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. The meaning of the word "k'iche'" is "many trees." The word is broken into two parts, "k'i," meaning "many" and "che'," meaning "tree." The Nahuatl translation is Cuauhtemallan which gave the name to the modern Nation of Guatemala. Rigoberta Menchú, an activist for indigenous rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, is perhaps the best-known K'iche'.---------------Rigoberta Menchú Tum (b. January 9, 1959, Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala) is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the Quiché-Maya ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and to promoting indigenous rights in the country. She was the recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize and Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. Menchú is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She is the subject of the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983) and the author of the autobiographical work, Crossing Borders. ---------------------------------------- On February 12, 2007, Menchú announced that she would form an indigenous political party called Encuentro por Guatemala and that she would stand in the 2007 presidential election. Had she been elected, she would have become Latin America's fourth indigenous president after Mexico's Benito Juárez, Peru's Alejandro Toledo and Bolivia's Evo Morales, and the second Nobel laureate after Costa Rica's Óscar Arias to become president. She would also have become Guatemala's first female president. On September 9, 2007, Menchu received 3% of the vote.