Popol Vuh (also Popol Wuj) is a cultural narrative that recounts the mythology and history of the K'iche' people who inhabit the Guatemalan Highlands northwest of present-day Guatemala City. The Popol Vuh is a creation narrative written by the K'iche' people before the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, originally preserved through oral tradition until approximately 1550 when it was written down. The survival of the Popol Vuh is credited to the 18th century Dominican friar Francisco Ximenez who made a copy of the original text in Spanish The name "Popol Vuh" translates as "Book of the Community", "Book of Counsel", or more literally as "Book of the People". The Popol Vuh includes the Mayan creation myth, beginning with the exploits of the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

In 1701, Father Ximenez came to Santo Tomas Chichicastenango (also known as Santo Tomas Chuila). This town was in the Quiche territory and therefore is probably where Fr. Ximenez first redacted the mythistory. Ximenez transcribed and translated the manuscript in parallel K'iche' and Spanish columns (the K'iche' having been represented phonetically with Latin and Parra characters). In or around 1714, Ximenez incorporated the Spanish content in book one, chapters 2-21 of his Historia de la provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la orden de predicadores. Ximenez's manuscripts remained posthumously in the possession of the Dominican Order until General Francisco Morazan expelled the clerics from Guatemala in 1829-30 whereupon the Order's documents passed largely to the Universidad de San Carlos.  From 1852 to 1855, Moritz Wagner and Carl Scherzer traveled to Central America, arriving in Guatemala City in early May 1854. Scherzer found Ximenez's writings in the university library, noting that there was one particular item "del mayor interes" ('of the greatest interest'). With assistance from the Guatemalan historian and archivist Juan Gavarrete, Scherzer copied (or had a copy made) of the Spanish content from the last half of the manuscript, which he published upon his return to Europe. In 1855, French Abbot Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg also found Ximenez's writings in the university library. However, whereas Scherzer copied the manuscript, Brasseur apparently stole the university's volume and took it back to France. After Brasseur's death in 1874, the Mexico-Guatemalienne collection containing Popol Vuh passed to Alphonse Pinart through whom it was sold to Edward E. Ayer. In 1897, Ayer decided to donate his 17,000 pieces to The Newberry Library, a project that tarried until 1911. Father Ximenez's transcription-translation of "Popol Vuh" was among Ayer's donated items.  Father Ximenez's manuscript sank into obscurity until Adrian Recinos (re)discovered it at The Newberry in 1941. Generally speaking, Recinos receives credit for finding the manuscript and publishing the first direct edition since Scherzer. But Munro Edmonson and Carlos Lopez attribute the first (re)discovery to Walter Lehmann in 1928. Allen Christenson, Nestor Quiroa, Rosa Helena Chinchilla Mazariegos, John Woodruff, and Carlos Lopez all consider the Newberry's volume to be Ximenez's one and only "original."

Anything else interesting about this script?
Brasseur apparently stole the university's volume and took it back to France.