LIBRARY

OF

Aboriginal American
Literature.

No. 1.

EDITED BY

D. G. BRINTON

[i]

BRINTON’S LIBRARY OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN LITERATURE.
NUMBER 1.

THE

Maya Chronicles.

EDITED BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON

AMS PRESS
NEW YORK

[ii]

Reprinted from the edition of 1882, Philadelphia
First AMS EDITION published 1969
Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 70-83457

AMS PRESS, INC.
New York, N.Y. 10003

[iii]

TO THE MEMORY

OF

CARL HERMANN BERENDT, M.D.,

WHOSE LONG AND EARNEST DEVOTION TO THE ETHNOLOGY
AND LINGUISTICS OF AMERICA HAS MADE THIS WORK
POSSIBLE, AND WHOSE UNTIMELY DEATH HAS
LOST TO AMERICAN SCHOLARS RESULTS
OF FAR GREATER IMPORTANCE,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.

[vi]

[v]

PREFACE.

The belief that the only solid foundation for the accurate study of
American ethnology and linguistics must be in the productions of the
native mind in their original form has led me to the venturesome
undertaking of which this is the first issue. The object of the proposed
series of publications is to preserve permanently a number of rude
specimens of literature composed by the members of various American
tribes, and exhibiting their habits of thought, modes of expressions,
intellectual range and æsthetic faculties.

Whether the literary and historical value of these monuments is little
or great, they merit the careful attention of all who would weigh and
measure the aboriginal mind, and estimate its capacities correctly.

The neglect of this field of study is largely owing to a deficiency of
material for its pursuit. Genuine specimens of native literature are
rare, and almost or quite inaccessible. They remain in manuscript in the
hands of a few collectors, or, if printed, they are in forms not
convenient to obtain, [vi]as in the ponderous transactions of learned
societies, or in privately printed works. My purpose is to gather
together from these sources a dozen volumes of moderate size and
reasonable price, and thus to put the material within the reach of
American and European scholars.

Now that the first volume is ready, I see in it much that can be
improved upon in subsequent issues. I must ask for it an indulgent
criticism, for the novelty of the undertaking and its inherent
difficulties have combined to make it less finished and perfected than
it should have been.

If the series meets with a moderate encouragement, it will be continued
at the rate of two or three volumes of varying size a year, and will, I
think, prove ultimately of considerable service to the students of man
in his simpler conditions of life and thought, especially of American
man.

[vii]

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. The Name Maya, p. 9. § 2. The Maya Linguistic Family, p. 17. § 3.
Origin of the Maya Tribes, p. 20. § 4. Political Condition at the Time
of the Conquest, p. 25. § 5. Grammatical Observations, p. 27. § 6. The
Numeral System, p. 37. § 7. The Calendar, p. 50. § 8. Ancient
Hieroglyphic Books, p. 61. § 9. Modern Maya Manuscripts, p. 67. § 10.
Grammars and Dictionaries, p. 72.

THE CHRONICLES.

THE CHRONICLE OF CHAC XULUB CHEN.

Introductory, p. 189. Text, p. 193. Translation, p. 216. Notes, p. 242.

[viii]

[9]

I.

INTRODUCTION.

CONTENTS.

1. The Name “Maya.” 2. The Maya Linguistic Family. 3. Origin of the Maya
Tribes. 4. Political Condition at the time of the Conquest. 5.
Grammatical Observations. 6. The Numeral System. 7. The Calendar. 8.
Ancient Hieroglyphic Books. 9. Modern Maya Manuscripts. 10. Grammars And
Dictionaries of the Language.

§ 1. The Name “Maya.”

In his second voyage, Columbus heard vague rumors of a mainland westward
from Jamaica and Cuba, at a distance of ten days’ journey in a
canoe.9-1 Its inhabitants were said to be clothed, and the specimens
of wax which were found among the Cubans must have been brought [10]from
there, as they themselves did not know how to prepare it.

During his fourth voyage (1503-4), when he was exploring the Gulf
southwest from Cuba, he picked up a canoe laden with cotton clothing
variously dyed. The natives in it gave him to understand that they were
merchants, and came from a land called Maia.10-1

This is the first mention in history of the territory now called
Yucatan, and of the race of the Mayas; for although a province of
similar name was found in the western extremity of the island of Cuba,
the similarity was accidental, as the evidence is conclusive that no
colony of the Mayas was found on the Antilles.10-2 These islands were
[11]peopled by a wholly different stock, the remnants of whose language
prove them to have been the northern outposts of the Arawacks of Guiana,
and allied to the great Tupi-Guaranay stem of South America.

Maya was the patrial name of the natives of Yucatan. It was the proper
name of the northern portion of the peninsula. No single province bore
it at the date of the Conquest, and probably it had been handed down as
a generic term from the period, about a century before, when this whole
district was united under one government.

The natives of all this region called themselves Maya uinic, Maya men,
or ah Mayaa, those of Maya; their language was Maya than, the Maya
speech; a native woman was Maya cħuplal; and their ancient capital
was Maya pan, the Maya [12]banner, for there of old was set up the
standard of the nation, the elaborately worked banner of brilliant
feathers, which, in peace and in war, marked the rallying point of the
Confederacy.

We do not know where they drew the line from others speaking the same
tongue. That it excluded the powerful tribe of the Itzas, as a recent
historian thinks,12-1 seems to be refuted by the documents I bring
forward in the present volume; that, on the other hand, it did not
include the inhabitants of the southwestern coast appears to be
indicated by the author of one of the oldest and most complete
dictionaries of the language. Writing about 1580, when the traditions of
descent were fresh, he draws a distinction between the lengua de Maya
and the lengua de Campeche.12-2 The latter was a dialect varying
very slightly from pure Maya, and I take it, this manner of indicat[13]ing
the distinction points to a former political separation.

The name Maya is also found in the form Mayab, and this is asserted by
various Yucatecan scholars of the present generation, as Pio Perez,
Crescencio Carrillo, and Eligio Ancona, to be the correct ancient form,
while the other is but a Spanish corruption.13-1

But this will not bear examination. All the authorities, native as well
as foreign, of the sixteenth century, write Maya. It is impossible to
suppose that such laborious and earnest students as the author of the
Dictionary of Motul, as the grammarian and lexicographer Gabriel de San
Buenaventura, and as the educated natives whose writings I print in this
volume, could all have fallen into such a capital blunder.13-2

The explanation I have to offer is just the re[14]verse. The use of the
terminal b in “Mayab” is probably a dialectic error, other examples of
which can be quoted. Thus the writer of the Dictionary of Motul informs
us that the form maab is sometimes used for the ordinary negative
ma, no; but, he adds, it is a word of the lower classes, es palabra
de gente comun. So I have little doubt but that Mayab is a vulgar
form of the word, which may have gradually gained ground.

As at present used, the accent usually falls on the first syllable,
Ma´ya, and the best old authorities affirm this as a rule; but it is a
rule subject to exceptions, as at the end of a sentence and in certain
dialects Dr. Berendt states that it is not infrequently heard as
Ma´ya´ or even Maya´.14-1

The meaning and derivation of the word have given rise to the usual
number of nonsensical and far-fetched etymologies. The Greek, the
Sanscrit, the ancient Coptic and the Hebrew have all been called in to
interpret it. I shall refer to but a few of these profitless
suggestions.

The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg) quotes as the opinion of Don Ramon de
Ordoñez, the author of a strange work on American archæ[15]ology, called
History of the Heaven and the Earth, that Maya is but an
abbreviation of the phrase ma ay ha, which, the Abbé adds, means word
for word, non adest aqua, and was applied to the peninsula on account
of the scarcity of water there.15-1

Unfortunately that phrase has no such, nor any, meaning in Maya; were it
ma yan haa, it would have the sense he gives it; and further, as the
Abbé himself remarked in a later work, it is not applicable to Yucatan,
where, though rivers are scarce, wells and water abound. He therefore
preferred to derive it from ma and ha, which he thought he could
translate either “Mother of the Water,” or “Arm of the Land!”15-2

The latest suggestion I have noticed is that of Eligio Ancona, who,
claiming that Mayab is the correct form, and that this means “not
numerous,” thinks that it was applied to the first native settlers of
the land, on account of the paucity of their numbers!15-3

All this seems like learned trifling. The name may belong to that
ancient dialect from which are derived many of the names of the days and
[16]months in the native calendar, and which, as an esoteric language, was
in use among the Maya priests, as was also one among the Aztecs of
Mexico. Instances of this, in fact, are very common among the American
aborigines, and no doubt many words were thus preserved which could not
be analyzed to their radicals through the popular tongue.

Or, if it is essential to find a meaning, why not accept the obvious
signification of the name? Ma is the negative “no,” “not;” ya means
rough, fatiguing, difficult, painful, dangerous. The compound maya is
given in the Dictionary of Motul with the translations “not arduous nor
severe; something easy and not difficult to do;” cosa no grave ni
recia; cosa facil y no dificultosa de hacer. It was used adjectively as
in the phrase, maya u chapahal, his sickness is not dangerous. So they
might have spoken of the level and fertile land of Yucatan, abounding in
fruit and game, that land to which we are told they delighted to give,
as a favorite appellation, the term u luumil ceh, u luumil cutz, the
land of the deer, the land of the wild turkey; of this land, I say, they
might well have spoken as of one not fatiguing, not rough nor
exhausting.

[17]§ 2. The Maya Linguistic Family.

Whatever the primitive meaning and first application of the name Maya,
it is now used to signify specifically the aborigines of Yucatan. In a
more extended sense, in the expression “the Maya family,” it is
understood to embrace all tribes, wherever found, who speak related
dialects presumably derived from the same ancient stock as the Maya
proper.

Other names for this extended family have been suggested, as Maya-Kiche,
Mam-Huastec, and the like, compounded of the names of two or more of the
tribes of the group. But this does not appear to have much advantage
over the simple expression I have given, though “Maya-Kiche” may be
conveniently employed to prevent confusion.

These affiliated tribes are, according to the investigations of Dr. Carl
Hermann Berendt, the following:—

The languages of these do not differ more, in their extremes, than the
French, Spanish, Italian and other tongues of the so-called Latin races;
while a number resemble each other as closely as the Greek dialects of
classic times.

What lends particular importance to the study of this group of languages
is that it is that which was spoken by the race in several respects the
most civilized of any found on the American continent. Copan, Uxmal and
Palenque are names which at once evoke the most earnest interest in the
mind of every one who has ever been attracted to the subject of the
archæology of the New World. This race, moreover, possessed [19]an abundant
literature, preserved in written books, in characters which were in some
degree phonetic. Enough of these remain to whet, though not to satisfy,
the curiosity of the student.

The total number of Indians of pure blood speaking the Maya proper may
be estimated as nearly or quite 200,000, most of them in the political
limits of the department of Yucatan; to these should be added nearly
100,000 of mixed blood, or of European descent, who use the tongue in
daily life.19-1 For it forms one of the rare examples of American
languages possessing vitality enough not only to maintain its own
ground, but actually to force itself on European settlers and supplant
their native speech. It is no uncommon occurrence in Yucatan, says Dr.
Berendt, to find whole families of pure white blood who do not know one
word of Spanish, using the Maya exclusively. It has even intruded on
literature, and one finds it interlarded in books published in Merida,
very [20]much as lady novelists drop into French in their imaginative
effusions.20-1

The number speaking the different dialects of the stock are roughly
estimated at half a million, which is probably below the mark.

§ 3. Origin of the Maya Tribes.

The Mayas did not claim to be autochthones. Their legends referred to
their arrival by the sea from the East, in remote times, under the
leadership of Itzamna, their hero-god, and also to a less numerous,
immigration from the west, from Mexico, which was connected with the
history of another hero-god, Kukul Càn.

The first of these appears to be wholly mythical, and but a repetition
of the story found among so many American tribes, that their ancestors
came from the distant Orient. I have elsewhere explained this to be but
a solar or light myth.20-2

The second tradition deserves more attention from the historian, as it
is supported by some of their chronicles and by the testimony of several
[21]of the most intelligent natives of the period of the conquest, which I
present on a later page of this volume.

It cannot be denied that the Mayas, the Kiches and the Cakchiquels, in
their most venerable traditions, claimed to have migrated from the north
or west, from some part of the present country of Mexico.

These traditions receive additional importance from the presence on the
shores of the Mexican Gulf, on the waters of the river Panuco, north of
Vera Cruz, of a prominent branch of the Maya family, the Huastecs. The
idea suggests itself that these were the rearguard of a great migration
of the Maya family from the north toward the south.

Support is given to this by their dialect, which is most closely akin to
that of the Tzendals of Tabasco, the nearest Maya race to the south of
them, and also by very ancient traditions of the Aztecs.

It is noteworthy that these two partially civilized races, the Mayas and
the Aztecs, though differing radically in language, had legends which
claimed a community of origin in some indefinitely remote past. We find
these on the Maya side narrated [22]in the sacred book of the Kiches, the
Popol Vuh, in the Cakchiquel Records of Tecpan Atitlan, and in
various pure Maya sources which I bring forward in this volume. The
Aztec traditions refer to the Huastecs, and a brief analysis of them
will not be out of place.

At a very remote period the Mexicans, under their leader Mecitl, from
whom they took their name, arrived in boats at the mouth of the river
Panuco, at the place called Panotlan, which name means “where one
arrives by sea.” With them were the Olmecs under their leader Olmecatl,
the Huastecs, under their leader Huastecatl, the Mixtecs and others.
They journeyed together and in friendship southward, down the coast,
quite to the volcanoes of Guatemala, thence to Tamoanchan, which is
described as the terrestial paradise, and afterwards, some of them
at least, northward and eastward, toward the shores of the Gulf.

On this journey the intoxicating beverage made from the maguey, called
octli by the Aztecs, cii by the Mayas, and pulque by the
Spaniards, was invented by a woman whose name was Mayauel, in which we
can scarcely err in recognizing the [23]national appellation Maya.23-1
Furthermore, the invention is closely related to the history of the
Huastecs. Their leader, alone of all the chieftains, drank to excess,
and in his drunkenness threw aside his garments and displayed his
nakedness. When he grew sober, fear and shame impelled him to collect
all those who spoke his language, and leaving the other tribes, he
returned to the neighborhood of Panuco and settled there
permanently.23-2

The annals of the Aztecs contain frequent allusions to the Huastecs. The
most important contest between the two nations took place in the reign
of Montezuma the First (1440-1464). The attack was made by the Aztecs,
for the alleged reason that the Huastecs had robbed and killed Aztec
merchants on their way to the great fairs in Guatemala. The Huastecs are
described as numerous, dwelling in walled towns, possessing quantities
of maize, beans, feathers and precious stones, and painting their faces.
They were sig[24]nally defeated by the troops of Montezuma, but not reduced
to vassalage.24-1

At the time of the Conquest the province of the Huastecs was densely
peopled; “none more so under the sun,” remarks the Augustinian friar
Nicolas de Witte, who visited it in 1543; but even then he found it
almost deserted and covered with ruins, for, a few years previous, the
Spaniards had acted towards its natives with customary treachery and
cruelty. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference, had enticed
them into a large wooden building, and then set fire to it and burned
them alive. When this merciless act became known the Huastecs deserted
their villages and scattered among the forests and mountains.24-2

These traditions go to show that the belief among the Aztecs was that
the tribes of the Maya family came originally from the north or
northeast, and were at some remote period closely connected with their
own ancestors.

[25]§ 4. Political Condition at the Time of the Conquest.

When the Spaniards first explored the coasts of Yucatan they found the
peninsula divided into a number of independent petty states. According
to an authority followed by Herrera, these were eighteen in number.
There is no complete list of their names, nor can we fix with certainty
their boundaries. The following list gives their approximate position.
On the west coast, beginning at the south—

On the east coast, beginning at the north—

[26]Central provinces—

As No. 15, the Peten district, was not conquered by the Spaniards until
1697, it was doubtless not included in the list drawn up by Herrera’s
authority, so that the above would correspond with his statement.

Each of these provinces was ruled by a hereditary chief, who was called
batab, or batabil uinic (uinic=man). He sometimes bore two names,
the first being that of his mother, the second of his father, as Can
Ek, in which Can was from the maternal, Ek from the paternal line.
The surname (kaba) descended through the male. It was called hach
kaba, the true name, or hool kaba, the head name. Much attention was
paid to preserving the genealogy, and the word for “of noble birth” was
ah kaba, “he who has a name.”

Each village of a province was organized under a ruler, who was styled
halach uinic, the true or real man. Frequently he was a junior member
[27]of the reigning family. He was assisted by a second in command, termed
ah kulel, as a lieutenant, and various subordinate officials, whose
duties will be explained in the notes to Nakuk Pech’s narrative.

Personal tenure of land did not exist. The town lands were divided out
annually among the members of the community, as their wants required,
the consumption of each adult being calculated at twenty loads (of a
man) of maize each year, this being the staple food.27-1

§ 5. Grammatical Observations.

Compared with many American languages, the Maya is simple in
construction. It is analytic rather than synthetic; most of its roots
are monosyllables or dissyllables, and the order of their arrangement is
very similar to that in English. It has been observed that foreigners,
coming to [28]Yucatan, ignorant of both Spanish and Maya, acquire a
conversational knowledge of the latter more readily than of the
former.28-1

An examination of the language explains this. Neither nouns nor
adjectives undergo any change for gender, number or case. Before animate
nouns the gender may be indicated by the prefixes ah and ix,
equivalent to the English he and she in such expressions as
he-bear, she-bear. The plural particle is ob, which can be
suffixed to animate nouns, but is in fact the third person plural of the
personal pronoun.

The conjugations of the verbs are four in number. All passives and
neuters end in l, and also a certain number of active verbs; these
form the first conjugation, while the remaining three are of active
verbs only. The time-forms of the verb are three, the present, the
aorist, and the future. Taking the verb nacal, to ascend, these forms
are nacal, naci, nacac. The present indicative is:—

[29]

When this form is analyzed, we discover that in, á, ú, c,
a-ex, u-ob, are personal possessive pronouns, my, thy, his, our,
your, their; and that nacal and cah are in fact verbal nouns
standing in apposition. Cah, which is the sign of the present tense,
means the doing, making, being occupied or busy at something. Hence
nacal in cah, I ascend, is literally “the ascent, my being occupied
with.” The imperfect tense is merely the present with the additional
verbal noun cuchi added, as—

Cuchi means carrying on, bearing along, and the imperfect may thus be
rendered:—

“The ascent, my being occupied with, carrying on.”

This is what has been called by Friedrich Müller the “possessive
conjugation,” the pronoun [30]used being not in the nominative but in the
possessive form.

The aorist presents a different mode of formation:—

Here en, ech, on, ex, are apparently the simple personal
pronouns I, thou, we, you, and are used predicatively. The future is
also conjugated in this form by the use of the verbal bin, binel, to
go:

The present of all the active verbs uses this predicative form, while
their aorists and futures employ possessive forms. Thus:—

Here, however, I must note a difference of [31]opinion between eminent
grammatical critics. Friedrich Müller considers all such forms as—

to exhibit “the predicative power of the true verb,” basing his opinion
on the analogy of such expressions as—

M. Lucien Adam, on the other hand, says:—“The intransitive preterit
nac-en may seem morphologically the same as the Aryan ás-mi; but
here again, nac is a verbal noun, as is demonstrated by the plural of
the third person nac-ob, ‘the ascenders.’ Nac-en comes to mean
‘ascender [formerly] me.’”31-2

I am inclined to think that the French critic is right, and that, in
fact, there is no true verb in the Maya, but merely verbal nouns,
nomina actionis, to which the pronouns stand either in the possessive
or objective relations, or, more remotely, in the possessive relation to
another verbal noun in apposition, as cah, cuchi, etc. The
importance of this point in estimating the structure of the language
will be appreciated by those who have paid any attention to the science
of linguistics.

[32]The objective form of the conjugation is composed of the simple personal
pronouns of both persons, together with the possessive of the agent and
the particle ci, which conveys the accessory notion of present action
towards. Thus, from moc, to tie:—

These refinements of analysis have, of course, nothing to do with the
convenience of the language for practical purposes. As it has no dual,
no inclusive and exclusive plurals, no articles nor substantive verb, no
transitions, and few irregular verbs, its forms are quickly learned. It
is not polysynthetic, at any rate, not more so than French, and its
words undergo no such alteration by agglutination as in Aztec and
Algonkin. Syncopated forms are indeed common, but to no greater extent
than in colloquial English. The unit of the tongue remains the word, not
the sentence, and we find no immeasurable words, expressing in
themselves a whole paragraph, such as grammarians like to quote from the
Eskimo, Aztec, Qquichua and other highly synthetic languages.

The position of words in a sentence is not dissimilar from that in
English. The adjective [33]precedes the noun it qualifies, and sentences
usually follow the formula, subject—verbal—object. Thus:—

But transposition is allowable, as—

As shown in this last example, the genitive relation is indicated by the
possessive pronoun, as it sometimes was in English, “John, his book;”
but the Maya is “his book John,” u huun Juan.

Another method which is used for indicating the genitive and ablative
relations is the termination il. This is called “the determinative
ending,” and denotes whose is the object named, or of what. It is
occasionally varied to al and el, to correspond to the last
preceding vowel, but this “vocalic echo” is not common in Maya. While it
denotes use, it does not convey the idea of ownership. Thus, u cħeen
in yum, my father’s well, means the well that belongs to my father; but
cħenel in yum, my father’s well, means the well from which he
obtains water, but in which he has no proprietorship. Material used is
indicated by [34]this ending, as xanil na, a house of straw (xan, straw,
na, house).

Compound words are frequent, but except occasional syncope, the members
of the compound undergo no change. There is little resembling the
incapsulation (emboitement) that one sees in most American languages.
Thus, midnight, chumucakab, is merely a union of chumuc, middle, and
akab, night; dawn, ahalcab, is ahal, to awaken, cab, the world.

While from the above brief sketch it will be seen that the Maya is free
from many of the difficulties which present themselves in most American
tongues, it is by no means devoid of others.

In its phonetics, it possesses six elements which to the Spaniards
were new. They are represented by the signs:

Of these the cħ resembles dch, pronounced forcibly; the ɔ is as dz;
the pp is a forcible double p; and in the tħ the two letters are to
be pronounced separately and forcibly. There remains the k which is
the most difficult of all. It is a sort of palato-guttural, the only one
in the language, and its sound can only be acquired by long practice.

[35]The particles are very numerous, and make up the life of the language.
By them are expressed the relations of space and time, and all the finer
shades of meaning. Probably no one not to the manor born could render
correctly their full force. Buenaventura, in his Grammar, enumerates
sixteen different significations of the particle il.35-1

The elliptical and obscure style adopted by most native writers, partly
from ignorance of the art of composition, partly because they imitated
the mystery in expression affected by their priests, forms a serious
obstacle even to those fairly acquainted with the current language.
Moreover, the older manuscripts contain both words and forms unfamiliar
to a cultivated Yucatecan of to-day.

I must, however, not omit to contradict formally an assertion made by
the traveler Waldeck, and often repeated, that the language has
undergone such extensive changes that what was written a century ago is
unintelligible to a native of to-day. So far is this from the truth
that, except for a few obsolete words, the narrative of the Conquest,
[36]written more than three hundred years ago, by the chief Pech, which I
print in this volume, could be read without much difficulty by any
educated native.

Again, as in all languages largely monosyllabic, there are many
significations attached to one word, and these often widely different.
Thus kab means, a hand; a handle; a branch; sap; an offence; while
cab means the world; a country; strength; honey; a hive; sting of an
insect; juice of a plant; and, in composition, promptness. It will be
readily understood that cases will occur where the context leaves it
doubtful which of these meanings is to be chosen.

These homonyms and paronyms, as they are called by grammarians,
offer a fine field for sciolists in philology, wherein to discover
analogies between the Maya and other tongues, and they have been
vigorously culled out for that purpose. All such efforts are
inconsistent with correct methods in linguistics. The folly of the
procedure may be illustrated by comparing the English and the Maya. I
suppose no one will pretend that these languages, at any rate in their
present modern forms, are related. Yet the following are but a few of
the many verbal similarities that could be pointed out:—

[37]

So with the Latin we could find such similarities as volah=volo,
ɔa=dare, etc.

In fact, no relationship of the Maya linguistic group to any other has
been discovered. It contains a number of words borrowed from the Aztec
(Nahuatl); and the latter in turn presents many undoubtedly borrowed
from the Maya dialects. But this only goes to show that these two great
families had long and close relations; and that we already know, from
their history, traditions and geographical positions.

§ 6. The Numeral System.

The Mayas had a mathematical turn, and possessed a developed system of
numeration. It counted by units and scores; in other words, it [38]was a
vigesimal system. The cardinal numbers were:—

The composition of these numerals from twelve to nineteen inclusive is
easily seen. Lahun is apparently a compound of lah hun (sc.
uinic), “it finishes one (man);” that is, in counting on the [39]fingers.
Lah means the end, to end, and also the whole of anything. Kal, a
score, is literally a fastening together, a shutting up, from the verb
kal, to shut, to lock, to button up, etc.

From twenty upward, the scores are used:—

and so on up to

Above forty, three different methods can be used to continue the
numeration.

1. We may continue the same employed between 20 and 40, thus:—

and so on.

2. The numeral copulative catac can be used, with the numeral particle
tul; as:—

3. We may count upon the next score above, as:

[40]The last mentioned system is that advanced by Father Beltran, and is the
only one formally mentioned by him. It has recently been carefully
analyzed by Prof. Leon de Rosny, who has shown that it is a consistent
vigesimal method.40-1

It might be asked, and the question is pertinent, and is left unanswered
by Prof. Leon de Rosny, why hun tu kal means “one to the score,” and
hun tu can kal is translated, “one on the fourth score.” This
important shade of meaning may be given, I think, by the possessive u
which originally belonged in the phrase, but suffered elision. Properly
it should be,

Hun tu u can kal.

This seems apparent from other numbers where it has not suffered
elision, but merely incorporation, as:—

This system of numeration, advanced by Beltran, appears to have been
adopted by all of the later writers, who may have learned the Maya
largely from his Grammar. Thus, in the transla[41]tion of the Gospel of St.
John, published by the Baptist Bible Translation Society, chap. II, v.
20; Xupan uactuyoxkal hab utial u mental letile kulnaa, “forty and six
years was this temple in building;”41-1 and in that of the Gospel of
St. Luke, said to have been the work of Father Joaquin Ruz, the same
system is followed.41-2

Nevertheless, Beltran’s method has been severely criticised by Don Juan
Pio Perez, who ranks among the ablest Yucatecan linguists of this
century. He has pronounced it artificial, not in accordance with either
the past or present use of the natives themselves, and built up out of
an effort to assimilate the Maya to the Latin numeral system.

[42]I give his words in the original, from his unpublished essay on Maya
grammar.42-1

“Los Indios de Yucatan cuentan por veintenas, que llaman kal y en
cierto modo tienen diez y nueve unidades hasta completar la primera
veintena que es hunkal aunque en el curso de esta solo se encuentran
once numeros simples, pues los nombres de los restantes se forman de los
de la primera decena.

“Para contar de una à otra veintena los numeros fraccionarios ò las diez
y nueve unidades, terminadas por la particula tul ò su sincopa
tu,42-2 se juntan antepuestas à la veintena espresada; por exemplo,
hunkal, 20; huntukal, 21; catukal, 22; y huntucakal, 41;
catucakal, 42; oxtucankal, 83; cantuhokal, 140, etc.

“El Padre Fr. Beltran de Santa Rosa, como puede verse en su Arte de
Lengua Maya, formó un sistema distinto à este desde la 2ª veintena
hasta la ultima, pues para espresar las unidades entre este y la 3ª
veintena pone à esta terminandolas y por consiguiente rebajandole su
valor por solo su anteposicion à dichas unidades fraccion[43]arias, y asi
para espresar el numero 45 por ejemplo dice ho tu yoxkal, cuando
oxkal ò yoxkal significa 60.

“No sé de donde tomó los fundamentos en que se apoya este sistema, quiza
en el uso de su tiempo, que no ha llegado hasta este; aunque he visto en
varios manuscritos antiguos, que los Indios de entonces como los de
ahora, usaban el sistema que indico, y espresaban las unidades integras
que numeraban, y para espresar el numero 65 dicen; Oxkal catac hotul ù
hotu oxkal, que usa el Padre Beltran por 45.43-1

“Mas el metodo que explico esta apoyado en el uso y aun en el curso que
se advierte en la 1ª y 2ª veintena é indican que asi deben continuar las
decenas hasta la 20ª y no formar sistemas confusos que por ser mas ô
menos análogos à la numeracion romana lo juzgaban mas ô menos perfectos,
porque la consideraban como un tipo a que debia arreglarse cualquiera
otra lengua, cuando en ellas todo lo que no este conforme con el uso
recibido y corriente, es construir castillos en el aire y hacer reformas
que por mas ingeniosas que sean, no pasan de inoficiosas.”

In the face of this severe criticism of Father [44]Beltran’s system, I
cannot explain how it is that in Pio Perez’s own Dictionary of the Maya,
the numerals above 40 are given according to Beltran’s system; and that
this was not the work of the editors of that volume (which was published
after his death), is shown by an autographic manuscript of his
dictionary in my possession, written about 1846,44-1 in which also the
numerals appear in Beltran’s form.

Three other manuscript dictionaries in my collection, all composed
previous to 1690, affirm the system of Beltran, and I am therefore
obliged to believe that it was authentic and current among the natives
long before white scholars began to dress up their language in the
ill-fitting garments of Aryan grammar.

Proceeding to higher numbers, it is interesting to note that they also
proceed on the vigesimal system, although this has not heretofore been
distinctly shown. The ancient computation was:

[45]This ancient system was obscured by the Spaniards using the word pic
to mean 1000 and kinchil to mean 1,000,000, instead of their original
significations.

The meaning of kal, I have already explained to be a fastening
together, a package, a bundle. Bak, as a verb, is to tie around and
around with a network of cords; pic is the old word for the short
petticoat worn by the women, which was occasionally used as a sac. If we
remember that grains of corn or of cacao were what were generally
employed as counters, then we may suppose these were measures of
quantity. The word kal (qal), in Kiche means a score and also
specifically 20 grains of cacao; bak in Cakchiquel means a corn-cob,
and as a verb to shell an ear of corn, but I am not clear of any
connection between this and the numeral. Other meanings of bak in Maya
are “meat” and the partes pudendas of either sex.

Calab, seems to be an instrumental form from cal, to stuff, to fill
full.45-1 The word calam is used in the sense of excessive,
overmuch. In Cakchi[46]quel the phrase mani hu cala, not (merely) one
cala, is synonymous with mani hu chuvi, not (merely) one bag or
sack, both meaning a countless number.46-1 In that dialect the
specific meaning of cala is 20 loads of cacao beans.46-2

The term tzotzceh means deerskin, but for kinchil and alau, I have
found no satisfactory derivation that does not strain the forms of the
word too much. I would, however, suggest one possible connection of
meaning.

In kinchil, we have the word kin, day; in alau, the word u
month, and in the term for mathematical infinity, hunhablat, we find
hun haab, one year, just as in the related expression, hunhablazic,
which signifies that which lasts a whole year. If this suggestion is
well grounded, then in these highest expressions of quantity (and I am
inclined to think that originally hun hablat, one hablat=20 alau)
we have applications of the three time periods, the day, the month, and
the year, with the figurative sense that the increase of one over the
other was as the relative lengths of these different periods.

[47]I think it worth while to go into these etymologies, as they may throw
some light on the graphic representation of the numerals in the Maya
hieroglyphics. It is quite likely that the figures chosen to represent
the different higher units would resemble the objects which their names
literally signify. The first nineteen numerals were written by a
combination of dots and lines, examples of which we find in abundance in
the Codex Troano and other manuscripts. The following explanation of it
is from the pen of a native writer in the last century:—

“Yantac thun yetel paiche tu pachob, he hunppel thune hunppel bin haabe,
uaix cappele cappel bin haabe, uaix oxppel thuun, ua canppel thuune,
canppel binbe, uaix oxppel thuun baixan; he paichee yan yokol xane, ua
hunppel paichee, hoppel haab bin; ua cappel paichee lahunppiz bin; uaix
hunppel paichee yan yokol xane, ua yan hunppel thuune uacppel bin be;
uaix cappel thuune yan yokol paichee uucppel bin be; ua oxppel thuun yan
yokole, uaxppel binbe; uaixcanppel thun yan yokole paichee (bolonppel
binbe); yanix thun yokol (cappel) paichee buluc [48]piz; uaix cappel thune
lahcapiz; ua oxppel thuun, oxlahunpiz.”

“They (our ancestors) used (for numerals in their calendars) dots and
lines back of them; one dot for one year, two dots for two years, three
dots for three, four dots for four, and so on; in addition to these they
used a line; one line meant five years, two lines ten years; if one line
and above it one dot, six years; if two dots above the line, seven
years; if three dots above, eight; if four dots above the line, nine; a
dot above two lines, eleven; if two dots, twelve; if three dots,
thirteen.”48-1

The plan of using the numerals in Maya differs somewhat from that in
English.

In the first place, they are rarely named without the addition of a
numeral particle, which is suffixed. These particles indicate the
character or class of the objects which are, or are about to be,
enumerated. When they are uttered, the hearer at once knows what kind of
objects are to be spoken of. Many of them can be traced to a meaning
which [49]has a definite application to a class, and they have analogues in
European tongues. Thus I may say “seven head of”—and the hearer knows
that I am going to speak of cattle, or sheep, or cabbages, or similar
objects usually counted by heads. So in Maya ac means a turtle or a
turtle shell; hence it is used as a particle in counting canoes, houses,
stools, vases, pits, caves, altars, and troughs, and some general
appropriateness can be seen; but when it is applied also to cornfields,
the analogy seems remote.

Of these numeral particles, not less than seventy-six are given by
Beltran, in his Grammar, and he does not exhaust the list. Of these
piz and pel, both of which mean, single, singly, are used in
counting years, and will frequently recur in the annals I present in
this volume.

By their aid another method of numeration was in vogue for counting
time. For “eighty-one years,” they did not say hutuyokal haab, but
can kal haab catac hunpel haab, literally, “four score years and one
year.” The copulative catac is also used in adding a smaller number to
a bak, or 400, as for 450, hun bak catac lahuyoxkal, “one bak and
ten toward the third score.” Catac is a compound of ca tac, ca
meaning “then” or “and,” and tac, [50]which Dr. Berendt considered to be
an irregular future of talel, to come, “then will come fifty,” but
which may be the imperative of tac (tacah, tace, third
conjugation), which means to put something under another, as in the
phrase tac ex che yalan cum, put you wood under the pot.

It will be seen that the latter method is by addition, the former by
subtraction. Another variety of the latter is found in the annals. For
instance, “ninety-nine years” is not expressed by bolonlahutuyokal
haab, nor yet by cankal haab catac bolonlahunpel haab, but by hunpel
haab minan ti hokal haab, “one single year lacking from five score
years.”

§ 7. The Calendar.

The system of computing time adopted by the Mayas is a subject too
extensive to be treated here in detail, but it is indispensable, for the
proper understanding of their annals, that the outlines of their
chronological scheme be explained.

The year, haab, was intended to begin on the day of the transit of the
sun by the zenith, and was counted from July 16th. It was divided into
eighteen months, u (u, month, moon), of twenty [51]days, kin (sun,
day, time), each. The days were divided into groups of five, as
follows:—

The months, in their order, were:—

As the Maya year was of 365 days, and as 18 months of 20 days each
counted only 360 days, there were five days intervening between the last
of the month Cumku and the first day of the following year. These were
called “days without names,” xma kaba kin (xma, without, kaba,
names, kin, days), an expression not quite correct, as they were named
in regular order, only they were not counted in any month.

It will be seen, by glancing at the list of days, that this arrangement
brought at the beginning of each year, the days Kan, Muluc, Ix and Cauac
in [52]turn, and that no other days could begin the year. These days were
therefore called cuch haab, “the bearers of the years” (cuch, to
bear, carry, haab, year), and years were distinguished as “a year
Kan,” “a year Muluc,” etc., as they began with one or another of these
“year bearers.”

But the calendar was not so simple as this. The days were not counted
from one to twenty, and then beginning at one again, and so on, but by
periods of 13 days each. Thus, in the first month, beginning with 1 Kan,
the 14th day of that month begins a new “week,” as it has been called,
and is named 1 Caban. Twenty-eight of these weeks make 364 days, thus
leaving one day to complete the year. When the number of these odd days
amounted to 13, in other words when thirteen years had elapsed, this
formed a period which was called “the katun of days,” kin katun, and
by Spanish writers an “indiction.”

It will be readily observed by an inspection of the following table,
that four of these indictions, in other words 52 years, will elapse
before a “year bearer” of the same name and number recommences a year.

[53]

A cycle of 52 years was thus obtained in a manner almost identical with
that of the Aztecs, Tarascos and other nations.

But the Mayas took an important step in advance of all their
contemporaries in arranging a much longer cycle.

This long cycle was an application of the vigesimal system to their
reckoning of time. Twenty days were a month, u or uinal; twenty
years was a cycle, katun. To ask one’s age the question was put
haypel u katunil? How many katuns have you? And the answer was,
hunpel katun, one katun (twenty years), or, hopel in katunil, I am
five katuns, or a hundred years old, as the case might be.

The division of the katuns was on the principle [54]of the Beltran system of
numeration (see page 40), as,

Literally these expressions are, “dividing the second katun,” “dividing
the third katun,” xel meaning to cut in pieces, to divide as with a
knife. They may be compared to the German dritthalb, two and a half,
or “the third a half.”54-1

The Katun of 20 years was divided into five lesser divisions of 4 years
each, called tzuc, a word with a signification something like the
English “bunch,” and which came to be used as a numeral particle in
counting parts, divisions, paragraphs, reasons, groups of towns,
etc.54-2

[55]These tzuc were called by the Spaniards lustros, from the Latin
lustrum, although that was a period five years. Cogolludo says:
“They counted their eras and ages, which they entered in their books, by
periods of 20 years each, and by lustros of four years each. The first
year they placed in the East [that is, on the Katun-wheel, and in the
figures in their books], calling it cuch haab; the second in the West,
called Hijx; the third in the South, Cavac; and the fourth, Muluc,
in the North, and this served them for the Dominical letter. When five
of the lustros had passed, that is 20 years, they called it a Katun,
and they placed one carved stone upon another, cemented with lime and
sand, in the walls of their temples, or in the houses of their
priests.”55-1

The historian is wrong in saying that the first year was called
cuchhaab; that was the name applied to all the Dominical days, and as
I have said, means “year bearer.” The first year was called Kan, from
the first day of its first month.

This is but one of many illustrations of how cautious we must be in
accepting any statement of the early Spanish writers about the usages of
the natives.

[56]There is, however, some obscurity about the length of the Katun. All
the older Spanish writers, without exception, and most of the native
manuscripts, speak of it distinctly as a period of twenty years. Yet
there are three manuscripts of high authority in the Maya which state
that it embraced twenty-four years, although the last four were not
reckoned. This theory was adopted and warmly advocated by Pio Perez, in
his essay on the ancient chronology of Yucatan, and is also borne out by
calculations which have been made on the hieroglyphic Codex Troano, by
M. Delaporte, in France, and Professor Cyrus Thomas, in the United
States.56-1

This discrepancy may arise from the custom of counting the katuns by two
different systems, ground for which supposition is furnished by various
manuscripts; but for purposes of chronology and ordinary life, it will
be evident that the writers of the annals in the present volume adopted
the Katun of twenty years’ length; while on the other hand the native
Pech, in his History of the Conquest, which is the last piece in the
volume, [57]gives for the beginning and the end of the Katun the years
1517-1541, and therefore must have had in mind one of twenty-four years’
duration. The solution of these contradictions is not yet at hand.

This great cycle of 13 × 20=260 years was called an ahau Katun
collectively, and each period in it bore the same name.

This name, ahau Katun, deserves careful analysis. Ahau is the
ordinary word for chief, king, ruler. It is probably a compound of ah,
which is the male prefix and sign of the nomen agentis, and u,
collar, a collar of gold or other precious substance, distinguishing the
chiefs. Katun has been variously analyzed. Don Pio Perez supposed it
was a compound of kat, to ask, and tun, a stone, because at the
close of these periods they set up the sculptured stone, which was
afterwards referred to in order to fix the dates of occurrences.57-1
This, however, would certainly require that kat be in the passive,
katal or kataan, and would give katantun. Beltran in his Grammar
treats the word as an adjective, meaning very long, perpetual.57-2 But
this is a later, secondary sense. Its usual signification is a body or
batallion of war[58]riors engaged in action. As a verb, it is to
fight, to give battle, and thus seems related to the Cakchiquel
at, to cut, or wound, to make prisoner.58-1
The series of years, ordered and arranged under a controlling day and
date, were like a row of soldiers commanded by a chief, and hence the
name ahau katun.

Each of these ahaus or chiefs of the Katuns was represented in the
native calendars by the picture or portrait of a particular personage
who in some way was identified with the Katun, and his name was given to
it. This has not been dwelt upon nor even mentioned by previous writers
on the subject, but I have copies of various native manuscripts which
illustrate it, and give the names of each of the rulers of the Katuns.

[59]The thirteen ahau katuns were not numbered from 1 upward, but
beginning at the 13th, by the alternate numbers, in the following
order:—

13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2

Various reasons have been assigned for this arrangement. It would be
foreign to my purpose to discuss them here, and I shall merely quote the
following, from a paper I wrote on the subject, printed in the American
Naturalist, Sept., 1881:—

The important question remains, how closely, by these cycles, did the
Mayas approximate to preserving the exact date of an event?

To answer this fairly, we should be sure that we have a perfectly
authentic translation of their hieroglyphic annals. It is doubtful that
we have. Those I present in this volume are the most perfect, so far as
I know, but they certainly do not agree among themselves. Can their
discrepancies be explained? I think they can in a measure (1) by the
differing length of the katuns, (2) by the era assumed as the
commencement of the reckoning.

It must be remembered that there was apparently no common era adopted by
the Mayas; each province may have selected its own; and it is quite
erroneous to condemn the annals off-hand [61]for inaccuracy because they
conflict between themselves.

§ 8. Ancient Hieroglyphic Books.

The Mayas were a literary people. They made frequent use of tablets,
wrote many books, and covered the walls of their buildings with
hieroglyphic signs, cut in the stones or painted upon the plaster.

The explanation of these signs is one of the leading problems in
American archæology. It was supposed to have been solved when the
manuscript of Bishop Landa’s account of Yucatan was discovered, some
twenty years ago, in Madrid. The Bishop gave what he called “an A, B,
C,” of the language, but which, when applied to the extant manuscripts
and the mural inscriptions, proved entirely insufficient to decipher
them.

The disappointment of the antiquaries was great, and by one of them, Dr.
Felipe Valentini, Landa’s alphabet has been denounced as “a Spanish
fabrication.”61-1 But certainly any one acquainted with the history of
the Latin alphabet, how it required the labor of thousands of years and
the demands of three wholly different families of languages, to bring it
to its perfection, should not have looked to find among the Mayas, or
[62]anywhere else, a parallel production of human intelligence. Moreover,
rightly understood, Landa does not intimate anything of the kind. He
distinctly states that what he gives are the sounds of the Spanish
letters as they would be transcribed in Maya characters; not at all that
they analyzed the sounds of their words and expressed the phonetic
elements in these characters. On the contrary, he takes care to affirm
that they could not do this, and gives an example in point.62-1 Dr.
Valentini, therefore, was attacking a windmill, and entirely
misconstrued the Bishop’s statements.

I shall not, in this connection, enter into a discussion of the nature
of these hieroglyphics. It is enough for my purpose to say that they
were recognized by the earliest Spanish explorers as quite different
from those of Mexico, and as the only graphic system on the continent,
so far as they knew it, which merited the name of writing.62-2

[63]The word for book in Maya is huun, a monosyllable which reappears in
the Kiche vuh and the Huasteca uuh. In Maya this initial h is
almost silent and is occasionally dropped, as yuunil Dios, the book of
God (syncopated form of u huunil Dios, the suffix il being the
“determinative” ending). I am inclined to believe that huun is merely
a form of uoohan, something written, this being the passive participle
of uooh, to write, which, as a noun, also means a character, a
letter.63-1

[64]Another name for their books, especially those containing the prophecies
and forecasts of the priestly diviners, is said to have been anahte;
or analte. This word is not to be found in any of the early
dictionaries. The usual authority for it is Villagutierre Sotomayor, who
describes these volumes as they were seen among the Itzas of Lake Peten,
about 1690.64-1

These books consisted of one long sheet of a kind of paper made by
macerating and beating together the leaves of the maguey, and afterwards
sizing the surface with a durable white varnish. The sheet was folded
like a screen, forming pages about 9 × 5 inches. Both sides were covered
with figures and characters painted in various brilliant colors. On the
outer pages boards were fastened, for protection, so that the completed
volume had [65]the appearance of a bound book of large octavo size.

Instead of this paper, parchment was sometimes used. This was made from
deerskins, thoroughly cured and also smoked, so that they should be less
liable to the attacks of insects. A very durable substance was thus
obtained, which would resist most agents of destruction, even in a
tropical climate. Twenty-seven rolls of such parchment, covered with
hieroglyphics, were among the articles burned by Bishop Landa, at Mani,
in 1562, in a general destruction of everything which related to the
ancient life of the nation. He himself says that he burned all that he
could lay his hands upon, to the great distress of the natives.65-1

A very few escaped the destructive bigotry of the Spanish priests. So
far as known these are.—

1. The Codex Tro, or Troano, in Madrid, published by the French
government, in 1869.

2. What is believed to be the second part of the Codex Troano, now
(1882) in process of publication in Paris.

3. The Codex Peresianus, in the National Library, Paris, a very limited
edition of which has been issued.

[66]4. The Dresden Codex, in Kingsborough’s Mexico, and photographed in
colors, to the number of 50 copies, in 1880, which is believed to
contain fragments of two different manuscripts.

To these are, perhaps, to be added one other in Europe and two in
Mexico, which are in private hands, and are alleged to be of the same
character.

All the above are distinctly in characters which were peculiar to the
Mayas, and which are clearly variants of those found on the sculptured
beams and slabs of Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Palenque and Copan.

It is possible that many other manuscripts may be discovered in time,
for Landa tells us that it was the custom to bury with the priests the
books which they had written. As their tombs were at times of solid
stones, firmly cemented together, and well calculated to resist the
moisture and other elements of destruction for centuries, it is nowise
unlikely that explorations in Yucatan will bring to light some of these
hidden documents.

The contents of these books, so far as we can judge from the hints in
the early writers, related chiefly to the ritual and calendar, to their
history or Katuns, to astrological predictions and divinations, to their
mythology, and to their system of healing disease.

[67]§ 9. Modern Maya Manuscripts.

As I have said, the Mayas were naturally a literary people. Had they
been offered the slightest chance for the cultivation of their
intellects they would have become a nation of readers and writers.
Striking testimony to this effect is offered by Doctor Don Augustin de
Echano, Prebend of the Cathedral Church of Merida, about the middle of
the last century. He observes that twelve years of experience among the
Indians had taught him that they were very desirous of knowledge, and
that as soon as they learned to read, they eagerly perused everything
they could lay their hands on; and as they had nothing in their tongue
but some old writings that treated of sorceries and quackeries, the
worthy Prebend thought it an excellent idea that they should be
supplied, in place of these, with some —— sermons!67-1 But what
else could be expected of a body of men who crushed out with equal
bigotry every spark of mental independence in their own country?

[68]The “old writings” to which the Prebend alludes were composed by natives
who had learned to write the Maya in the alphabet adopted by the early
missionaries and conquerors. An official document in Maya, still extant,
dates from 1542, and from that time on there were natives who wrote
their tongue with fluency. But their favorite compositions were works
similar to those to which their forefathers had been partial,
prophecies, chronicles and medical treatises.

Relying on their memories, and no doubt aided by some of the ancient
hieroglyphical manuscripts, carefully secreted from the vandalism of the
monks, they wrote out what they could recollect of their national
literature.

There were at one time a large number of these records. They are
referred to by Cogolludo, Sanchez Aguilar and other early historians.
Probably nearly every village had one, which in time became to be
regarded with superstitious veneration.

[69]Wherever written, each of these books bore the same name; it was always
referred to as “The Book of Chilan Balam.” To distinguish them apart,
the name of the village where one was composed was added. Thus we have
still preserved to us, in whole or in fragments, the Book of Chilan
Balam of Chumayel, of Kaua, of Nabula, etc., in all, it is said, about
sixteen.

“Chilan Balam” was the designation of a class of priests. “Chilan,” says
Bishop Landa, “was the name of their priests, whose duty it was to teach
the sciences, to appoint holy days, to treat the sick, to offer
sacrifices, and especially to utter the oracles of the gods. They were
so highly honored by the people that usually they were carried on
litters on the shoulders of the devotees.”69-1 Strictly speaking, in
Maya, chilan means “interpreter,” “mouth-piece,” from “chij,” “the
mouth,” and in this ordinary sense frequently occurs in other writings.
The word balam—literally, “tiger,”—was also applied to a class of
priests, and is still in use among the natives of Yucatan as the
designation of the protective spirits of fields and towns, as I have
shown at length in a study of the word [70]as it occurs in the native myths
of Guatemala.70-1 “Chilan Balam,” therefore, is not a proper name,
but a title, and in ancient times designated the priest who announced
the will of the gods and explained the sacred oracles. This accounts for
the universality of the name and the sacredness of its associations.

The dates of the books which have come down to us are various. One of
them, “The Book of Chilan Balam of Mani,” was undoubtedly composed not
later than 1595, as is proved by internal evidence. Various passages in
the works of Landa, Lizana, Sanchez Aguilar and Cogolludo—all early
historians of Yucatan—prove that many of these native manuscripts
existed in the sixteenth century. Several rescripts date from the
seventeenth century—most from the latter half of the eighteenth.

The names of the writers are generally not given, probably because the
books, as we have them, are all copies of older manuscripts, with [71]merely
the occasional addition of current items of note by the copyist; as, for
instance, a malignant epidemic which prevailed in the peninsula in 1673
is mentioned as a present occurrence by the copyist of “The Book of
Chilan Balam of Nabula.”

These “Books of Chilan Balam” are the principal sources from which Señor
Pio Perez derived his knowledge of the ancient Maya system of computing
time, and also drew what he published concerning the history of the
Mayas before the Conquest, and from them also are taken the various
chronicles which I present in the present volume.

That I am enabled to do so is due to the untiring researches of Dr. Carl
Hermann Berendt, who visited Yucatan four times, in order to study the
native language, to examine the antiquities of the peninsula, and to
take accurate copies, often in fac-simile, of as many ancient
manuscripts as he could discover. After his death, his collection came
into my hands.

The task of deciphering these manuscripts is by no means a light one,
and I must ask in advance for considerable indulgence for my attempt.
Words and phrases are used which are not explained in the dictionaries,
or, if explained, are used in a different sense from that now current.
[72]The orthography is far from uniform, each syllable is often written
separately, and as the punctuation is wholly fanciful or entirely
absent, the separation of words, sentences and paragraphs is often
uncertain and the meaning obscure.

Another class of documents are the titles to the municipal lands, the
records of surveys, etc. I have copies of several of these, and among
them was found the history of the Conquest, by Nakuk Pech, which I
publish. It was added to the survey of his town, as a general statement
of his rights and defence of the standing of his family.

My translations are not in flowing and elegant language. Had they been
so, they would not have represented the originals. For the sake of
accuracy I have not hesitated to sacrifice the requirements of English
composition.

§ 10. Grammars and Dictionaries of the Language.

The learned Yucatecan, Canon Crescencio Carillo y Ancona, states in his
last work that there have been written thirteen grammars and seventeen
dictionaries of the Maya.72-1

The first grammar printed was that of Father Luis de Villalpando. This
early missionary died in 1551 or 1552, and his work was not issued until
[73]some years later. Father Juan Coronel also gave a short Maya grammar to
the press, together with a Doctrina. It is believed that copies of
both of these are preserved. Beltran, however, acknowledges that in
preparing his own grammar he has never seen either of these earlier
works.73-1

In 1684, the Arte de la Lengua Maya, composed by Father Gabriel de San
Buenaventura, a French Franciscan stationed in Yucatan, was printed in
Mexico.73-2 Only a few copies of this work are known. It has, however,
been reprinted, though not with a desirable fidelity, by the Abbe
Brasseur (de Bourbourg), in the second volume of the reports of the
Mission Scientifique au Mexique et à l’Amerique Centrale, Paris, 1870.

The leading authority on Maya grammar is Father Pedro Beltran, who was a
native of Yucatan, and instructor in the Maya language in the convent of
Merida about 1740. He was thoroughly conversant with the native tongue,
and his Arte [74]was reprinted in Merida, in 1859, as the best work of the
kind which had been produced.74-1

The eminent antiquary, Don Juan Pio Perez contemplated writing a Maya
grammar, and collected a number of notes for that purpose,74-2 as did
also the late Dr. Berendt, but neither brought his work to any degree of
completeness. I have copies of the notes left by both these diligent
students, as also both editions of Beltran, and an accurate MS. copy of
Buenaventura, from all of which I have derived assistance in completing
the present study.

The first Maya dictionary printed was issued in the City of Mexico in
1571. It was published as that of Father Luis de Villalpando, but as he
had then been dead nearly twenty years, it was probably merely based
upon his vocabulary. It was in large 4to, of the same size as the second
edition of Molina’s Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana. At least one
copy of it is known to be in existence.

[75]For more than three centuries no other dictionary was put to press,
although for some unexplained reason that of Villalpando was unknown in
Yucatan. At length, in 1877, the publication was completed at Mérida, of
the Diccionario de la Lengua Maya, by Don Juan Pio Perez.75-1 It
contains about 20,000 words, and is Maya-Spanish only. It is the result
of a conscientious and lifelong study of the language, and a work of
great merit. The deficiencies it presents are, that it does not give the
principal parts of the verbs, that it omits or does not explain
correctly many old terms in the language, and that it gives very few
examples of idioms or phrases showing the uses of words and the
construction of sentences.

I can say little in praise of the Vocabulaire Maya-Francais-Espagnole,
compiled by the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), and printed in the second
volume of the Report of the Mission Scientifique au Mexique et à
l’Amerique Centrale. It contains about ten thousand words, but many of
these are drawn from doubtful sources, and are incorrectly given; while
the derivations and anal[76]ogies proposed are of a character unknown to the
science of language.

Besides the above and various vocabularies of minor interest, I have
made use of three manuscript dictionaries of the first importance, which
were obtained by the late Dr. Berendt. They belonged to three Franciscan
convents which formerly existed in Yucatan, and as they are all
anonymous, I shall follow Dr. Berendt’s example, and refer to them by
the names of the convents to which they belonged. These were the convent
of San Francisco in Merida, that at the town of Ticul and that at Motul.

The most recent of these is that of the convent of Ticul. It bears the
date 1690, and is in two parts, Spanish-Maya and Maya-Spanish.

The Diccionario del Convento de San Francisco de Merida bears no date,
but in the opinion of the most competent scholars who have examined it,
among them Señor Pio Perez, it is older than that of Ticul, probably by
half a century. It is also in two parts, which have evidently been
prepared, by different hands.

The Diccionario del Convento de Motul is by far the most valuable of
the three, and has not been known to Yucatecan scholars. A copy of it
[77]was picked up on a book stall in the City of Mexico by the Abbé
Brasseur, and sold by him to Mr. John Carter Brown, of Providence, R. I.
In 1864 this was very carefully copied by Dr. Berendt, who also made
extensive additions to it from other sources, indicating such by the use
of inks of different colors. This copy, in three large quarto volumes,
in all counting over 2500 pages, is that which I now have, and have
found of indispensable assistance in solving some of the puzzles
presented by the ancient texts in the present volume.

The particular value of the Diccionario de Motul is not merely the
richness of its vocabulary and its numerous examples of construction,
but that it presents the language as it was when the Spaniards first
arrived. The precise date of its compilation is indeed not given, but
the author speaks of a comet which he saw in 1577, and gives other
evidence that he was writing in the first generation after the Conquest.

[78]

[79]

THE CHRONICLES.

[80]

[81]

THE CHRONICLES.

The chronicles and fragments of chronicles which I have collected here
are all taken from the various “Books of Chilan Balam.” They constitute
about all that remains to us, so far as I know, of the ancient history
of the peninsula. There are, indeed, in other portions of these “Books”
references to historical events before the Conquest, but no other
consecutive narrations of them.

Except the one given first, none of these has ever been printed, nor
even translated from the Maya into any European language. Whether they
corroborate or contradict one another, it is equally important for
American archæology to have them preserved and presented in their
original form.

It does not come within my present purpose to try to reconcile the
discrepancies between them. I am furnishing materials for history, not
writing it, and my chief duty is to observe accuracy, even at the risk
of depreciating the value of the documents I offer.

[82]I have, therefore, followed strictly the manuscripts which I possess in
fac-similes of the originals, and when I believe the text is corrupt or
in error, I have suggested apart from the text what I suppose to be the
needed correction to the passage.

In the notes I have also discussed such grammatical or historical
questions as have occurred to me as of use in elucidating the text.

There will be found considerable repetition in these different versions,
as must necessarily be from their character, if they have a claim to be
authentic records; but it is also fair to add that details will be found
in each which are omitted in the others, and hence, that all are
valuable.

This similarity may be explained by two suppositions; either they are
copies from a common original, or they present the facts they narrate in
general formulæ which had been widely adopted by the priests for
committing to memory their ancient history. The differences which we
find in them preclude the former hypothesis except as it may apply to
the first two. The similarities in the others I believe are no more than
would occur in relating the same incidents which had been learned
through fixed forms of narration.

[83]The division into sections I have made for convenience of reference. The
variants I have given at the bottom of the page are readings which I
think are preferable to those in the text, or corrections of manifest
errors; but I have endeavored to give the text, just as it is in the
best MSS. I have, errors and all.

It is not my purpose to enter into a critical historical analysis of
these chronicles. But a few remarks may be made to facilitate their
examination.

Making the necessary omissions in No. II, which I point out in the
prefatory note to it, it will be found that all five agree tolerably
well in the length of time they embrace. Nos. III and IV begin at a
later date than the others, but coincide as far as they go.

The total period of time, from the earliest date given, to the
settlement of the country by the Spaniards, is 71 katuns. If the katun
is estimated at twenty years, this equals 1420 years; if at twenty-four
years, then we have 1704 years.

All the native writers agree, and I think, in spite of the contrary
statement of Bishop Landa, that we may look upon it as beyond doubt,
that the last day of the 11th katun was July 15th, 1541. [84]Therefore the
one of the above calculations would carry us back to A. D. 121, the
other to B. C. 173.

The chief possibility of error in the reckoning would be from confusing
the great cycles of 260 (or 312) years, one with another, and assigning
events to different cycles which really happened in the same. This would
increase the number of the cycles, and thus extend the period of time
they appear to cover. This has undoubtedly been done in No. II.

According to the reckoning as it now stands, six complete great cycles
were counted, and parts of two others, so that the native at the time of
the Conquest would have had eight great cycles to distinguish apart.

I have not found any clear explanation how this was accomplished. We do
not even know what name was given to this great cycle, nor whether the
calendar was sufficiently perfected to prevent confusion in dates in the
remote past.

I find, however, two passages in the collection of ancient manuscripts,
which I have before referred to as the Codice Perez, which seem to
have a bearing on this point; but as the text is somewhat corrupt and
several of the expressions [85]archaic, I am not certain that I catch the
right meaning. These passages are as follows:—

Translation.

In other words, if I do not miss the writer’s meaning, the repetitions
of the great cycle of thirteen katuns were not counted from either of
its terminals, to wit, the thirteenth or the second katun, but from the
tenth katun. These repetitions were [86]called uuɔ katun, the doubling
or foldings over of the katuns, and they were inscribed on the circle or
wheel of the katuns at that part of it where the tenth katun was
entered. These wheels were called u pet katun, the circle of the
katuns, or u met katun, the wheel of the katuns, or u uazaklom
katun, the return of the katuns. I have several copies of them, and one
is given in Landa’s work, but I know of none which is a genuine
original, and, therefore, it is not surprising that I do not find on any
of them the signs referred to adjacent to the tenth katun.

For the convenience of the reader I have drawn up the following
chronological table of the events referred to in the Chronicles,
arranging them under the Great Cycles and Katuns to which they would
belong were the former numbered according to the regular sequence given
on page 59. I have also inserted the katuns which were omitted by the
native chroniclers, but which, according to that sequence, are necessary
in order to complete their records in accordance with the theory of the
Maya calendar. The references in Roman numerals are to the different
chronicles.

[87]

SYNOPSIS OF MAYA CHRONOLOGY.

[89]

I. THE SERIES OF THE KATUNS.

From the Book of Chilan Balam of Mani.

The first chronicle which I present is the only one which has been
heretofore published. On account of its comparative fullness it deserves
especial attention. It is taken from the Book of Chilan Balam of the
town of Mani.

This town, according to a tradition preserved by Herrera, was founded
after the destruction of Mayapan, and, therefore, not more than seventy
years before the arrival of the Spaniards. Mayapan was destroyed in
consequence of a violent feud between the two powerful families who
jointly ruled there, the Cocoms and the Xius or Tutul Xius. The latter,
having slain all members of the Cocom family to be found in the city,
deserted its site and removed south about fifteen miles, and there
established as their capital a city to which they gave the name Mani,
“which means ‘it is past,’ as if to say ‘let us start anew.’”89-1

[90]At the time of the Conquest the reigning chief of the Tutulxius was
friendly to the Spaniards, and voluntarily submitted to their rule, as
we are informed with much minuteness of detail by the historian
Cogolludo.90-1 We may reasonably suppose, therefore, that this
chronicle was brought from Mayapan in the “Books of Science,” which
Herrera refers to as esteemed their greatest treasure by the chiefs who
broke up their ancient confederation when Mayapan was deserted. Hence
the records ran a better chance of being preserved in this province than
in those which were desolated by war. As I have already said (page 65) a
large number were destroyed precisely at Mani by Bishop Landa, in 1562.

I find among the memoranda of Dr. Berendt [91]reference to four “Books of
Chilan Balam,” of Mani. These dated from 1689, 1697, 1755 and 1761,
respectively, but I have not learned from which of these Pio Perez
extracted the chronicles he gave Mr. John L. Stephens. Dr. Berendt adds
that it was from one which was in possession of a native schoolmaster of
Mani, who, having the surname Balam, claimed to be descended from the
original Chilan Balam!91-1

The first publication of the document was in the Appendix to the second
volume of Mr. Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York,
1843). It included the original Maya text, with a not very accurate
translation into English of Pio Perez’s rendering of the Maya. From Mr.
Stephen’s volume, the document has been copied into various publications
in Mexico, Yucatan and Europe.

[92]The other attempt at an independent translation was that of the Abbé
Brasseur (de Bourbourg), published at Paris in 1864, in the same volume
with Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan. The text he took from
Stephens’ book, errors and omissions included, and his translation is
entirely based on the English one, as he evidently did not have access
to the original Spanish of Pio Perez.

The most important recent study of the subject has been made by Dr.
Valentini, who published the notes of Pio Perez on his translation, and
gave a general re-examination of ancient Maya history, with a great deal
of sagacity and a large acquaintance with the related Spanish
literature.92-1 He is, however, in error in stating that he was the
first to publish the notes of Perez, as they had previously been printed
in a work by Canon Carrillo.92-2

Much use of this chronicle has been made by the recent historians of
Yucatan, Don Eligio Ancona [93]and the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona;
but I am surprised to find that they have depended entirely on the
previous labors of Pio Perez, Stephens and Brasseur, and have made no
attempt to verify or extend them.

Dr. Berendt, although earnestly devoted to collecting and copying these
records did not, as Dr. Valentini observes, ever attempt a translation
of any of them.

No hint is given as to the author of the document, nor do we know from
what sources he derived his information. It has been plausibly suggested
that it was an epitome of the history of their nations, which was
learned by heart and handed down from master to disciple, and which
served as a verbal key to the interpretation of the painted and
sculptured records, and to the “katun stones” which were erected at the
expiration of each cycle and inscribed with the principal events which
had transpired in it.

The Abbé Brasseur placed at the head of his edition of this chronicle
the title, in Maya:—

“Lelo lai u tzolan katunil ti Mayab,”

which he translates—

“Séries des Epoques de l’Histoire Maya.”

This is an invention of the learned antiquary. [94]There is no such nor any
other title to the original. It is simply called in the first line u
tzolan katun, the arrangement or order of the katuns. The word tzolan
is a verbal noun, the past participle of the passive voice of tzol,
which means to put in order, to arrange, and is in the genitive of the
thing possessed, as indicated by the pronoun u. Literally, the phrase
reads, “their arrangement (the) katuns.”

[95]

TEXT.

Notes1. Lai u tzolan katun lukci ti cab ti yotoch Nonoual cante anilo
Tutulxiu ti chikin Zuiua u luumil u talelob Tulapan 95-1chiconahthan.

2. Cante bin ti katun lic u ximbalob ca uliob uaye yetel Holon
Chantepeuh yetel u cuchulob. Ca hokiob ti petene uaxac ahau bin yan
cuchi uac ahau, can ahau, cabil ahau, cankal haab catac hunppel haab,
tumen hun piztun oxlahun ahau cuchie, ca uliob uay ti petene, cankal
haab catac hunppel haab, tu pakteil, yetel cu ximbalob lukci tu luumilob
ca talob uay ti petene Chacnouitan lae; u añoil lae 81 81.

Notes3. Uaxac ahau, uac ahau; cabil ahau kuchci chacnouitan Ahmekat Tutulxiu;
hunppel haab minan ti hokal haab cuchi yanob chacnouitan lae; lai u
habil lae 99 años.

Notes4. Laitun uchci u chicpahal tzucubte Ziyan caan lae Bakhalal; can ahau,
cabil ahau, oxlahun ahau, oxkal haab cu tepalob Ziyan caan ca emob uay
[96]lae; lai u habil cu tepalob Bakhalal 96-1chuulte laitun chicpahci
Chicħen Itza lae 60 años.

Notes5. Buluc ahau, bolon ahau, uuc ahau, ho ahau, ox ahau, hun ahau, uackal
haab, cu tepalob Chichen Itzaa, ca paxi Chicħen Itza, ca binob cahtal
Chanputun, ti yanhi u yotochob ah Itzaob kuyan uincob lae; lay u habil
lae 120.

Notes6. Uac ahau chucuc u luumil Chanputun. Can ahau, cabil ahau, oxlahun
ahau, buluc ahau, bolon ahau, uuc ahau, ho ahau, ox ahau, hun ahau,
lahca ahau, lahun ahau, uaxac ahau paxci Chanputun; oxlahunkal haab cu
tepalob Chanputun tumenel Ytza uinicob ca talob u tzac le u yotochob tu
caten; laixtun u katunil binciob ah Itzaob yalan che, yalan 96-2aban,
yalan ak ti numyaob lae; lai u habil cu 96-3xinbal lae 260.

Notes7. Uac ahau, can ahau, cakal haab, ca talob u heɔob yotoch tu caten ca
tu zatahob chakanputun; lay u habil lae 40.

Notes8. Lai u katunil cabil ahau u heɔcicab Ahcuitok Tutulxiu Uxmal; cabil
ahau, oxlahun ahau, buluc ahau, bolon ahau, uuc ahau, ho ahau, ox ahau,
hun ahau, lahca ahau, lahun ahau; lahun kal haab cu tepalob yetel u
halach uinicil chicħen Itza yetel Mayalpan; lai u habil lae 200.

[97]

Notes9. Lai u katunil buluc ahau bolon ahau uuc ahau, uaxac ahau, paxci u
halach uinicil Chicħen Itzaa tumenel u kebanthan Hunac eel; ca uch ti
Chacxibchac Chichen Itzaa tu kebanthan Hunac eel u halach uinicil
Mayalpan ich paae. Cankal haab catac lahunpiz haab, tu lahun tun, uaxac
ahau cuchie lai u habil paxci tumenel Ahzinteyut chan yetel Tzuntecum,
yetel Taxcal, yetel Pantemit, Xuchueuet yetel Ytzcuat, yetel Kakaltecat;
lai u kaba uiniclob lae uuctulob ah Mayelpanob lae 90.

Notes10. Laili u katunil uaxac ahau lai ca binob u paa ah Ulmil ahau tumenel
u uahal uahoob yetel ah Itzmal ulil ahau lae oxlahun uuɔ u katunilob
ca paxob tumen Hunac eel; tumenel u ɔabal u natob; uac ahau ca ɔoci
hunkal haab catac canlahun pizi; lai u habil cu 97-1xinbal 34.

Notes11. Uac ahau, can ahau, cabil ahau, oxlahun ahau, buluc ahau chucuc u
luumil ich paa Mayapan, tumenel u pach tulum, tumenel multepal ich cah
Mayalpan, tumenel Ytza uinicob yetel Ulmil ahau lae, cankal haab catac
oxppel haab; yocol buluc ahau cuchi paxci Mayalpan tumenel ahuitzil
ɔul tan cah Mayapan 83.

Notes12. Uaxac ahau lai paxci Mayapan; lay u katunil [98]uac ahau, can ahau,
cabil ahau, lai haab, cu ximbal ca yax mani españoles u yax ulci caa
luumi Yucatan tzucubte lae oxkal haab paxac ichpaa cuchie 60.

Notes13. Oxlahun ahau, buluc ahau uchci mayacimil ich paa yetel nohkakil;
oxlahun ahau cimci Ahpula; uacppel haab u binel ma ɔococ u xocol
oxlahun ahau cuchie; ti yanil u xocol haab ti lakin cuchie, canil kan
cumlahi pop, tu holhun zip catac oxppeli, bolon imix u kinil lai cimci
Ahpula; laytun año cu ximbal cuchi lae ca oheltab lai u xoc numeroil
anos lae 1536 años cuchie, oxkal haab paxac ichpa cuchi lae.

Notes14. Laili ma ɔococ u xocol buluc ahau lae lai ulci españoles kul
uincob ti lakin, u talob ca uliob uay tac luumil lae; bolon ahau hoppci
cristianoil; uchci caputzihil; laili ichil u katunil lae ulci yax
obispo Toroba u kaba; heix año cu ximbal uchie 1544.

Notes15. Yan cuchi uuc ahau cimci yax obispo de landa; ychil u katunil ho
ahau ca yan cahi padre manii lai año lae 1550.

Notes16. Lai año cu ximbal ca cahi padre yok haa 1552.

Notes17. Lai año cu ximbal ca uli Oidor la ca paki Espital 1559.

[99]

Notes18. Lai año cu ximbal ca kuchi Doctor Quijada yax gob^or uaye 1560.

Notes19. Lai año cu ximbal ca uchci cħuitab lae 1562.

Notes20. Lai año cu ximbal ca uli Mariscal gob^or ca betab 99-1thulub 1563.

Notes21. Lai año cu ximbal ca uchci nohkakil lae 1609.

Notes22. Lai año cu ximbal ca hichiucal kaxob 1610.

Notes23. Lai año cu ximbal ca ɔibtah cah tumenel Juez Diego Pareja 1611.

[100]

TRANSLATION.

Notes1. This is the arrangement of the katuns since the departure was made
from the land, from the house Nonoual, where were the four Tutulxiu,
from Zuiva at the west; they came from the land Tulapan, having formed a
league.

2. Four katuns had passed in which they journeyed when they arrived here
with Holon Chantepeuh and his followers. When they set out for this
country it was the eighth ahau. The sixth ahau, the fourth ahau, the
second ahau (passed), four score years and one year, for it was the
first year of the thirteenth ahau when they arrived here in this
country; four score years and one year in all had passed since they
departed from the land and came here, to the province Chacnouitan. These
were years 81.

Notes3. The eighth ahau, the sixth ahau; in the second ahau Ahmekat Tutulxiu
arrived at Chacnouitan; they were in Chacnouitan five score years
lacking one year; these were years 99.

Notes4. Then took place the discovery of the pro[101]vince Ziyan caan or Bakhalal;
the fourth ahau, the second ahau, the thirteenth ahau, three score years
they ruled Ziyan caan when they descended here: in these years that they
ruled Bakhalal it occurred then that Chichen Itza was discovered. 60
years.

Notes5. The eleventh ahau, the ninth ahau, the seventh ahau, the fifth ahau,
the third ahau, the first ahau, six score years, they ruled at Chichen
Itza; then they abandoned Chichen Itza and went to live at Chanputun;
there those of Itza, holy men, had their houses; these were years 120.

Notes6. In the sixth ahau the land of Chanputun was seized. The fourth ahau,
the second ahau, the thirteenth ahau, the eleventh ahau, the ninth ahau,
the seventh ahau, the fifth ahau, the third ahau, the first ahau, the
twelfth ahau, the tenth ahau; the eighth ahau Chanputun was abandoned;
thirteen score years Chanputun was ruled by the Itza men when they came
in search of their houses a second time; in this katun those of Itza
were under the trees, under the boughs, under the branches, to their
sorrow; the years that passed were 260.

Notes7. The sixth ahau, the fourth ahau, two score years, (had passed) when
they came and estab[102]lished their houses a second time, and they lost
Chakanputun; these were years 40.

Notes8. In the katun the second ahau Ahcuitok Tutulxiu founded (the city of)
Uxmal; the second ahau, the thirteenth ahau, the eleventh ahau, the
ninth ahau, the seventh ahau, the fifth ahau, the third ahau, the first
ahau, the twelfth ahau, the tenth ahau; ten score years they ruled with
the governor of Chichen Ytza and Mayapan; these were years 200.

Notes9. Then were the katuns eleventh ahau, ninth ahau, sixth ahau; in the
eighth ahau the governor of Chichen Itza was driven out on account of
his plotting against Hunac Eel; and this happened to Chac Xib Chac of
Chichen Itza on account of his plotting against Hunac Eel the governor
of Mayapan, the fortress. Four score years and ten years, and it was the
tenth year of the eighth ahau that it was depopulated by Ah Zinteyut
Chan, with Tzuntecum, and Taxcal, and Pantemit, Xuchueuet and Ytzcuat
and Kakaltecat: these were the names of the seven men of Mayapan 90.

Notes10. In this eighth ahau they went to the fortress of the ruler of Ulmil
on account of his banquet to Ulil ruler of Itzmal; they were thirteen
divisions of warriors when they were dispersed by [103]Hunac Eel, in order
that they might know what was to be given; in the sixth ahau it ended,
one score years and fourteen; the years that passed were 34.

Notes11. The sixth ahau, the fourth ahau, the second ahau, the thirteenth
ahau, the eleventh ahau; then was invaded the land of the fortress of
Mayapan by the men of Itza and their ruler Ulmil on account of the
seizure of the castle by the joint government in the city of Mayapan;
four score years and three years; the eleventh ahau had entered when
Mayapan was depopulated by foreigners from the mountains in the midst of
the city of Mayapan 83.

Notes12. In the eighth ahau Mayapan was depopulated; then were the sixth
ahau, the fourth ahau, the second ahau; during this year the Spaniards
first passed and first came to this land the province of Yucatan, sixty
years after the fortress was depopulated. 60.

Notes13. The thirteenth ahau; the eleventh ahau took place the pestilence in
the fortresses and the smallpox; in the thirteenth ahau Ahpula died; for
six years the count of the thirteenth ahau will not be ended; the count
of the year was toward the East, the month Pop began with (the [104]day)
fourth Kan; the eighteenth day of the month Zip (that is), 9 Imix, was
the day on which Ahpula died; and that the count may be known in numbers
and years it was the year 1536, sixty years after the fortress was
destroyed.

Notes14. The count of the eleventh ahau was not ended when the Spaniards,
mighty men, arrived from the east; they came, they arrived here in this
land; the ninth ahau Christianity began; baptism took place; also in
this katun came the first bishop Toroba by name; this was the year 1544.

Notes15. In the seventh ahau died the first bishop de Landa; in the fifth
katun the Fathers first settled at Mani, in the year 1550.

Notes16. As this year was passing the fathers settled upon the water 1552

Notes17. As this year was passing the auditor came and the hospital was built 1559

Notes18. As this year was passing the first governor Dr. Quijada, arrived
here 1560

Notes19. As this year was passing the hanging took place 1562

Notes20. As this year was passing the Governor Marshall came and built the
reservoirs 1563

Notes21. As this year was passing the smallpox occurred 1609

[105]

Notes22. As this year was passing those of Tekax were hanged 1610

Notes23. As this year was passing the towns were written down by Judge Diego
Pareja 1611

[106]

NOTES.

Maya
English1. The introductory paragraph is not less obscure in construction than
it is important in its historical statements, and I shall give it,
therefore, a particularly careful analysis.

I have already explained the term u tzolan katun; lukci is the
aorist of lukul, which forms regularly luki, but the mutation to
ci is used when the meaning since or after that is to be conveyed;
as Beltran says, “cuando el verbo trae estos romances, despues que ò
desde que, como este romance; despues que murio mi padre, estoy triste:
cimci in yume, okomuol” (Arte del Idioma Maya, p. 61). cab means
country or place, in the sense of residence, whereas luum, used in the
same paragraph, is land or earth, in the general sense. The Dicc. de
Motul says: “cab, pueblo ò region; in cab, mi pueblo, donde yo soy
natural.” yotoch is a compound of the possessive pronoun u, his or
their, and otoch, the word for house when it is indicated whose house
it is; otherwise na is used; otoch is probably allied to och a
verbal root signifying to give food to, the house being looked upon as
specifically the place where meals are prepared.

The word cante is translated by Perez and Brasseur as four, and
applied to the Tutulxiu, while the intervening word anilo is not
translated by either: cante is no doubt the numeral four with the
numeral particle te suffixed. But here a serious difficulty arises.
According to all the grammars and dictionaries the particle te is
never used for counting persons, [107]but only “years, months, days (periods
of time), leagues, cacao, eggs and gourds.” Moreover, what is anilo?
We have, indeed, the form tenilo, I am that one, from the particle i
(Buenaventura, Arte de la Lengua Maya, fol. 27, verso); and we might
have yanilo, they are those. But this necessitates a change in the
text, and if that has to be done I should prefer to suppose that anilo
was a mistake of the copyist, and that we should read katun or
katunile. This would reconcile the numeral particle and would do away
with the four Tutulxius, of whom we hear nothing afterwards.

chikin, the West, literally, that which bites or eats the sun, from
chi, the mouth, and, as a verb, to bite. An eclipse is called in Maya
chibal kin, the sun bitten; ti chikin, toward the West.

talelob, plural form of tal or talel, to come to, to go from.

chiconahthan is not translated by either Pio Perez or Brasseur, nor in
that precise form has it any meaning. I take it, however, to be a faulty
orthography for chichcunahthan which means to support that which
another says, hence, to agree with, to act in concert with; “chichcunah
u thanil, having renewed the agreement” (Diccionario de Ticul). It
refers to an agreement entered into by the different leaders who were
about to undertake the migration into unknown lands. Possibly, however,
this is not a Maya word, but another echo of Aztec legend.
Chiconauhtlan, “the place of the Nine,” was a village and mountain
north of the lake of Tezcuco and close to the sacred spot Teotiuacan,
where, in Aztec myth, the gods assembled to create the sun and moon
(Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, Lib VII, cap. II). Tulapan
Chiconauhtlan would thus become a compound local name.

[108]It will be seen from the above that the translation which I have given
of this paragraph does not satisfy me as certainly correct. I shall now
give the original with an interlinear translation, and also those of Pio
Perez and Brasseur, adding a free rendering which I am inclined to
prefer, although it modifies the text somewhat.

Interlinear Translation.

Translation of Pio Perez.

Esta es la serie de Katunes corridos desde que se quitaron de la tierra
y casa de Nonoual en que estaban los cuatro Tutulxiu al poniente de
Zuina; el pais de donde vinieron fué Tulapan.

Translation of Brasseur.

C’ est ici la série des epoques écoulées depuis que s’ enfuirent les
quatre Tutul Xiu de la maison de Nonoual etant a l’ouest de Zuinà, et
vinrent de la terre de Tulapan.

Free translation suggested.

This is the order of the Katuns since the four Katuns during which the
Tutulxiu left their home and country Nonoual to the west of Zuiua, and
went from the land and city of Tula, having agreed together to this
effect.

[109]I have said nothing of the proper names in this paragraph. They are
remarkable for the fact that three out of the four are unquestionably
Nahuatl or Aztec, and hence they have given occasion for considerable
theorizing in favor of the “Toltec” origin of the Maya civilization, and
also of the Nahuatl descent of the princely family of the Tutulxiu.

Their name is the only one in the paragraph with a distinctively Maya
physiognomy. It is a compound of xiu, the generic term for herb or
plant, and tutul, a reduplicated form of tul, an abundance, an
excess, as in the verb tutulancil, to overflow, etc. (Diccionario de
Ticul, MS.). It would appear therefore to be a local name, and to
signify a place where there was an abundance of herbage. The surname is
Xiu only, and as such is still in use in Yucatan.

But it may also be claimed that even this is a Nahuatl name; for also in
that tongue xiuitl means a plant, as well as a turquoise, a comet, a
year, and in composition a greenish or bluish color; while tototl is a
bird or fowl. The Maya xiu and the Nahuatl xiuitl (in which itl is
a termination lost in composition) are undoubtedly the same word. Which
nation borrowed it from the other? It is certainly a loan-word, for
these two languages have no common origin, while, as we might expect
from neighbors, each does have a number of loan-words from the other.

I answer that the Maya xiu is unquestionably a loan from the Nahuatl,
and my reason for the opinion is that while in Maya the root xiu is
sterile and has no relations to other words (unless perhaps to xiitil,
to open like a flower, to brood as a bird, to augment, to grow), in
Nahuatl it is a very fertile root, and nearly thirty compounds of it can
be found in the dictionaries (See Molina, Vocabulario de la Lengua
Mexicana, [110]fol. 159, verso). But the composition of the name follows the
Maya and not the Nahuatl analogy.

That in either language the name Tutulxiu can be translated “Bird-tree”
(Vogelbaum), as is argued by Dr. Carl Schultz-Sellack (Archiv für
Ethnologie, Band XI, 1879), and on which translation he bases a long
argument, is very doubtful. It certainly could not in Maya; and in
Nahuatl, tototl in composition would drop both its terminal
consonants.

The remaining names, Nonoual, Zuiua, Tula-pan, clearly indicate their
Nahuatl origin. Zuiua, which was erroneously printed in Pio Perez’s
version as Zuina is Zuiva; Nonoual is Nonohual; Tulapan, literally “the
standard of Tula,” refers to the famous city of the Toltecs, presided
over by Quetzalcoatl. All these names are borrowed directly from the
myth of this hero-god.

Zuiven was the name of the uppermost heaven, the abode of the Creator
Hometeuctli, the father of Quetzalcoatl, and the place of his first
birth as a divinity. In later days, when the Quetzalcoatl myth had
extended to the Kiches and Cakchiquels, members of the Maya family in
Guatemala, “Tulan Zuiva” was identified with the Aztec Chicomoztoc, the
famous “Seven Caves,” “Seven Ravines,” or “Seven Cities,” from which so
many tribes of Mexico, wholly diverse in language and lineage, claimed
that their ancestors emerged in some remote past (compare the Codex
Vaticanus, Lam. I; Codex Zumarraga, chap. I, with the Popol Vuh,
pp. 214, 227). To this spot the ancestors of the Guatemalan tribes were
reported to have gone to receive their gods; from it issued the Aztec
god Huitzilopochtli; in it still were supposed to dwell his mother and
other mighty divinities; and Quetzalcoatl was again the youngest born of
Iztac Mixcohuatl, the [111]mighty lord of the Seven Caves (Motolinia,
Historia de los Indios de Nueva España p 10, etc.).

Tula, properly Tollan, a syncopated form of Tonatlan, which means
“the place of the Sun,” was a name applied to a number of towns in
Mexico, all named after that magnificent city inhabited by the Tolteca
(“dwellers in the place of the Sun”), servants and messengers of the
Light-God their ruler, the benign, the virgin-born Quetzalcoatl. The
common tradition ran that it was destroyed by the wiles of Tezcatlipoca,
the brother, yet the eternal enemy, of Quetzalcoatl, and that at its
destruction the Toltecs disappeared, no one knew whither, while
Quetzalcoatl, after reigning a score of years in Cholula, journeyed far
eastward to the home of the Sun, where he enjoyed everlasting life.

Nonohual also had a place in this myth. It was a mountain over against
Tulan. There it was that the eldest sister of Quetzalcoatl resided. When
he was made drunken by the insidious beverage handed him as a healing
draught by Tezcatlipoca, he sent for this sister, held to her lips the
intoxicating cup, and with her passed a night of debauch, the memory of
which filled him with such shame that nevermore dared he face his
subjects. Such is the story recited at length in the Aztec chronicle
called the Codex Chimalpopoca.

Nonoalco was also the name of a small village near the city of Mexico
which still appears on the maps. Sahagun tells us that some extreme
eastern tribes in Mexico called themselves Nonoalca (Historia de la
Nueva España, Lib. X, cap, XXIX, p 12); and the licenciate
Diego Garcia de Palacio mentions “quatro lugares de Indios que llaman
los Nunualcos” as dwelling, in his time (1576), in the eastern part of
the province of San Salvador, of Aztec descent, and who had recently
[112]come there. (Carta al Rey de España, p. 60, New York, 1860). It should
be mentioned in reference to these names and all others of similar
vocalization, that both in Maya and Nahuatl the Spanish constantly
confound the short ŏ and ŭ. As the Bachelor Don Antonio Vasquez
Gastelu observes: “usan de la o algunos tan obscuramente, que tira
algo à la pronunciacion de la u vocal” (Arte de lengua Mexicana,
fol. 1, verso, La Puebla de los Angeles, 1726).

Señor Alfredo Chavero, in his Appendix to Duran’s Historia de las
Indias de Nueva España (p. 45, Mexico, 1880), claims that Nonoalca
was the name given to the Maya-Kiche tribes, or rather adopted by them,
when, at an extremely remote epoch, they penetrated to the central table
land of Mexico. He thinks that subsequently they became united with the
Toltecs, and were dispersed with that people at the destruction of the
city of Tula. The grounds for this theory he claims to find in certain
unpublished manuscripts, which unfortunately he does not give in
extracts, but only in general statements. Like much that this writer
presents, these assertions lack support. All the names he quotes as of
Nonoalca, that is, Maya origin, are distinctly not of the latter tongue,
but are Nahuatl. And the introduction of the mystical city of Tula is of
itself enough to invest the story with the garb of unreality.

It is, in fact, nowhere in terrestrial geography that we need look for
the site of the Tula of Quetzalcoatl, nor at any time in human history
did the Tolteca ply their skillful hands, nor Tezcatlipoca spread his
snares to destroy them. All this is but a mythical conception of the
daily struggle of light and darkness, and those writers who seek in the
Toltecs the ancestors or instructors of any nation whatsoever, make the
once common [113]error of mistaking myth for history, fancy for fact.
Therefore, any notion that Yucatan was civilized by the Toltecs after
their dispersion, or owes anything to them, as so many, and I might say
almost all recent writers have maintained, is to me an absurdity.

This reference to the Quetzalcoatl myth at the commencement of the Maya
chronicle needs not surprise us. We encounter it also in the Kiche
Popol Vuh and the Cakchiquel Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan. These
members of the Maya family also grafted that myth upon their own
traditions. As history, it is valueless; but as indicative of a long and
early intercourse between the Maya and Nahuatl speaking tribes, it is of
great interest. As this question will also recur in reference to various
later passages in the Maya chronicles, I will discuss it here.

One of the earliest historians of Yucatan, the Doctor Don Pedro Sanchez
de Aguilar, states that six hundred years before the Spanish conquest
the Mayas were vassals of the Aztecs, and that they were taught or
forced by these to construct the extraordinary edifices in their
country, such as are found at Uxmal and Chichen Itza. His words are:
“Fueron tan politicos y justiciosos en Yucatan como los Mexicanos, cuyos
vasallos habian sido seis cientos años antes de la llegada de los
Españoles. De lo cual tan solamente hay tradicion y memoria entre ellos
por los famosos, grandes y espantosos edificios de cal y canto y
silleria y figuras y estatuas de piedra labrada que dejaron en Oxumual
[Uxmal] y en Chicheniza que hoy se veen y se pudieran habitar.” Informe
contra Idolum Cultores del Obispado de Yucatan, fol. 87 (Madrid, 1639).

The vague tradition here referred to was made part of the [114]testimony in a
lawsuit at Valladolid, Yucatan, in 1618. These old documents were
brought to light by the late eminent Yucatecan historian Doctor Justo
Sierra, and Dr. Berendt took a copy in manuscript of the most important
points. I think it worth while to insert and translate this testimony.

Villa de Valladolid—Año de 1618.

“Documento 1º. A la primera pregunta dijo este testigo que conoce al
dicho Don Juan Kahuil y à la dicha Doña Maria Quen su legitima muger y
que todos los contenidos en la pregunta, tuvo noticia muy larga de su
padre de este testigo, porque fue en su antiguedad ahkin, sacerdote
entre los naturales antiguos, antes que recibiesen agua de bautismo,
como los susodichos contenidos en la pregunta vinieron del reino de
Mexico y poblaron estas provincias, y que era gente bellicosa y valerosa
y Señores, y asi poblaron à Chichenica los unos, y otros se fueron hacia
el Sur que poblaron á Bacalar, y hacia el Norte que poblaron la costa;
porque eran tres ò cuatro Señores y uno que se llamo Tumispolchicbul
era deudo de Moctezuma, rey que fuè de los reinos de Mexico, y que
Cuhuikakcamalcacalpuc era deudo muy cercano de dicho Don Juan Kahuil
por parte de sus padres, y que dicha Ixnahaucupul hija de Kukumcupul
fue muger de su abuelo de dicho D. Juan Kahuil, todos los cuales fueron
los que vinieron de Mexico à poblar estas Provincias, gente principal y
Señores, pues poblaron y se señorearon de esta tierra, porque como dicho
tiene, le oyó decir al dicho su padre que eran tenidos, obedecidos y
respetados como à Señores de esta tierra, y de uno de ellos procede el
dicho D. Juan Kahuil, y de estos hay mucha noticia y dicho su padre le
dijo muchas veces, que [115]habia constancia entre ellos de lo sucedido por
estos Señores.

“2º. A la segunda pregunta dice este testigo, que como dicho tiene, oyó
decir à su padre y otros Indios principales que los susodichos
contenidos en la primera pregunta vinieron de los reynos de Mejico à
poblar estàs provincias, los unos se quedaron en Chichinica que fueron
los que edificaron los edificios sontuosos que hay en el dicho asiento,
y otros se fueron à poblar à Bacalar, y otros fueron à poblar la costa
hacia el norte, y este que fué à poblar la costa, se llamaba Cacalpuc,
de donde procede el dicho D. Juan Kahuil, y estos que así se
repartieron, fueron à poblar las provincias susodichas, y las tuvieron
sugetas y en govierno, y que le cupo à un Cocom, el poblar en
Chichinica, y le obedecian todos por Señor, y los de la isla de cuzumel
le eran sugetos; y de alli (de Chicinica) se pasaron à la provincia de
Sotuta, donde estaban, cuando los conquistadores vinieron, y siempre
fueron tenidos, obedecidos y respetados como Señores.

“3º. A la primera pregunta dijò este testigo que conoce al dicho D. Juan
Kahuil, y à la dicha Da Maria Quen, su muger, y que de todos los
contenidos en la pregunta, tuvo muy larga noticia de ellos, porque D.
Juan Camal, cacique è gobernador que fuè del pueblo de Sisal, de los
primeros que lo gobernaron por comision e titulo que le diò el Oidor
Tomas Lopez, oiendo como era de los antiguos caciques del dicho pueblo
en estas provincias, lo trataba en conversacion à sus principales y este
testigo, que siempre estaba en su casa, y fué alguacil mayor ordinario
en ella, como los contenidos habian venido de Mejico à poblar esta
tierra de Yucatan, y que los unos poblaron à Chichinica y hicieron los
edificiós que estan en dicho asiento muy suntuosos, y que habiendo sido
los que [116]vinieron de Mejico, cuatro deudos ò parientes con sus allegados
y gente que trajaron; el uno pobló como dicho tiene à Chichinica, y el
otro fué à poblar à Bacalar, y el otro hacia el Norte y pobló en la
costa, y el otro fué hacia Cozumel; è poblaron con gente, y fueron
Señores de estas provincias, y las gobernaron y señorearon muchos años;
y que oyó decir que uno de ellos llamado Tanupolchicbul era pariente
de Moctezuma, rey de Mejico.”

(Translation.)

Corporation of Valladolid—Year 1618.

“Document No. 1. To the first question the witness answered that he
knows the said Don Juan Kahuil and the said Dona Maria Quen his lawful
wife, and all those referred to in the question; that this witness had
full information from his father, who formerly was ahkin or priest
among the natives, before they had received the water of baptism, how
the parties above mentioned in the question came from the kingdom of
Mexico, and established towns116-1 in these provinces, and that they
were a warlike and valiant people and lords, and thus some of them
established themselves at Chichen Itza, and others went to the south and
established towns at Bacalar, and toward the north and established towns
on the coast; because they were three or four lords, and one, who was
named Tumispolchicbul, was a kinsman of Montezuma, king of the kingdom
of Mexico, and that Cuhuikakcamalcacalpuc was a very near kinsman of
the said Don Juan Kahuil on his father’s side, and that the said
Ixnahaucupul, daughter of Kukumcupul was wife of the grandfather of
the said Don Juan [117]Kahuil, all of whom were those who came from Mexico to
found towns in these provinces, prominent people and lords; then they
founded towns and ruled this land, because as he said, he heard his said
father say that they were regarded, obeyed and respected as lords of
this land, and that from one of them proceeded the said Don Juan Kahuil;
and of these there is abundant information, and his said father often
said to him that there was unanimity among them as to what took place by
these lords.

“2ND. To the second question this witness answered that as he has said,
he heard his father and other leading Indians say that the parties above
mentioned in the first question came from the Kingdom of Mexico to found
towns in these provinces; some remained in Chichen Itza, who were those
who built the sumptuous edifices which are in the said locality; others
went to found towns at Bacalar, and others to found towns on the coast
to the north; and he who went to found towns on the coast was named
Cacalpuc, from whom proceeds the said Don Juan Kahuil and those who thus
made division went to found towns in the above mentioned provinces, and
held them under subjection and government; and he chose a certain Cocom
to rule in Chichen Itza, and they all obeyed him as lord, and those of
the island of Cozumel were subject to him; and from there (from Chichen
Itza) they passed to the province of Zotuta, where they were when the
conquerors came, and they were always regarded, obeyed and respected as
lords.

“3RD. To the first question this witness answered that he knew all the
parties mentioned in the question and had abundant information about
them, because Don Juan Carnal who was chief and governor of Sisal, one
of the first [118]who governed it by commission and brief given him by the
Auditor Tomas Lopez, being one of the ancient chiefs of the said town in
these provinces, spoke of the subject in conversation with his leading
men and with this witness, who was constantly in his house and was chief
clerk in ordinary in it, saying the parties mentioned had come from
Mexico to found towns in this land of Yucatan, and that some settled at
Chichen Itza, and erected the very stately edifices which are in the
said locality, and that those who came from Mexico were four kinsmen or
relatives with their friends and the people they brought with them; one
settled as heretofore said at Chichen Itza, one went to settle at
Bacalar, one went toward the north and settled on the coast, and the
other went toward Cozumel; and they founded towns with their people, and
were lords of these provinces, and governed them and ruled them many
years; and that he had heard it said that one of them named
Tanupolchicbul was a kinsman of Moctezuma, King of Mexico.”

This legend is also related, with some variation, by Herrera, and as I
shall have occasion more than once to refer to his account, I shall
translate it.

“At Chichen Itza, ten leagues from Itzamal, the ancients say there
reigned three lords, brothers, who came from the west, and gathered
together many people, and reigned some years in peace and justice; and
they constructed large and very beautiful edifices. It is said that they
lived unmarried and very chastely; and it is added that in time one of
them was missing, and that his absence worked such bad results that the
other two began to be unchaste and partial; and thus the people came to
hate them, and slew them, and scattered [119]abroad, and deserted the
edifices, especially the most stately one, which is ten leagues from the
sea.

“Those who established themselves at Chichen Itza call themselves Itzas;
among these there is a tradition that there ruled a great lord called
Cuculcàn, and all agree that he came from the west; and the only
difference among them is as to whether he came before or after or with
the Itzas; but the name of the building at Chichen Itza, and what
happened after the death of the lords above mentioned, show that
Cuculcan ruled the country jointly with them. He was a man of good
disposition, was said not to have had either wife or children, and not
to have known woman; he was devoted to the interests of the people, and
for this reason was regarded as a god. In order to pacify the land he
agreed to found another city, where all business could be transacted. He
selected for this purpose a site eight leagues further inland from where
now stands the city of Merida, and fifteen leagues from the sea. There
they erected a circular wall of dry stone, about a half quarter of a
league in diameter, leaving in it only two gateways. They erected
temples, giving to the largest the name Cuculcàn, and also constructed
around the wall the houses of the lords among whom Cuculcàn had divided
the land, giving and assigning towns to each. To the city he gave the
name Mayapan, which means “the Standard of the Maya,” as Maya is the
name of their language.

“By this means the country was quieted and they lived in peace for some
years under Cuculcan, who governed with justice, until, having arranged
for his departure, and recommending them to continue the wise rule he
had established, he left them and returned to Mexico by the same route
he had [120]come, remaining in Champoton some time, where, in memory of his
journey, he erected a building in the sea, which remains to this
day.”120-1

Bishop Landa and some other early writers also give versions of this
tradition, but do not add any facts to those in the above quotations.
Evidently it was a widespread legend of the origin of the great
buildings of Chichen Itza. Is it a tradition of fact or is it a myth?

I confess that to me it has a suspiciously mythical aspect. It is too
similar to what I may call the standard hero-myth of the American
Aborigines. Everywhere, both in North and South America, we find the
myth of the four brothers who divided the land between them, one of whom
is superior to the others and becomes the ruler and instructor of the
ancestors of the nation. He does not die, but disappears, or goes to
heaven, and is often expected to return. Just so in one of the Maya
myths, Cuculcan did not return to Mexico, but rose to heaven, whence
once every year he descended to his temple at Mayapan and received the
gifts which from far and wide pious pilgrims had brought to his shrine
(Landa, Relacion, p. 302). All these myths relate to the worship of
the four cardinal points and to the Light-God, as I have shown in a
previous work (The Myths of the New World, chap. III. New York, 1876).

The proper names in the legend have nothing of a Nahuatl appearance.
They are all pure Maya. The “kinsman of Moctezuma,” the second reading
of whose name is the correct one, is given as tan u pol chicbul, “in
front of the head of the jay-bird,” the chicbul being what the
Spaniards call the [121]mingo rey, which I believe is a jay (Beltran, Arte
del Idioma Maya, p. 229). The other long name is a compound of Zuhuy
kak camal cacal puc. The historian Cogolludo informs us that Zuhuy
Kak, literally “virgin fire,” was the daughter of a king, afterwards
deified as goddess of female infants (Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV,
cap. VIII). Camal was and is a common patronymic in Yucatan;
cacalpuc means “mountain land,”121-1 and thus the whole name is
easily identified as Maya. Possibly the member of the family Camal who
bore the name was a priest of the goddess.

It will be noticed that neither the legend nor the legal testimony
speaks of these foreigners as of a different language or lineage, but
leaves us to infer the contrary. Had they been of Aztec race it would
certainly have been noticed, for the Mayas had frequent mercantile
relations with these powerful neighbors, they borrowed many words from
the Nahuatl tongue, and single chiefs in Yucatan formed alliances with
the Aztec rulers, and introduced Aztec warriors even into Mayapan, as is
shown by the Chronicles I publish in this work, and also by the fact
that a small colony of Aztecs, descendants of these mercenaries, was
living in the province of Canul, west of Merida, when the Spaniards
conquered the country (Landa, Relacion, p. 54). Therefore the Aztecs
were no strangers to the Mayas, and doubtless the learned members of the
priesthood and nobles in the fifteenth century were quite well aware of
the existence of the powerful empire of Anahuac.

But regarding the legend I have quoted as, in part at least, [122]based on
actual history, we may accept the fact that there was an important
emigration from Mexico, and yet not one of either Aztecs or “Toltecs.”
It must be remembered that the Huastecas, an important branch of the
Maya family, occupied from time immemorial the coast of the Mexican Gulf
north of Vera Cruz, and west to the mountains of Meztitlan, a province
inhabited by a Nahuatl speaking race, but not subject to the dynasty of
the Montezumas.

I have already referred briefly to their history, and it is possible
that after their serious reverses, about 1450, they sent migratory
bodies to their relatives in Yucatan. At any rate, there seems a
consensus of testimony that the general trend of migration of the Maya
race, was from north to south, and in Central America, from west to
east.

We have in this paragraph examples of the use of three of the “numeral
particles.” Cante bin ti katun, literally, “it (i. e. time) went on
for four katuns,” and a few lines later hunpel haab, one year,
hunpiztun, the first year.

The correct translation of peten has been debated; it is from the root
pet, anything round, a circle, and usually means “island.” By a later
use it signifies any locality with definite boundaries, hence a
province, or kingdom. The following is the entry in the Diccionario de
Motul:

“Peten; isla, item provincia, region, comarca—uay tu petenil
Yucatan, aqui en la provincia de Yucatan.”

The name of the first leader, Holon Chan Tepeuh, does not recur in the
Annals. Its signification is: holon, a generic name for large bees and
flies; chan, sufficient, powerful, still in use in Yucatan as a
surname; tepeuh, ruler, from tepeual, to rule. This last word is
marked in the Diccionario de Motul as a “vocablo antiquo.” It is of
Aztec origin, as in the [123]Nahuatl language tepeuani means “conqueror.”
The name we are considering should probably be rendered “Holon Chan, the
ruler.” The province ruled by the Chan family at the time of the
conquest was on the eastern coast, south of that of the Cupuls.

The name Chacnouitan is elsewhere, as we shall see, spelled
Chacnovitan and Chacnabiton. I am inclined to believe the last
mentioned is nearest the correct form. By Pio Perez it was supposed to
be an ancient name of Yucatan, and he translates the phrase, uay ti
petene Chacnouitan, by “à esta isla de Chacnavitan (Yucatan).” Dr.
Valentini says: “the translation could as well stand for ‘that distant
island,’” and that “Chacnouitan was neither the whole nor the northern
part of Yucatan, but a district situated in the southwest of the
peninsula,” (loc. cit. p. 38).

With this I cannot agree, as the adverb uay always refers to the place
(in no matter how wide an accepation) where the speaker is. Therefore I
translate it “here, (i. e. to this general country of Yucatan, and at
first) to the province Chacnouitan.” The province referred to was, I
doubt not, somewhere around Lake Peten. The word chac is often used in
local names in Yucatan, and usually means either “water” or “red,” as it
is a homonym with several significations.

Several names similar to it are found in the Peten district. On Lake
Yaxta, are the ruins of the very ancient city Napeten, and that lake may
have once been called “Chac-napeten,” “the water of Napeten.” Again, on
the road from Peten to Bacalar is the town Chacnabil, and the compound
Chacnabiltan would mean “toward or in the direction of Chacnabil” (see
Itinerarios y Leguarios que proceden de Merida, etc., p. 15, Merida,
1851). The Itzas always remembered the [124]Peten district, and when they met
with reverses in northern Yucatan, they returned to it and established
an important State there, which was not destroyed until the last decade
of the seventeenth century.

Maya
English3. Hunpel haab minan ti hokal haab, “one year lacking from five score
years.”

The name Ahmekat is probably an old form for ahmeknah or ahmektan,
both of which are given in the Diccionario de Motul for chieftain,
leader, captain.

Maya
English4. Lai tun, the relative lai with the particle tun, which is
called by Beltran a “particula adornativa.” uchci is the aorist of the
defective verb uchul, uchi, uchuc, to happen, to take place, come
to pass. Emob is the third plural of emel, to descend, to disembark,
arrive. Pio Perez translates the phrase ca emob uay lae, “luego
bajaron aqui.” As this was written in the province of Mani, the “here”
now refers in a narrower sense to the vicinity of the writer. The word
chuulte I take to be an error of transcription for uchci, as it is
so translated by Pio Perez. It is noteworthy that the word chicpahci,
“discovered,” conveys the sense that Chichen Itza was already in
existence when the migration here recorded reached northen
Yucatan. It is from chicul, a sign or mark by which something is
recognized.

Of the proper names in this section Bakhalal, “the canebrakes” (halal,
the cane, bak, a roll or enclosure), is the modern province of
Bacalar, on the east coast of the peninsula. Ziyan caan appears to be
used as a synonym of it, or else refers to a part of it. Its meaning is
a picturesque reference to the view from the sea shore, where the
horizon is clearly defined, and the sky seems to rise from the water,
“the birth of the sky;” Ziyan, birth, caan, sky.

[125]The name Chi Cħeen Itza was that of one of the grandest ancient
cities of Yucatan. Cħeen is the name applied to a tract of
low-lying fertile land, especially suitable to the production of cacao
(Berendt); chi is edge or border. It is therefore a name referring to
a locality, “on the border of the cħeen of the Itzas.” Cħeen
also means well or cistern, and another derivation is “at the mouth of
the well,” as chi can also be rendered “mouth;” either of these is
appropriate to the features of the locality, as it is a fertile
low-lying tract with two large natural reservoirs near by.

Maya
English5. Paxi, from paaxal, a neuter form of the active verb pa, to
break in pieces; it means “to go to pieces, to fall in ruins, to be
depopulated or deserted.” Applied to a city it is often translated “to
be destroyed,” but it does not convey quite so positive a meaning.
Kuyan uincob, “men of God,” from Ku the general name for Divinity.
Chichen Itza was one of the chief centres of religious life in Yucatan,
and its priests were esteemed among the most learned in the peninsula.

The name Chanputun, Champoton, or, reversed, Potonchan, is derived by
Gomara from the Nahuatl potonia, to smell badly, and chan, house (in
composition). Elsewhere, however, we find it in the form Chakanputun,
and this is Maya. Chakan is the term applied to a grassy plain, a
savanna, and it was especially applied to the ancient province in which
the city of Ho, now Merida, was situated, as appears from the following
entry in the Diccionario de Motul, MS.

“Ahchakan: el que es de Mérida, o de los pueblos de aquella comarca, que
se llama Chakan.”

The correct form of the name is probably Chakan peten, the savanna
region.

Maya
English6. The only obscure expression in this section is yalan che, [126]yalan
aban, yalan ak. This often recurs in the ancient Maya manuscripts, and
was evidently a well-known formula, probably the refrain of one of their
ancient chants. In Mr. Stephens’ translation it is rendered “under the
uninhabited mountains” (!) which is an attempt to render Pio Perez’s
words “bajo los montes despoblados,” “in the uninhabited forests.”
Aban or haban is an obsolete word, only found in compounds, as
yoxhaban, huts made of branches. Both it and ak were the names of
various branches or twigs. The phrase is literally “under the trees,
under the branches, under the foliage,” and meant that those who thus
lived were homeless and houseless. It is a striking testimony to the
love of solid buildings and walled cities which characterized the Mayas.

I will add a verse from a curious prophetic chant in one of the Books of
Chilan Balam, where this expression occurs, and which is an interesting
example of these strange songs.

Tzolah ti ahkin Chilam.

(Recital of the priest Chilam.)

Translation.

Maya
English7. Heɔob, from heɔ, heɔel or eɔ, to fix firmly, to
settle, to found: heɔel ca cah uaye, let us settle here, “poblamos
aqui” (Dicc. de San Francisco, MS.).

Maya
English8. The founding of Uxmal by Ahcuitok Tutulxiu is recorded in this
paragraph; ahcui is the name of a species of owl, tok is the flint
stone. By some old writers Uxmal is spelled Oxmal, which would give the
meaning “to pass thrice,” ox, three, mal, to pass. From mal,
preterite mani, also was derived the name of the chief city of the
Tutulxiu, with a peculiar signification explained in a note on a
previous page.

Mr. Stephens has taken considerable pains to prove that [128]Uxmal with its
astonishing edifices was inhabited at and after the conquest (Incidents
of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II, p. 259); there may, indeed, have been an
Indian village there, but the first European traveler who has left us a
description of it, and who visited it in 1586, when many natives, born
before the conquest, were still living, describes the massive buildings
as even then in ruins, and very large trees growing upon them. An old
Indian told him that according to their traditions, these structures had
at that time been built nine hundred years, and that their builders had
left the country nearly that long ago. (Relacion Breve y Verdadera de
algunas cosas de las muchas qui sucedieron al Padre Fray Alonzo
Ponce, in the Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de España,
vol. LVIII, p. 461.)

The phrase u heɔicab Ahcuitok Tutulxiu Uxmal is translated by Pio
Perez “se pobló en Uxmal,” established himself in Uxmal,”
conveying the impression that he merely moved to that city. This is,
however, not the sense of the original. Heɔicab is an active verb
governing Uxmal as its direct object, and means to found firmly or
promptly.

The expression halach uinicil, the real man, the true man, is a common
idiom for governor or ruler, he being the only “real man” in an
autocratic community (ante p. 26).

The name of Mayapan is given in the form Mayalpan, which I think is
dialectic. It is spoken of as an established city under the joint rule
of several chiefs at the date of the founding of Uxmal.

Maya
English9. This paragraph describes how the ruler of the Itzas lost his share in
the government of Mayapan. Kebanthan, literally a plot, or to plot to
do some injury—“concertar de hacer algun mal, y el tal concierto,”
Diccionario de Motul, [129]MS. I have followed Pio Perez in translating
“against Hunac Eel,” although “by Hunac Eel” seems more correct.
Elsewhere the name is Hunac Ceel. Ancona argues that he was a member of
the Cocom family (Hist. de Yucatan, I. p. 157.)

Several of the names of the seven “men of Mayapan” have a Nahuatl
appearance. Kakaltecat=Cacaltecatl, He of the Crow; Ytzcuat=Itzcoatl,
Smirch-faced snake; Xuchueuet=Xochitl, the rose or flower;
Pantemit=Pantenamitl, the Conqueror of the city wall. These would seem
to bear out what Landa and Herrera say, to the effect that at one period
the rulers of Mayapan invited Aztec warriors from the province of
Tabasco to come and dwell in the city and aid them in controlling the
inhabitants.

Both Dr. Valentini and Señor Pio Perez are of opinion the Katuns at the
commencement of this paragraph should read the 10th, 8th and 6th,
instead of the 11th, 9th and 6th, as it is necessary in order to
establish consistency with what follows.

Maya
English10. This is one of the most obscure sections in the chronicle. The
phrase tumenel u uahal uahob is rendered by Pio Perez “because he made
war,” while Brasseur translates it “because of his great feasts.” The
meaning of the root uah is maize cakes, or, more generally, bread. The
Diccionario de Motul gives: “UAHIL; banquete, convite ô comida,” which
is in favor of Brasseur’s translation.

Oxlahun uuɔ, “thirteen divisions;” uuɔ or uuuɔ means
literally a fold or double, and hence appears to have been applied to
ranks of men in double rows. I do not find, however, any such meaning
given in the dictionaries. As a numeral particle it is used to count
whatever occurs in folds or doubles.

[130]The number thirteen had a sacredness attached to it, from its frequent
use in the calendar. It appears from a passage in the Popol Vuh that
the Cakchiquels, Pokomams and Pokomchis also divided their tribes into
thirteen sections (Popol Vuh, p. 206). In the Maya language, 13 is
also used to signify a great but indefinite number: thus oxlahun
cacab, thirteen generations, is equivalent to “forever”; oxlahun
pixan, thirteen times happy, is to be happy in the supreme degree; more
remote from customary analogies is the phrase for “full moon,” oxlhaun
caan u, literally “the thirteen-sky moon,” the moon which fills with
its light the whole sky (Diccionario de Motul, MS.).

The phrase u ɔabal u natob is not translated at all in the English
rendering in Stephens’ Travels, nor in that of Valentini. Brasseur
paraphrases it “by him who gives intelligence.”

The proper names Ulmil and Ulil seem both to be derived from ula,
host, the master of the feast.

Here, again, I shall give the originals of the two previous translators.

Translation of Pio Perez.

“En este mismo periodo ô katun del 8º ahau fueron á destruir al rey
Ulmil porque le hacia la guerra al rey de Izamal Ulil. Trece divisiones
de combatientes tenia cuando los dispersó Hunac-eel para escarmentarlos:
la guerra se concluyó en el 6º ahau á los 34 años.”

Translation of Brasseur.

“C’est dans la même période du Huit Ahau qu’ils allèrent attaquer le roi
Ulmil, à cause de ses grands festins avec Ulil, roi d’Ytzmal: ils
avaient treize divisions de troupes, lorsqu’ils furent défaits par
Hunac-Eel, par celui qui donne l’intelligence. Au Six Ahau, c’en etait
fait, après trente quatre ans.”

[131]The name Hunac Eel should be Hunac Ceel, as it is given in the other
chronicles. It means “he who causes great fear,” hunac in composition
means much, great, and ceel, cold, also the fright and terror which
makes one shiver as with cold (“espanto, asombro ô turbacion que causa
frió.” Dicc. de Motul, MS).

Maya
English11. This important section describes the destruction of the great city
of Mayapan, which occurred somewhere between A.D. 1420-1450. The reasons
given for the act are not clear.

Tumenel u pack tulum, tumenel multepal ich cah Mayalpan, appears to me
to have the precise meaning I have given in the text; but Pio Perez
translates the passage thus “fué invadido por los hombres de Itza y su
rey Ulmil, el territorio fortificado de Mayalpan, porque tenia murallas,
y porque gobernaba en comun el pueblo de aquella ciudad.”

The expression multepal, from mul, to do an act jointly, or in
common, and tepal, to govern, is interesting as showing that the
government of the country in its golden days of prosperity was not one
of an autocratic monarch, but a league or confederation of the principal
chiefs of the peninsula. This is also borne out by the descriptions of
the ancient government to be found in the pages of Landa and Herrera.

The Itzas seized the territory in and around Mayapan, but they were not
the ones who destroyed the city. This was the work of Ahuitzilɔul,
foreign mountaineers. Ɔul, is the common term for a foreigner in
Maya, and is now-a-days applied especially to the whites. Uitz,
mountain, is used with reference to the high sierra which runs through
central Yucatan, and so Pio Perez understood ahuitzil, “los que tenian
sus ciudades en la parte montañosa.” This is probably correct, though [132]we
do not know to whom this appellation refers. Yet it may be added that
another meaning can be given to the phrase; uitz is the term applied
by the natives in some parts of the peninsula to the artificial mounds
or pyramids on which their temples were situated, which are usually
called muul.132-1 In this sense ahuitzil ɔul should be rendered
“foreigners who had great pyramids.”

The words tan cah Mayapan (not Mayalpan as before) are rendered by Pio
Perez and Brasseur as the name of a province or district; but as they
simply mean “in the middle of the city of Mayapan,” it appears to be
their signification here.

Maya
English12. “After the fortress was depopulated” or destroyed. This no doubt
refers to the fortress of Mayapan, spoken of in the previous section.
Aguilar and his companions were wrecked on the coast of Yucatan, in
1511, and this is probably the earliest date of any actual landing of
Europeans, although in 1506, Pinzon had sighted the eastern shores.

Maya
English13. Mayacimil, “the death of the Mayas,” a term applied to a general
and fatal pestilence. Such are referred to by Landa (Relacion, § X.)
and Cogolludo (Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV, cap. VI), The
Diccionario de Motul, MS. has this entry:

“Mayacimil: una mortandad grande que fué en Yucatan. Y tomase por
qualquier mortandad y pestilencia que lleva mucha gente.”

Noh kakil, noh, great, kak, fire, is the usual word for the
smallpox.

[133]The reference to the death of Ahpula, who, as we learn from another
chronicle, was a member of the royal Xiu family, is especially valuable
as assigning a definite date in both the Maya and European calendars. It
is specified with great minuteness, and yet Pio Perez made the serious
error in his computations regarding the Maya calendar of reading “the
sixth year of the 13th ahau” instead of “six years from the close of the
13th ahau,” as, in fact, he himself elsewhere translated it.

The expression u xocol haab ti lakin cuchie, “the reckoning of the
year was toward the East,” refers to the circle or wheel marked with the
four cardinal points by which the years were arranged with reference to
the four “year-bearers” Kan, Muluc, Ix and Cauac.

The last words of this section, “sixty years after the fortress was
destroyed,” are an obvious error, as in the preceding section this date
is said to be that of the first arrival of the Spaniards.

Maya
English14. Kul uincob, “mighty men,” from kul, strong, powerful, probably
akin to ku, god, but not with the religious signification which
kuyen has (see page 125). Caputzihil, literally “to be born a second
time.” Bishop Landa assures us positively that a rite of baptism was
known to the Mayas before the arrival of the whites, and that this name
was applied to it (Relacion, p. 144). As will be seen on a later page,
Maya writers usually employed another term to express Christian baptism.

The year in which Bishop Francisco Toral first came to Yucatan was 1562
(Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucatan, Lib. VI, cap. VI). He died in Mexico in
1571.

[134]The remainder of this chronicle has never been translated or published.
It refers to facts after the Conquest, but I think it of interest to
give it completely, as its manner of dealing with known dates will throw
light on its general accuracy.

Maya
English15. Bishop Diego de Landa, second bishop of the diocese of Merida, died
at that city in 1579, aged fifty-four years. The first missionaries that
came to Mani were Fathers Villalpando and Benavente, in 1547 (Cogolludo,
Hist., Lib. V, cap. VII). The convent there was established in 1549.

Maya
English16. No town of the name Yokhaa is now known. But I find on the ancient
native map of Mani, dating from 1557, given by Stephens (Travels in
Yucatan, Vol. II, p. 264), a locality marked Yokha, marked with a
cross. This is no doubt the reference in the text.

Maya
English17. The Auditor Don Tŏmas Lopez came to Yucatan from Guatemala. He
was in Yucatan as early as 1552, and published laws in that year
(Cogolludo, Lib. V, cap. XIX, Lib. VII, cap. XI). A hospital was founded
very early in Mani, according to Cogolludo, but he does not give the
exact date (ibid., Lib. IV, cap. XX).

Maya
English18. Doctor Don Diego Quijada arrived in Yucatan in 1562, and remained
until 1565.

Maya
English19. When Landa was provincial, 1562-65, various Indians were hanged on
account of the prevalence of suicide.

Maya
English20. What Marshall is referred to is uncertain, thulub should probably
be chulub, and so I have translated it. Berendt suggested ca botab
chulub, “when they paid for water,” the reference being to a great
drought.

Maya
English21. An epidemic of measles and smallpox, in 1609, is referred to by
Cogolludo (Lib. IX, cap. I).

[135]Maya
English22. In 1610 three Indians of Tekax were hanged for having killed their
chief Don Pedro Xiu (Cogolludo, Lib. IX, cap. I).

Maya
English23. The reference is to a census or assessment of the town. None is
mentioned in this year by Cogolludo, nor does he speak of the Judge
Diego Pareja.

[136]

II. THE SERIES OF THE KATUNS.

From the Book of Chilan Balam of Tizimin.

Tizimin is a town of some importance, in the district of Valladolid,
about a hundred miles east of Merida. The “Book of Chilan Balam” which
was found there is one of the most ancient known, and appears to have
been written about the close of the sixteenth century. It is now in the
possession of the eminent antiquary, the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y
Ancona, of Merida, who has described it in his work on Maya
literature.136-1 It contains 26 leaves, without numeration, and on the
17th this chronicle is inserted without title or prefatory remarks. It
is evidently a version of that previously given from the Book of Mani,
although a few additional particulars are stated, and there seems to
have been an attempt to arrange the epochs in more completeness.

This has led to the insertion of a number of katuns which I think it
evident do not properly come into the count. To correct the list the
ka[137]tuns 8th, 6th, and 4th, mentioned in §2, should be considered the same
as 8th, 6th, and 4th, repeated in §3 and §4. Again, in section 11, the
8th katun, on which the attack on Mayapan occurs, is to be considered
the same as the 8th with which §12 begins, and the whole of the 25
katuns which are either stated to have intervened, or must be added in
order to make the series correct, are to be omitted. Finally, the 8th
katun at the close of §10 should immediately follow the 10th at the
close of §8.

[138]

TEXT.

  1. Uaxac ahau.

Uac ahau

Can ahau.

Cabil ahau—138-1cakal hab catac humppel hab tu humpiztun
ahoxlahunahau.

Notes  2. Oxlahun ahau.

Uaxac ahau.

Uac ahau.

Ca ahau; kuchci chacnabiton mekat tutul xiu, humppel hab mati hokal
hab.

Notes  3. Uaxac ahau; uch cuchi 138-2canpahal chicħen Ytza; uch cu
chicpahal tzucubte Zian can lae.

Notes  4. Can ahau.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau; lai tzolci pop.

  5. Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

[139]Ox ahau.

Hun ahau; lahunkal hab cu tepal chicħen Ytza, ca paxi ca binob t
cahtal chakanputun ti yanhi yotochob ahYtzaob kuyan uinicobi.

Notes  6. Uac ahau; chuccu lumil chakanputun.

Can ahau.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

Ox ahau.

Hun ahau.

Lahca ahau.

Lahun ahau.

Uaxac ahau; paxci chakanputun; oxlahunkal hab cu tepal chacanputun
tumen Ytza 139-1unincob; ca talob u tzaclob yotochob tucaten; ca u
zatahob be chakanputun; lay u katunil 139-2biciob ahYtzaob yalan che,
yalan haban, yalan ak ti numyaob.

  7. Vac ahau.

Can ahau; cakal hab ca talob u heɔ yotochob tu caten; ca u zatahob
be chankanputun.

Cabil ahau.

[140]Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Vuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

Ox ahau.

Hun ahau.

Lahca ahau.

  8. Lahun ahau; u heɔcicab ahzuitok tutulxiu uxmal; lahunkal hab cuchi
ca heɔiob lum Uxmal.

  9, 10. Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

Ox ahau.

Hun ahau.

Lahca ahau.

Lahun ahau.

Uaxac ahau; paxci u halach vinicil chicħen Ytza tu kebanthan hunac
ceel, ah zinte yut chan, tzumte cum, taxal, pantemit, xuchvevet,
Itzcoat, kakal cat, lai u kaba u uinicilob lae uuctulob tumen u uahal
uahob y ytzmal ulil ahau: oxlahun uuɔ u katunilob ca paxob tumen hunac
ceel, tumen u ɔabal u natob.

[141]11. Uac ahau.

Can ahau; cakal hab ca chuci u lumil ahau, tumen u kebanthan hunac
ceel.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

Ox ahau.

Hun ahau.

Lahca ahau.

Uaxac ahau; uchci puchtun ich paa Mayapan tumen u pach tulum, tu tumen
multepal ich cah mayapan.

Uac ahau.

Cabil ahau; oxlahun tun mani ɔulob u yaxil cob u lumil Yucatan
tzucubte; cankal hab catac oxlahun pizi.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Ho ahau.

Ox ahau.

Hun ahau.

Lahca ahau.

[142]Lahun ahau,

Uaxac ahau.

Uac ahau.

Can ahau.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

12. Uaxac ahau; paxci cah mayapan tumenel vitzil ɔul; lahunkal hab
catac cankal habi.

Notes13. Can ahau; uchi maya cimlal ocnalkuchil ych paa.

Cabil ahau; uchci nohkakil.

Oxlahun ahau; 142-1uchci cimil ahpulha, uacppel hab u binel ca
ɔococ u xol oxlahun ahau cuchie, ti yan u xocol hab ti lakin cuchie,
canil kan, cumlahi pop hool han, tu holhun zip catac oxppeli, bolon imix
u kinil cimci ahpulha laitun hab=1536 cuchi.

14. Buluc ahau; ulci ɔulob——kul uincob ti lakin u talob ca ulob uai
tac lumile.

Bolon ahau; hopci xptianoil; uchci caputzihil; lai li ichil u katunil
ulci yax obispo toral heix hab cu 142-2xinbal cuchie—1544.

15. Vuc ahau; cimci obispo Landa ichil u katunil.

16. Ho ahau, ca yum cahi padre mani lai hab cu [143]ximbal cuchi la—1550;
lai hab cu ximbal ca cahiob yok ha, 1552 cuchi.

17. 1559, hab ca uli oydor ca paki spital.

18. 1560, u habil ca uli Doctor quixada yax halach uinic uai ti lume.

19. 1562, hab ca uchci chuitab.

20. 1563, hab ca uli mariscal.

21. 1569, hab ca uchi kakil.

22. 1619, u habil ca hichi u cal 143-1ahkaxob.

23. 1611, hab ca ɔibtabi cah tumenel Jues.

[144]

TRANSLATION.

  1. The eighth ahau.

The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau.

The second ahau; four score years and one year to the first year of the
thirteenth ahau.

Notes  2. The thirteenth ahau.

The eighth ahau.

The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau; Mekat Tutulxiu arrived at Chacnabiton; five score years
lacking one year.

Notes  3. The eighth ahau; it occurred that Chichen Itza was learned about; the
discovery of the province of Zian can took place.

Notes  4. The fourth ahau.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau; then Pop was counted in order.

  5. The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

[145]The third ahau.

The first ahau; ten score years they ruled Chichen Itza, then it was
destroyed and they went to live at Chakanputun, where were the houses of
those of Itza, holy men.

Notes  6. The sixth ahau; the land of Chakanputun was seized.

The fourth ahau.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

The first ahau.

The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

The eighth ahau; Chakanputun was abandoned; for thirteen score years
Chakanputun was ruled by the men of Itza; then they came in search of
their houses a second time; and they lost the road to Chakanputun; in
this katun those of Itza were under the trees, under the boughs, under
the branches, to their sorrow.

[146]  7. The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau: two score years, and they came and established their
houses a second time; when they lost the road to Chakanputun.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

The first ahau.

The twelfth ahau.

  8. The tenth ahau; Ahzuitok Tutulxiu founded Uxmal: ten score years had
passed when they established the territory of Uxmal.

9, 10. The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

The first ahau.

The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

The eighth ahau; the ruler deserted (depopulated) Chichen Itza, on
account of the [147]plot of Hunac Ceel; Ahzinteyut Chan, Tzumtecum, Taxal,
Pantemit, Xuchueuet, Itzcoat, Kakalcat, these were the names of the
seven men; on account of the banquet with Ulil, ruler of Itzmal; there
were thirteen divisions of warriors when they were driven out by Hunac
Ceel, in order that they might know what was to be given.

11. The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau: two score years; then the ruler seized the land on
account of the plot of Hunac Ceel.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

The first ahau.

The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

The eighth ahau; fighting took place in the fortress Mayapan, on
account of the seizure of the castle, and on account of the joint
government in the city of Mayapan.

[148]The sixth ahau.

The second ahau; on the thirteenth foreigners passed, they say for
the first time, to this land, the province Yucatan; four score years and
thirteen.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

The first ahau.

The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

The eighth ahau.

The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

12. The eighth ahau; Mayapan was depopulated by foreigners from the
mountains; ten score years and four score years.

Notes13. The fourth ahau; the pestilence, the general death, took place in
the fortress.

The second ahau; the smallpox took place.

The thirteenth ahau; the death of Ahpulha took place; it was the sixth
year when ended [149]the count of the thirteenth ahau; the count of the year
was from the east, (the month) Pop passed on the fifth kan; on the
eighteenth of (the month) Zip, 9 Imix, was the day Ahpulha died; it was
the year 1536.

14. The eleventh ahau; foreigners arrived—mighty men from the east;
they came, they arrived here in this land.

The ninth ahau; Christianity began; baptism took place; also in this
katun came the first bishop Toral; the year which was passing was—1544.

15. The seventh ahau; bishop Landa died in this katun.

16. The fifth ahau; the Fathers settled at Mani; the year that was
passing was 1550; in the year 1552 they settled upon the water.

17. 1559; this year came the auditor and built the Hospital.

18. 1560; this year arrived Doctor Quixada, the first governor here in
this land.

19. 1562; this year took place the hanging.

20. 1563; this year came Mariscal.

21. 1569; this year smallpox occurred.

22. 1610; this year those of Tekax were hanged.

23. 1611; this year the towns were written down by the Judge.

[150]

NOTES.

The entire omission of the introductory paragraph of the Mani chronicle,
with its references to the Quetzalcoatl myth, is noteworthy.

As neither chronicle begins with the beginning of an Ahau Katun, it is
obvious that some era was fixed upon in later days from which to count
the Katuns backward in time to the dawn of tradition, as well as
forward.

Maya
English2. On the name Chacnabiton see page 123.

Maya
English3. Canpahal I take to be an old form of canchahal or canlaahal,
both of which mean to learn or learn about. On Zian can see page 124.

Maya
English4. I am at a loss for the exact bearing of the expression lai tzolci
Pop. Pop is the first month in the Maya year; tzoolol is “to be
counted in order” (Dicc. Motul); the preterite in ci would seem to
justify the rendering “since then Pop was counted in regular
succession;” (see remarks on the effect of ci, on page 106); in other
words, that the calendar was adopted at that time, which was also at the
beginning of an Ahau Katun, and, by the count given (supplying the
katuns not mentioned by the writer) thirty katuns, 600 years, since
their traditions began.

Maya
English6. Chuccu, passive of chucah, to seize, take possession of.

Zatahob be, “they lost the road,” probably meant, in a figurative
sense, that they were prevented by intervening unfriendly tribes from
continuing their intercourse with the [151]western coast. Biciob, evidently
for binciob. The expression yalan che, yalan haban, yalan ak,
has already been explained (page 126).

Maya
English13. Ocnakuchil. The derivation of this word is stated to be from
ocol, to enter, na, the houses, kuch, the crow or buzzard, the
number of the dead being so great that the carrion birds entered the
dwellings to prey upon the bodies.

In the account of Ahpula’s death ca ɔococ should, I think, read ca
ma ɔococ, “when not yet was ended.”

[152]

III. THE RECORD OF THE COUNT OF THE KATUNS.

From the Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel.

The village of Chumayel is about six leagues east of Mani, and within
the boundaries of the province anciently ruled by the Xiu family.

The copy of the Book of Chilan Balam which was found there was a
redaction made by an Indian, Don Juan Josef Hoil, in 1782. Like all
these volumes it is a sort of common place book, in which were copied
miscellaneous articles from much older manuscripts. One of these bears
the date 1689, but most of them have no date attached. Hoil’s original
is, I believe, in the possession of the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y
Ancona, of Merida. A fac-simile copy, by the hand of the late Dr.
Berendt, is in my possession.

At the close of the volume, ff. 40-44, are found three summaries of the
ancient history of Yucatan, which are those I am about to give. They
have never been translated from the original, nor published in any form,
and they contain details of interest. They are evidently from different
sources, and are also different from those previously given.

[153]

TEXT.

NotesU kahlay u xocan katunob uchi u chictahal u Chicħeen Ytza uchi lae
lay ɔiban ti cab lae uchebal yoheltabal tumen hijmac yolah yohel te ti
xocol katun lae.

[154]

[158]

TRANSLATION.

NotesThis is the Record of the count of the katuns from when took place the
discovery of Chichen Itza; this is written for the town in order that it
may be known by whoever wishes to know as to the counting of the katuns.

[163]

NOTES.

Maya
EnglishThe writer states, in a brief introduction, the nature and purpose of
his composition.

U kahlay, the record, or the memoir, from kahal, to remember. The
concrete meaning of the root is “to know by sight, to recognize.”
ɔiban, past participle, passive voice, of ɔib to write: the
original signification of the word is “to paint.” Yoheltabal, passive
form of ohel, to know, which is always conjugated with the pronominal
prefixes, u, a, y. Yolah, syncopated form of u uolah, he
wills, wishes, uol=volo, uolah=voluntas.

It will be noticed that this chronicle is not called an “arrangement” of
the katuns, tzolan katun, but a count or reckoning of them, xocan or
xocol, from xoc, to count.

Maya
English1. The count begins with the discovery of Chichen Itza, mentions that
Pop was “counted in order” at the beginning of the next following Ahau
Katun, and having stated the desertion of Chichen Itza and the migration
to Chakanputun, the chronicler draws a line, as if to separate broadly
these occurrences from those which followed.

Maya
English5. The distinction between paa and tulum appears to be that tulum
is an enclosure surrounded by a defensive wall, and this wall itself;
while paa is a castle, or, in Maya land, a mound or pyramid with
buildings on it erected for purposes of defence.

[164]Maya
English6. Kakil nohkakil, the fire, the great fire, but here in the sense of
a contagious febrile disease, probably the smallpox.

Maya
English7. The text in this section is corrupt, and I leave a line untranslated.
The writer informs us, what was omitted in the previous chronicles, that
the Ahpula whose death is so carefully mentioned by all, was a member of
the Xiu family which reigned over the province of Mani. They were almost
the first of the powerful Maya nobles to make friends with the
Spaniards. The date 158 is apparently intended for 1538, or perhaps
1508, which is more consistent with the following section, but less so
with the previous chronicles.

Kul uinicob, as remarked on page 133, means “the mighty men,” not the
“holy men,” as generally translated. The term was applied to the
Spaniards. The Dicc. de Motul MS. says:—“KULVINIC: muy hombre, hombre
de respeto y de hecho, y llaman así los Indios á los Españoles.” U yah
talzah, they bring the sickness, probably the smallpox. Coon or
con, 1st pers. pl. pres. indic. of the irregular verb cen (cihi,
ciac), to say, to tell.

[165]

IV. THE MAYA KATUNS.

From the Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel,

The following chronicle is stated by its writer to be distinctively
called the “Maya Katuns,” and to be written for (or by) the Itzas. We
have, therefore, no longer to do with the reckoning of the subjects of
the Xiu family who ruled at Mani, but with one which emanates from the
priests of the Cocomes, who were hereditary masters of Chichen Itza. It
is evidently of different origin, although many of the same facts are
referred to in it.

[166]

TEXT.

U kahlay katunob utial ahYtzaob mayakatun u kaba lae.

Notes1. Lahca ahau.

Lahun ahau.

Uaxac ahau.

Uac ahau; paxciob ahoni.

Can ahau.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Hoo ahau; paxci u cah yahau ahYtzmal kinich kakmo y pop hol chan
tumenel hun nac ceel.

Ox ahau.

Notes2. Hun ahau: paxci yala ahYtza tu cħicheen, tu yoxpiztun ychil hun
ahau paxci u chicħeen.

Lahca ahau.

Lahun ahau.

[167]Notes3. Uaxac ahau: u katunil heɔci cah yala ahYtza likul yan che yalan
haban tan xuluc mul u kaba ti likulob ca u heɔahob luum Zaclactun
Mayapan u kaba tu uucpiztun uaxac ahau u katunil; laix u katunil cimci
Chakanputun tumen kak u pa cal yetel tec uilue.

Notes4. Uac ahau.

Can ahau.

Cabil ahau.

Oxlahun ahau.

Buluc ahau.

Bolon ahau.

Uuc ahau.

Hoo ahau: ulci ɔul ti chibil uinic, yxma pic ɔul u kaba; ma paxci
peten tumenelobi.

Ox ahau.

Notes5. Hun ahau: paxci peten tan cah mayapan u kaba tu hunpiztun ychil hun
ahau u katunile; lukci halach uinic tutul y u Batabilob cabe y
cantzuc culcahobe; lay u katunil paxi uincob tan cah 167-1cauec
167-2chahiob u Batabilob cabe.

Notes6. Lahca ahau te cħabi Otzmal u tunile.

Lahun ahau, te cħabi Zizal u tunile.

[168]Uaxac ahau, te cħabi Kancaba u tunile.

Uac ahau, te cħabi hunnacthi u tunile.

7. Can ahau, te cħabi atikuhe u tunilae; lay u katunil uchci
mayacimlal tu hopiztun ychil can ahau u katunil lae.

Cabil ahau, te cħabi chacalna u tunile.

Oxlahun ahau, te cħabi euan u tunile.

Notes8. Buluc ahau, u yaxchun kin coloxpeten cħabi u tunile; laix u
katunil cimci Ahpula Napotxiu u kaba tu hunpiztun Buluc ahau. Laix u
katunil yax hulciob españolesob uay tac lumil lae tu uucpiztun Buluc
ahau u katunil tiix hoppi xpnoil lae tu habil quinientos diez y nueve
años D^o 1519 a^s.

9. Bolon ahau ma cħabi u tunil lae; lay katun yax ulci obispo Fray
Fran^co 168-1to Ral, huli tu uacpiztun ychil ahBolon ahau katun lae.

Uac ahau, ma cħabi u tunil lae; lay u katunil cimci Obispo e landa
lae, tii xuli uhel Obispo xani.

Hoo ahau.

Ox ahau.

[169]

TRANSLATION.

The Record of the Katuns by the men of Itza called the Maya Katuns.

Notes1. The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

The eighth ahau.

The sixth ahau; the well dressed ones were driven out.

The fourth ahau.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau; the town was destroyed by Kinich kakmo, ruler of Itzmal,
and Pop Hol Chan on account of Hunnac Ceel.

The third ahau.

Notes2. The first ahau; the remainder of the Itzas at [170]Chichen were driven
out; on the third year in the first ahau Chichen was depopulated.

The twelfth ahau.

The tenth ahau.

Notes3. The eighth ahau; in this katun was founded a city by the remainder of
the Itzas coming out of the woods from under the branches, from the
midst of Xuluc Mul as it is called; they came from there and established
the land called Zaclactun Mayapan, in the seventh year of the eighth
Ahau katun; in this katun perished Chakanputun by fire, which destroyed
it quickly, and suddenly consumed it.

Notes4. The sixth ahau.

The fourth ahau.

The second ahau.

The thirteenth ahau.

The eleventh ahau.

The ninth ahau.

The seventh ahau.

The fifth ahau; foreigners came seeking men to eat; “breechless
foreigners” they were called; the country was not depopulated by them.

The third ahau.

Notes5. The first ahau; the district in the middle of Mayapan (or Tancah
Mayapan) was depopulated [171]in the first year of the first ahau katun;
there went forth the governor Tutul, with the chiefs of the country and
four divisions from the towns; in this katun the men in the centre of
the town (or of Tancah) were driven out, and the chiefs of the country
lost their power.

Notes6. The twelfth ahau: the stone of Otzmal was taken.

The tenth ahau; the stone of Zizal was taken.

The eighth ahau; the stone of Kancaba was taken.

The sixth ahau; the stone of Hunnacthi was taken.

7. The fourth ahau; the stone of Ahtiku was taken; in this katun took
place the pestilence, in the fifth year in the fourth ahau katun.

The second ahau; the stone of Chacalna was taken.

The thirteenth ahau; the stone of Euan was taken.

Notes8. The eleventh ahau: in the time of its beginning, the stone of
Coloxpeten was taken; in this katun died Ahpula Napotxiu, in the first
year of the eleventh ahau; it was also in this katun that the Spaniards
first arrived here in this land, in the seventh year of the eleventh
ahau katun; also Chris[172]tianity began in the year fifteen hundred and
nineteen, the year of our Lord 1519.

9. The ninth ahau; no stone was taken at this time; in this katun first
came the bishop Brother Francisco Toral; he arrived in the sixth year of
the ninth ahau katun.

The seventh ahau; no stone was taken: in this katun died Bishop Landa;
then also ended the bishop his successor.

The fifth ahau.

The third ahau.

[173]

NOTES.

Maya
English1. The writer begins with the 12th ahau, although nothing is noted until
the 6th. Here we have the brief entry paxciob ahoni. This might be
translated “those of Oni were driven out or scattered.” But no such
locality is known or mentioned elsewhere. The Diccionario de Motul,
MS. gives the meaning of ahoni as “pulido, galan, muy bien vestido,”
ahoni a talel ex, “you come very well dressed.” I suppose, therefore,
that it was a term applied to some early tribe who distinguished
themselves in comparison with their ruder neighbors by elegance of
costume. Later we shall find a similar term, “breechless foreigners,”
applied to another tribe whose condition of nudity suggested their
appellation.

The name Kinich Kakmo is mentioned by Cogolludo as that of an idol
worshiped at Itzamal. He says:—“They had another temple on another
mound in the northern part of the city, and this, from the name of an
idol which they worshiped here, they called Kinich Kakmó, which means
the sun with a face. They say that the rays were of fire and descended
at mid-day to consume the sacrifice, as the vacamaya flies through the
air (which is a bird something like a parrot, though larger in size, and
with finely colored feathers). They resorted to this idol in time of
mortality, pestilence or much sickness, both men and women, and brought
many offerings. They said that at mid-day a fire descended and consumed
the sacrifice in the sight of all. After this the priests replied to
[174]their inquiries about the sickness, famine or pestilence, and thus they
learned their fate; although it often turned out quite the contrary of
what he predicted.” (Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV, cap. VIII.)

The title given by Cogolludo to the divinity appears to have also been
adopted by the ruling chief, who may also have been the high priest. It
is both imperfectly and incorrectly translated by the historian. Its
components are kin, the sun, day; ich, the eye, the face; kak,
fire; moo, the macaw, Psittacus Macao, deemed sacred throughout
Mexico and Central America, on account of its beautiful plumage. The
full translation of the name is “the Eye of Day, the Sacred Bird of
Fire,” a symbolic name of a solar deity.

The Chan family is mentioned by Sanchez Aguilar (Informe contra Idolum
Cultores, etc.), as among the princely houses of Yucatan at the date of
the Conquest.

Paxci u cah, “the town,” that is, Chichen Itza. The writer composed
his chronicle at that place, so he does not think it necessary to name
it specifically. The distance in a straight line from Chichen Itza to
Itzamal is 40 geographical miles.

Maya
English2. Yala, the remainder, from ala, above, over. A portion of the
Itzas remained in Chichen after the attack by Kinich Kakmo; these also
now leave it.

Maya
English3. The place Xuluc mul is unknown in the present geography of the
peninsula. It means “the completed mounds,” mul being, as I have
before remarked, the name given to the artificial pyramids and tumuli of
stone so common in the peninsula, probably so called from the joint
labor of many in their construction.

The province of Zaclactun-Mayapan is also unknown, [175]although there is a
hacienda Zaclactun within the boundaries of the modern district of
Itzamal (Berendt, Nombres geograficos en Lengua Maya, MS.). The name
apparently means “the place where white pottery is made.”

Maya
English4. Ti chibil uinic “for men to be eaten;” chibil, the passive of
chii, to eat. The Diccionario de Motul gives chibil bak, flesh to
be eaten. Pic was the breech cloth or waist cloth, fastened around the
waist and falling to the knees, which was the common dress of the women.
The Dictionary just quoted translates the word, “naguas de Indias que se
sirven de saya ó faldellin ordinario, para cubrir desde la cintura
abajo; y son las blancas sin color ni bordado.” The phrase ixma pic
ɔul, foreigners without a breech cloth, intimates that they were
nude.

Who were these naked cannibals, who raided the provinces in order to
obtain their unnatural food? Those daring navigators, those naked
man-eaters, the Caribs, from whose name our word cannibal is derived,
at once suggest themselves. Curiously enough, the Abbe Brasseur has
argued for the probability of their invasions upon other (though I think
insufficient) grounds (see his Informe acerca de las Ruinas de Mayapan
y de Uxmal). This passage of the chronicle renders his theory probable.

Maya
English5. Peten tan cah Mayapan could also be rendered, “the district Tancah
Mayapan.”

Maya
English6. Cħabi Otzmal u tunile, “the stone of Otzmal was taken.” Otzmal
was a locality under the rule of the Cocomes. (Cogolludo, Historia,
Lib. III, cap. VI.) Other versions read Itzmal and Uxmal. The reference
is to the u heɔ katun, the setting up of the Katun-stone as a
memorial at the end of each period of twenty years. Incomplete
descrip[176]tions of this ceremony are given by Landa, Relacion, § IX, and
Cogolludo, Historia, Lib. IV, cap. IV. I propose a more extended
examination of this question in a future volume of this series, devoted
to documents relating to the calendars and chronology of the Central
American nations.

Maya
English8. The death of Ahpula Napot Xiu is given with minuteness but not in
accordance with previous chronicles. In 1519 Cortes touched at the
Island of Cozumel, and that might have been assumed as the date of the
commencement of Christianity.

[177]

V. THE CHIEF KATUNS.

From the Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel.

The document which follows is brief, but of peculiar interest. It does
not appear to aim at a connected history of events, but in the form of a
chant to refer certain incidents to the katuns in which they occurred.
It has more of a mythological character, and the repetitions remind one
of the refrain of a song.

It is also found in the Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel, and is
inserted without explanation or introduction, copied, no doubt, from
some ancient writing.

[178]

TEXT.

Notes1. Can ahau u kaba katun; uchci u zihilob——178-1pauaha en cuh u
yahauob.

Notes2. 178-2Oxhunte ti katun lic u tepalob, lay u kabaob tamuk u tepalob
lae.

Notes3. Can ahau u kaba katun; emciob 178-3noh hemal, 178-4ɔeemal, u
kabaob lae.

Notes4. Oxlahunte ti katun, lic u tepalob, lic u kabaticob, ti i ualac u
cutob. Oxlahun cuthi, u cutob lae.

Notes5. Can ahau u katunil; uchci u caxanticob u chicħeen Ytzua; tii
utzcinnahi mactzil tiob tumen u yumoobe. Cantzuc lukciob cantzucul cab u
kabaob; likul ti likin kin colah peten bini huntzuci; 178-5kul xaman
naco cob 178-6hok huntzucci; heix hoki huntzucci holtun çuyuua ti
chikin; hoki huntzuccie canhek uitz, bolonte uitz u kaba u luumil lae.

Notes6. Can ahau u katunil 178-7uhci u payalob tu cantzuccilob can tzuccul
cab u kabaob, ca emiob tu chicħeen Ytzae ahYtza tun u kabaob.
Ox[179]lahunte ti katun, lic u tepalob; ca oci u kebanthanobi tumen hunnac
ceeli. Ca paxci u calob. Ca biniob tan yol che tan xuluc mul, u kaba.
Can ahau u katunil; uchci yauat pixanobi. Oxlahunte ti katun lic u
tepalobi y u numyaobi.

Notes7. Uaxac ahau u katunil; uchci yulelob yalaob ahYtza u kabaob. Ca ulob
tii ca ualac u tepalob Chakanputun. Oxlahun ahau u katunii u heɔob cah
mayapan mayauinic u kabaob. Uaxac ahau paxci u cahobi; ca uacchabi ti
peten tulacal. Uac katuni paxiob, ca haui u Maya kabaob. Buluc ahau u
kaba u katunil hauci u maya kabaob; Maya uinicob Christiano u kabaob
tulacal u cuchcabal tzo ma Sanc Pedro y Rey ahtepale.

[180]

TRANSLATION.

Notes1. The fourth ahau was the name of the katun; the births took place;—;
the towns were taken possession of by the rulers.

Notes2. It was the thirteenth katun in which they ruled; these were their
names while they ruled.

Notes3. The fourth ahau was the name of the katun; in it they arrived, the
Great Arrival, the Less Arrival, as they are called.

Notes4. It was the thirteenth katun in which they ruled, in which they took
names, at that time, while they resided here; in the thirteenth the
residence was continued, they resided here.

Notes5. The fourth ahau katun; then took place the search for Chichen Itza;
at that time they were marvelously improved by the fathers. They went
forth in four divisions which were called the four territories. One
division came forth from the east of Kin Colah Peten; one division came
forth from the north of Nacocob; one division came forth from the gate
of Zuyuua to the west; one division came forth from the mountains of
Canhek, the Nine Mountains, as the land is called.

[181]Notes6. The fourth ahau katun; then took place the calling together of the
four divisions, the four territories as they were called, and they
arrived at Chichen Itza and were called the men of Itza. It was the
thirteenth katun in which they ruled; then the plottings were introduced
by Hunnac Ceel, and the territories were destroyed. Then they went into
the midst of the forests, into the midst of Xuluc Mul, so called. The
fourth ahau katun; then singing for their happiness took place. It was
the thirteenth katun in which they governed and had heavy labor.

Notes7. The eighth ahau katun; thus it took place that there arrived the
remainder of the Itza men as they were called; then they arrived; and
about that time they governed Chakanputun. In the thirteenth ahau katun
those called the Maya men founded the city Mayapan. In the eighth ahau
the towns were destroyed; then they were driven wholly out of the
province. In the sixth katun they were destroyed, and it was ended with
those called Mayas. It was the eleventh ahau katun in which it ended
with those called Mayas. The Maya men were all called Christians and
came under the control of Saint Peter and the King, the rulers.

[182]

NOTES.

Maya
English1. U zihilob, the births, probably meaning the beginning of things.
Pauaha en cuh has no meaning that I can make out; I therefore suppose
it an error for pachah u cah, and translate in accordance with this
emendation. The phrase seems to refer to the first settlement of the
country, or to the first time the scattered inhabitants were gathered
together in towns by their chiefs.

Maya
English2. “These were their names”; but no names are given. They seem to have
been omitted by the copyist.

Maya
English3. Emciob noh hemal ɔeemal, faulty orthography for noh emel,
ɔeemel, the latter syncopated from ɔeɔemel. Literally, “since
they descended; the Great Descent, the Little Descent.”

The tradition here referred to is given at more length by Father Lizana,
in his Historia de Yucatan, and is discussed also by Cogolludo
(Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV, cap. III). As the work of the former is
wholly inaccessible, I quote from the reprint of a portion of it in
Brasseur’s edition of Diego de Landa’s Relacion p. 354. “In former
times they called the East Cen-ial, the Little Descent, and the West
Nohen-ial, the Great Descent. The reason they give for this is that on
the east of this land a few people descended, and on the west a great
many; and with that syllable they understand little or much, to the east
and the west; and that few people came from one direction and many from
the other.” Father Liz[183]ana goes on to express his opinion that the few
who came from the East were the Carthaginians, and the many from the
West were the Mexicans.

The very corrupt form in which he has given the words has led Señor
Eligio Ancona to suppose they belonged to the archaic and secret
language of the priests (Historia de Yucatan, Tomo I, p. 24), and Dr.
Carl Schultz-Sellack to imagine that they referred to East and West,
right and left, as he adopted the misreading ɔiic, left, for
ɔeɔ, little (Die Amerikanischen Götter der Vier Weltgegenden, in
the Archiv für Ethnologie, Band XI, 1879). But they are readily
analyzed when we have their correct orthography, as given above. The
reference to them in this place shows that the author of the chant was
dealing with the most ancient legends of his race.

The Itzas who resided in the Peten district left the region around
Chichen Itza some time in the fifteenth century, probably after the fall
of Mayapan. They were ruled by an hereditary chieftain, called by the
Spaniards “the great king, Canek.” Under him the territory was divided
into four districts, each with its own chief, with whom the Canek
consulted about important undertakings.

Evidently in removing to Peten the Itzas were retracing their steps on
the line of their first entrance to the peninsula. They even attempted
to go further west, and guided, probably, by ancient memories, a large
number set out for Tabasco and the banks of the Usumaciuta, where
repose the ruins of Palenque, possibly the home of their ancestors. But
they were attacked and driven back by the natives of Tabasco, with the
loss of their leader, a brother-in-law of the great Canek. These and
other particulars about them are repeated [184]by Villagutierre Sotomayor,
Historia de la Conquista de la Provincia de el Itza, folio, Madrid,
1701.

Maya
English4. The elliptical form of expression here renders the translation
difficult. The verb cutal (old form cultal), pret. culhi or
cuthi, fut. culac, means to sit down, to remain in a place, to be at
home there, to reside, etc. Perhaps the translation both here and in § 2
should be, “for thirteen katuns they ruled, etc.”

Maya
English5. The word yum, plural yumob, means father and also chief, leader,
ruler, etc. In modern Maya it is the translation of Sir, Mister, Señor.

The proper names of the localities whence the four divisions are said to
have come, have a mythological cast. I cannot find any of them in the
present geography of Yucatan. Kin Colah Peten is mentioned in a “katun
wheel” in this same Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel, as the name of one
of the towns which furnished a katun stone. Zuiva I have already
referred to as appearing in the Quetzalcoatl myth (see page 110).

The mountains of Canhek and the Nine Mountains take us to the Itzas
around Lake Peten, in the extreme south of the peninsula, this last
mentioned division being, in fact, that from the south.

Maya
English6. U payalob, plural passive of pay, to call, to summon.

Tan yol che, ol or yol is the heart or centre of the leaf or
plant; tan xuluc mul, see page 174. Yauat pixanobi, they were happy
in singing, or, they gained favor by singing. The expression is obscure.
The verb auat is applied to the singing of birds, the crowing of
cocks, and generally to the natural sound made by any animal, and, in
composition, to [185]the sound of musical instruments, as, auatzah, to play
on the flute, to blow a trumpet.

Maya
English7. Uacchahi from uacchahal, appears to be a strongly figurative
expression. It is explained in Pio Perez’ Dictionary, “salirse con
esfuerzo de su cubierta ó encaje, saltarse de ella como tripa por el
ano.”

Hauic, from haual, to end, finish, cease to exist. Thus the
chronicler closes his recital, repeating the to him no doubt bitter fact
that the Maya nation and the Maya name had passed away.

[186]

[187]

THE CHRONICLE

OF

Chac Xulub Chen.

BY

NAKUK PECH.

1562.

[188]

[189]

CHRONICLE OF CHICXULUB.

Among the ancient documents collected by Pio Perez was a series relating
to the town of Chicxulub, about six leagues north of Merida. They are
entitled Documentos de Tierras de Chicxulub, 1542. They consist of a
history of the town and of the conquest of the country, written by Nakuk
Pech, about 1562; a survey of the town lands by several members of the
Pech family, testified to Feb. 7, 1542; a partial list of the Spanish
conquerors; a portion of an account by another member of the Pech
family, and a further statement by Nakuk Pech.