Chichicastenango

Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, known today simply as Chichicastenango, is a town in the Guatemalan highlands. Fray Francisco Ximénez was a parish priest in Chichicastenango when he compiled the manuscript of the Popol Vuh presented here in 1701 and 1702. Then as now, the population of Chichicastenango is majority K'iche'. Ximénez writes in his Historia de la provincia (folio 1, side 1) that it was in this town that he encountered the "Historias" that we now call the Popol Vuh: "estando en el Curato de Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, hallé que era la Doctrina que primero mamaban con la leche y que todos ellos casi lo tienen de memoria" (folio 1, side 1).