitiliztica. and God the Holy Spirit, three
Ynin huei Dios huel nelli San- people in one true Dios. Listen to
tissima Trinidad Dios Tetatzim this sermon!
Dios ipilzim, Dios Spiritu Santo
yeintin personasme, auh inçan
ce huelnelli Dios. Xicaquicam ce
temachiotilizti!
a
In Pipil, the back round vowel is often phonetically realized as [u] rather
than [o]. This is reflected in the spellings munequi, “it is necessary” rather
than monequi; muchintin, “all of them” rather than mochintin; and titaiulcuiti-
can, “Let us confess!” rather than titlayolcuitican.
b
In Pipil, nemi, “live,” doubles as copula as in other eastern Nahuatl dialects
(Campbell 1985; Canger 1989).

Text (10) is the first paragraph of the TVM, written in Guatemalan

Nahuatl. Although the text is definitely honorific, it embodies a set of norms
of honorific concord different from those of Paredes’s catechism. Honorific
markers are few and far between, especially on verbs. Of a total of 468 ver-
bal phrases referencing God, Jesus Christ, or the Virgin in the Tratado, only
20 bear honorific marking. Specifically, in the short fragment in text (10),
only nouns are marked. Instead of the form otechmomaquili, “He gave us
[HON],” for example, which would have been standard in doctrinas from
central Mexico, the first line in text (10) has vtechmacac, “He gave us,” lack-
ing the reflexive /-mo-/ and the applicative /-lia/ (Romero 2013). The form
vtechmacac would probably have been regarded as improper for this genre
in Mexico City.14 The paucity of honorific marking on verbs must have been
surprising for Mexicans, as this is the most noticeable and complex com-

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 Ethnohistory

644 Sergio Romero

ponent of honorific concord in Central Nahuatl. In 276 verbal phrases ref-

erencing God, Jesus Christ, or the Virgin in the first forty-four pages of
Paredes’s catechism, a total of 261 had honorific marking. The relative fre-
quencies of honorific marking on verbs were 0.95 in Paredes’s catechism
and 0.05 in the Tratado. This contrast is striking: in two texts of the same
genre and related content, the frequencies of honorific marking on verbs
differ by 90 percent (Romero 2013).
The adaptation of Mexican doctrinal registers to Guatemala required
the modification of honorific deference norms. Despite structural similari-
ties, the incongruent honorific conventions, among other small structural
differences, forestalled the introduction of Mexican doctrinal registers
(ibid.). What makes the contrast between Guatemalan and central Mexi-
can Nahuatl so striking is the fact it is grounded on quantitative rather
than categorical differences. In Guatemalan Nahuatl, verbs do participate
in honorific concord, for example, but at a much lower frequency than in
central Mexican Nahuatl. Pastoral discourse is significantly less saturated
with honorific morphology in the former than in the latter (Romero 2013).15
Regarding targets of honorific deference, there is a partial overlap between
the Tratado and Paredes’s catechism: God, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin.
However, this does not include saints, angels, or priests, which are marked
as honorific when addressed or referenced in Paredes’s catechism.
Artes, doctrines, and books of sermons were developed in Guatemala
to accommodate local articulations of linguistic form and cultural values
embodied in honorific norms (Matthew and Romero 2012). Local nega-
tive reactions to Mexican doctrinal language played a crucial role in shap-
ing pastoral genres to local cultural values and indexical practices, which
entailed a different metric of honorific concord and distinct morphological
and phonological patterns. Local configurations of style, social indexicality,
and ethnic identity played a defining role in shaping pastoral language.

The Language of Doctrinas:

Local Solutions to Global Dilemmas

This comparison of pastoral texts in three indigenous languages of Guate-

mala shows the complex articulation of native thought and language, on
one the hand, and European language ideologies and the development of the
evangelization project in different areas of Mesoamerica, on the other. Our
first case study showed that the evangelization of the K’iche’—sustained
by the linguistic genius of Fray Domingo de Vico and his native collabora-
tors—became a model for the construction of pastoral Q’eqchi’. While it is
true that Q’eqchi’ doctrinal writers did not simply copy from K’iche’ texts,

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 Ethnohistory

Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 645

the recruitment of poetic form and the avoidance of native lexicon in key
semantic domains followed the same canons despite the lack of mutual intel-
ligibility between the two languages. In contrast, the evangelization of the
Pipil demanded substantial modifications to Nahuatl doctrinal language.
Even though the two varieties were mutually intelligible, central Mexican
honorific practices were unacceptable for the Pipil. Intelligibility was not
the only requisite to persuade and convert the natives. The local organiza-
tion of speech genres and the indexical associations effected by them were
equally crucial. Spanish imperial designs, including evangelization, were
global, but the texts that mediated them were woven with local threads.
The creation of Christian registers in indigenous languages in Guatemala
illustrates the paradoxical confluence of coercion, resistance, and creativity
behind the emergence of colonial indigenous religions.

Notes

1 The Florentine Codex is the best-preserved manuscript of Bernardino de

Sahagún’s Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, the monumental twelve-
volume encyclopedia of Nahuatl culture written in Nahuatl by a team of native
collaborators under Sahagún’s direction. The bulk of the work was done in the
1550s at the Colegio de Tlatelolco. The Popol Vuh is a collection of myths, annals,
and genealogies written by members of the Kaweq lineage of Utatlán, ancient
capital of the K’iche’ kingdom. It was written in K’iche’ probably by collabo-
rators of the Dominican Fray Domingo de Vico around 1550. The Memorial de
Tecpán-Atitlán is a collection of myths, annals, and city-hall minutes composed
over several decades in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by members of
the Xajil lineage. It is the longest colonial document in Kaqchikel.
2 The Books of Chilam Balam were collections of “forbidden texts” composed in
Yucatec Maya, including prophesies, calendars, medicinal recipes, horoscopes,
fragments of pastoral texts, and astronomical tables composed over three cen-
turies in colonial Yucatán. There are eight known Books of Chilam Balam
named after the towns where they were found.
3 Vae nima vuh rij theologia indorum ubinaam, 1553–1605. Ms 497. 4 va 13. Ameri-
can Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Note that any citations from
colonial documents will appear in their original orthography. All translations
are mine unless noted otherwise. My translations attempt to achieve intelligi-
bility in English while preserving as much of the syntactic structure of the origi-
nal K’iche’ text as possible.
4 The amaq’ was the basic political and territorial unit of the western highlands of
Guatemala in the Postclassic.
5 Varias Coplas, versos e himnos en la lengua de Coban de Verapaz sobre los misterios
de la religion. Ayer Collection 1536, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL.
6 The term Pipil was an exonym, a term used by Mexicans and Spaniards to
reference speakers of Nahuatl varieties native to the Pacific coast of Central
America. It included speakers of at least two distinct Nahuatl varieties and con-

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 Ethnohistory

646 Sergio Romero

flated, as exonyms often do, distinct ethnicities and social histories (Matthew
and Romero 2012).
7 This short document is a dynastic history of the Xpantzay presented to the Audi-
encia de Guatemala during a land dispute. It was arguably written in 1524 in
Kaqchikel. Text (7) uses the orthography used in Adrian Recinos’s (2001) tran-
scription of the manuscript Historia de los Xpantzay de Tecpán-Guatemala.
8 There is interesting evidence of a pre-Hispanic writing tradition among the
Pipil. Kathryn Sampeck (2015) discusses it amply in her article in this issue.
9 John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. I thank Dr. Kathryn Sampeck
for generously sharing her transcription of the document with me. For brevity’s
sake, I will refer henceforth to this document as the TVM.
10 Honorific registers are “systems of linguistic signs linked by their users to
stereotypes of honor or respect” (Agha 2002). They involve culturally accepted
models of linguistic behavior consisting of gesture and demeanor norms as well
as stereotyped sets of concatenated content and function words. The linguistic
expression of rank, authority, and deference in languages with honorific regis-
ters conjoins intricate syntactic and morphological patterns, on the one hand,
and cultural values and social hierarchy on the other. What distinguishes honor-
ific registers from other forms of deference is the ability to divide the entire lexi-
con into honorific and nonhonorific forms in accordance with native-speaker
evaluations of usage.
11 In addition, some verbs take suppletive forms.
12 Honorific concord is the relative saturation of a text with honorific markers.
13 Ripalda’s was considered the standard Catholic catechism since its publications
in 1616.
14 Occurrences of otechmomaquili in pastoral literature from central Mexico
include the Santoral en mexicano (Burkhart 2001: 26) and Chimalpahin’s Exer-
cisio Quotidiano (Chimalpahin 1997: 134).
15 The honorific saturation of discourse varies across different genres in both
Nahuatl and Pipil. However, it is systematically greater in the former than in the
latter.

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Language, Catechisms, and Mesoamerican Lords in Highland Guatemala 647

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