K'iche'

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page is about the Native American people; for other uses, the dish, see Quiché (disambiguation).

The K'iche' (or Quiché in Spanish spelling), are a Native American people, one of the Maya ethnic groups. Their indigenous language, the K'iche' language, is a Mesoamerican language of the Mayan language family. The highland K'iche' states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization.

El Quiché is also the name of a department of modern Guatemala.

Rigoberta Menchú, an activist for indigenous rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, is perhaps the best-known K'iche'.

[edit] People

The K'iche' people live mostly in the highlands of Guatemala. Most of them speak the K'iche' language, although most also have at least a working knowledge of Spanish, except in some isolated rural villages.

The Guatemalan department of El Quiché is named after the K'iche' people. The department is the heartland of the people, but in former times they were spread over a wider area of the Guatemala highlands.

[edit] History

In pre-Columbian times, the K'iche' were one of the most powerful states in the region. They bordered the Kaqchikel.

The K'iche' were conquered by the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. Their last king, Tecún Umán, who was killed by Alvarado, remains a folk-hero and figure of legend. Umán died fighting Alvarado's army at the valley of Quetzaltenango, where as many as 10,000 K'iche' lost their lives. After the battle, the Quiché surrendered and invited Alvarado to their capital, Gumarcaj, however Alvarado suspected an ambush and had the city burned. The ruins of the city can still be seen, just a short distance from Santa Cruz del Quiché.

One of the most significant surviving Mesoamerican literary documents and primary sources of knowledge about Maya societal traditions, beliefs and mythological accounts is a product of the 16th century K'iche' people. This document, known as the Popol Wuj (in modern K'iche' orthography; also known as the Popol Vuh) and originally written around the 1550s, contains a compilation of mythological and ethno-historical narratives known to these people at that time, which were drawn from earlier pre-Columbian sources (now lost) and also oral traditional storytelling. This narrative includes a telling of their version of the creation myth, relating how world and humans were created by the gods, the story of the divine brothers, and the history of the K'iche' from their migration into their homeland up to the Spanish conquest.