[1] In 1834 the Kʼicheʼ inhabitants of Totonicapán asked the departmental governor to persuade Dionisio José Chonay, the curate of Sacapulas, to translate the document into Spanish.
[4][5] The introductory section of the Título includes large parts of the Theologia Indorum, written by Dominican friar Domingo de Vico in the mid-16th century.
The manuscript assumes that the three great Quiché nations with which it particularly deals are the descendants of the Ten Tribes of the Kingdom of Israel, whom Shalmanser reduced to perpetual captivity and who, finding themselves on the border of Assyria, resolved to emigrate.
"[7] Like the Popol Vuh, the Título de Totonicapán describes how the ancestors of the Kʼicheʼ travelled from a mythical location referred to as Seven Caves, Seven Canyons to another place called Tulan Suywa in order to receive their gods.
[nb 1] When they arrived at the edge of the sea, "Balam-Quizé touched it with his staff and at once a path opened, which closed up again for thus the great God wished it to be done, because they were sons of Abraham and Jakob".
So "that he will know the state of our affairs; that he will furnish us means so that in the future our enemies shall never defeat us; that they shall never belittle the nobility of our birth; that he will designate honors for us and for all of our descendants and that, finally, he will send public offices for those who deserve them."
[10] The Título is careful to record the genealogy of the lords of the Quichés, who sign the document for the Spanish in 1554, using their Christian names; describing themselves as the descendants of Balam-Qitzé and their ancestors who "came from the other part of the sea, from Civán-Tulán, bordering on Babyonia."
[16] The fact that in the text Cʼo Cavib went west to Mexico has been interpreted as an attempt by the Kʼicheʼ to connect themselves with the politically and culturally powerful Aztec lords of Tenochtitlan.