Chilam Balam
by admin on Oct.28, 2010, under 2012
The Chilam Balam are a group of post-conquest Mayan prophetic histories transcribed in a modified form of the Spanish alphabet. Their authorship is ascribed to a chilam balam, or jaguar prophet.[1] The Chilam Balam of Tizimin has been translated four times in the 20th century, with many disputes over the meaning of its passages. One passage in particular is relevant to the interpretation of the 13th b’ak’tun:
lic u tal oxlahun bak chem, ti u cenic u (tzan a cen/ba nacom)i (ciac/cha’) a ba yum(il/t)exe
Maud Worcester Makemson, an archaeoastronomer, believed that this line referred to the “tremendously important event of the arrival of 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 Kankin in the not too distant future”,[2] Her translation of the line, runs:
Presently B’ak’tun 13 shall come sailing, figuratively speaking, bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors.
Her version of the text continues, “Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps ‘After Death’ will be the subject of his discourse.” Makemson was still relying on her own dating of 13.0.0.0.0 to 1752 and therefore the “not too distant future” in her annotations meant a few years after the scribe in Tizimin recorded his Chilam Balam.[3] The more recent translation of Munro S. Edmonson does not support this reading; he considers the Long Count almost entirely absent from the book, since the 360-day tun was supplanted in the 1750s by a 365-day Christian year, and a 24-round may system was being implemented.[4] He translates the line as follows:
…like the coming of 13 sail-ships. When the captains dress themselves, your fathers will be taken.[5]
Other Chilam Balam books contain references to the 13th b’ak’tun, but it is unclear if these are in the past or future; for example, oxhun bakam u katunil (thirteen bakam of k’atuns) in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel.[6] Bolon Yokte’ K’uh appears in in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel to signify an apparent battle and victory over Spanish invaders.[7]
Citations
- ^ Wright 2005, pp. 165–166
- ^ Makemson 1951, p. 219
- ^ Makemson 1951 pp. 30, 217
- ^ Quote: “The b’ak’tun or Long Count dating system does not appear directly in the Tizimin.” See Edmonson 1982, xix, also 170, 195.
- ^ Edmonson 1982, 191–192
- ^ Roys, 1967 p. 111; Luxton, 1996 p. 274
- ^ Eberl and Prager 2005, 33–34
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