Among the more notable works in the Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts (GGMM) collection in the Special Collections at Princeton University Library are ten copies of the first original Christian theology composed in either North or South America – the Theologia Indorum (“Theology of the Indians” or “Theology for the Indians”). This is also one of the longest texts written in any Indigenous American language, perhaps only after the Bible in Wôpanâak (1663) and the Espejo Divino in Nahuatl (1607).

Unlike many early pastoral texts elaborated for the conversion of Indigenous American peoples to, for them, the new religion of Christianity—such as catechisms, hagiographies, and devotional or contemplative literature imported from Europe and then translated into Indigenous languages—the Theologia Indorum was initially written not in Latin or Spanish but rather existed only in the Mayan languages of highland Guatemala. In its entirety, the whole text is over 800 manuscript pages, divided into 215 sections, organized around 60 major themes, across two distinct volumes. The first volume—with 104 sections, in c.370 pages, completed in February 1553—presents the first 30 themes or concepts beginning with the attributes of the Christian god derived from the first part of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and then moves to lessons from stories of the Catholic Old Testament. The slightly longer second volume—with 111 sections, in c.450 pages, completed later in 1554—presents the other 30 concepts mainly through stories of the New Testament but then also doctrinal material akin to an extensive catechism.

However, throughout the text the main author, Friar Domingo de Vico, O.P., strategically borrowed from and integrated ideas and phrases from ancient Maya cosmogony and theogony. This includes selected names of Maya deities for the Christian god and even referring to it as a “mother and father” in accordance with the Maya principle of gender complementarity. In fact, the entire Theologia Indorum is written in the poetics of the high-register discourse of Maya ceremonial speech. A couple of challenges have led to its general loss in the history books and archives. For one, despite its large size and apparently wide circulation among clergy in the Guatemalan highlands until at least the early nineteenth century, the Theologia Indorum was never printed but only hand copied, seemly by Maya parish scribes. While this avoided the scrutiny of the Inquisition, which most likely would have challenged its excessive inclusion of traditional Maya poetics and religious terms, it also led to its absence in colonial bibliographies of early American literature. In the few places where it is mentioned in Spanish colonial records, it is misidentified and even broken into several distinct works as early as the late sixteenth century in reports by clergy unfamiliar with Mayan languages and, thus, the Theologia Indorum’s systemic structure and contents. This has led, beginning with its inclusion in library collections in the late nineteenth century, to it persistently being miscatalogued as not a theology but rather a collection of sermons, a long catechism, or simply miscellany. Finally, the business efforts of Mayanist and publisher William E. Gates to sell photostatic copies of his manuscript collection to university libraries—and the further production of microfilm copies of Gates’s photocopies—has proliferated the early cataloging errors, mis- or disassociated copies from their source manuscript, and left many library catalogues unclear as to whether they hold an actual manuscript of the Theologia Indorum or merely a photographic copy. Compounding this confusion is the inclusion into these manuscripts other early texts in Highland Mayan languages used by clergy, such as a versions of the Gospel of Matthew, lessons for Holy Week, stories of the lives of saints, etc., which all may have been indirectly related to but are not parts of the Theologia Indorum.

To date, only a total of 22 different surviving manuscripts of the Theologia Indorum have been identified, written in four distinct Mayan languages (K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, and Q’eqchi’). None are complete or first-generation but rather later handwritten copies, often by Maya scribes for parish priests. However, almost the entire text is currently being reconstructed—arguably for first time since the sixteenth century—from these partial versions. And Princeton, fortunately, holds the largest collection of nine manuscript copies, which together pertain to ten different versions within eight catalogued items. For example, a portion volume one in Kaqchikel and a portion of volume two in K'iche' can be both found in GGMM, no. 277. In fact, as recent as December 2023 the nineth version was discovered (a single folio erroneously included with GGMM, no. 176) and in June 2025 the latest known copy was discovered in a set of treatises related to the Cross (GGMM, no. 181). In general, Princeton’s collection has one partial version of the first volume of the Theologia Indorum in Kaqchikel Maya, three partial versions of the first volume in K’iche’ Maya, and six partial versions of the second volume in K’iche’ Maya.

~ Garry Sparks, Associate Professor of Religion