Pokom Maya and Their Colonial Dictionaries

The Authors

The Bocabulario de Solo los Nombres is commonly attributed to Friar Pedro Moran. The Diccionario Pocomchi-Castellano y Pocomchi is said to have Friar Dionisio Zúñiga as its author. It is my contention that, judging from the frequent references to Friar Francisco Viana in both of these works, that both originate with the same sixteenth century dictionary written by Fr. Viana.

Francisco Viana (c. 1528-1608) was a Dominican friar from the convent of Salamanca who arrived in Guatemala in 1556. The most widely quoted of his surviving writing is a description of the Verapaz written in 1574 (Viana, Cadena and Gallego 1955) with other Dominican friars. He died in 1608 at an age of 80 years more or less.

The dictionary of Viana was subsequently modified and expanded by Zúñiga and Moran but, judging from the frequent references in the text, it remains the core and most important part of this dictionary. What were the contributions of these other authors?

Friar Dionisio Zúñiga (c. 1580-1636), was based in San Cristóbal Cahcoh during the 30 years of intensive Dominican exploration and ultimately attempted Spanish conquest of the Manché Chol territory to the north of the Verapaz (cf. Feldman n.d. for details). It is this heightened awareness of things Chol, and Manché, that gave us the terms noted in appendices 2 and 3a.

Friar Pedro Moran (c. 1685-1740), unlike the friars previously mentioned, was stationed in the Valley of Guatemala. His special contribution, in addition to revising and editing the earlier manuscripts, are the comments on usage in Petapa and elsewhere in the Valley of Guatemala. In the entry for ixcapupul he notes that "Pero ya se van introduciendo los capotes y hay muchos en este de Petapa donde escribo hoy, 20 de Enero de 1710." Hence we can date the Moran text to the early part of the 18th century. Friar Moran also cites the work of Friar Diego Ximenes, another early source of Poqom vocabulary (Appendix 5).

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