NON ainnsuy SOY ULIIOUY d|PP! eney Jo weyeg weLYD Jo Yoog oy. SPHOAM OM JO JoUNOUT UYINTRODUCTION encyclopedic of all the Books of Chikum Balam, a virtual treasure trove of information reflecting the in tcllectual concerns of the colonial Maya scribe The manuscript consists of two parts ‘The first ear ries the utle “Tratado de lafs) 7 Planetas y etrfo] de medeeinarum syyno de sangrar” (Treatise on the sev cen planets and another on medicine: ling) and contains 8 of bloodlet- Volios. The second is untitled and contains 55 folios. We have subsumed both parts under the general ttle “The Book of Chilam Balam because they contain intemal evidence that they belonged to the same work The Kaua has never before been transeribed in its entirety, Some medical prescriptions were tyan- scribed from the 07 of Kau nal by an unknown Yucatecan during the attr halfof the nineteenth century; Roys (n.d, transeribed the second half of the Book (folios 70-141) from a facsimile copy of the original in 1929, He also wanslated into English the medical prescriptions transcribed by the unknown Yeatecan and published them in his Etlivo-Botany ofthe Maya (191), Alfiedo Barrera Vasquez (1942) published Spanish ta Kaus lation of the prognostications on pages 11 and 12, William Gates (1931:10-16) produced transcription and an English translation of the karan prophecies on pages 166-171, Tatiana Proskouris: off (1952:217-218) included a transcription of the calendrieal table on pages 171 and 172, and Gordon Brotherston (1982:137) published a transcription and aan English translation of a brief passage from "The Tale of the Wise Maiden” on pages 10S ard 106. The rest ofthe Kaua remains untranslated. It is the single ‘most important Book of Chilam Balam still inacces: sible to scholars in any language, and it rivals in sig- nificance the much better’ known Book from ? Chumayel, for which there are now ro English translations (Edmonson 1986; Roys 1933). THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE Kava Ourioterest in the Kawa stems from itssyneretistie ature and what it might reveal about the Maya per- ception of the fundamentals of European scientific ‘knowledge in the years following the Spanish eon- ‘quest. There is ample evidence in the choice of both Mayan and Spanish (and sometimes also Latin) texts 8nd in their physical placement sith respect to each Other in the Book that the seribe was searching far Some common denominator for relating fundamental Foncepts in the alien thought system to the more Zz Z 5 6 cur: AN EXAM familiar intellectual tradition tha had guided his peo- ple for more than a millennium. We have. in many cases. found the original European texts from which the Mayan translations were made, or from w hich the Kaua was copied almost verbatim. They have helped us not only to distinguish what was aboriginal from ‘what was borrowed, but also 10 achieve a greater un- derstanding of the meaning that concepts had for the Maya Unfortunately, many concepts that were self ‘evident to Spaniards and other Europeans during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries are no longer intelligible to us. We have therefore found it necessary to delve into the presuppositions underly- ing European ideas ofthat time, and we have expend eds much effort on interpreting the Furopean sourees from which the Kana was derived as on ex- plicating the native Maya texts. In so doing, we have discovered that the Europeans and the Maya of that ‘epoch shared many ofthe same concerns, and thatthe ‘contents of the Kawa are very similar to the cantents, ‘of almanacs in use in Europe during those centuries. In other words, there were some remarkable parallels in the intellectual interests ofthe Maya and the Euro. peans, and the native compiler ofthe Kawa seems to have set for himself the task of clarifying the points of similarity between the two systems of ideas, MerHoDoLoay The Text ‘The original manuscript, apparently a book of 141 leaves in quarto format, is lost. It disappeared from the Manuel Cepeda Peraza Library in Mérida, Yucatan, shortly after 1918 and has been missing eversinee. But sometime before 1887, Teobert Maler made what was probably @ complete photographic copy ofthe original manuscript. Copies of the Malet photocopy are now in the possession of the Arbeits- stelle fr Altamerikanische Sprachen und Kulturen at the University of Hamburg, the Ibero-Amerikani sches Institut PreuBischer Ku t urbesitz in Berlin, and Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young Univer sity in Provo, Utah. Another copy of the Kaua manu scrip is in the Tozzer Library at Harvard University In the library's records it is described as a “photostat reproduction (positive) by William E. Gates of the ‘old Maler photos.” The copy was made in 1915. We have examined the two Maler copies in Germany, the copy st Harvard, and a fev pages of the copy in Utah(Our critical edition of the Karu is based on the Maler ‘copies of the original in Berlin and Hamburg The pe 1s in the two Maler photocopies we have examined have turned brown with age. and there is Title contrast berween the writing and the back ‘ground (the same is rue of the copy at Harvard). We have found that a negative image ofthe pages is more legible than a positive one, and we have therefore made our transeription from ive prints jobiained from Berlin and Hamburg Several different systems ofp ination have been used for the manuscript. In Maler's system, each set of facing pages was assigned a number. and it was necessary to distinguish between the left-hand and right-hand pages associated with a number. Maier also numbered each half of the Kaw separately. For ‘example, 3." refers to the third set of facing pages in the first par of the manusenipt, whereas “3...” refers to the third set of facing pages in the second! part of the manuscript. Maler’s page numbers were written ‘on the glass plates of his negatives, centered in the margin directly above the two pages of each frame (eg, Figure 1). The pages themselves were already ‘numbered. in two different systems of pagination, be fore the photographs were taken. One set of page numbers isin roman numerals: the ot numerals. The position of both sels of numbers is in the upper comer of the page farthest from the binding (the left-hand comer of pages on the left and the right-hand comer of pages on the right). The first twenty-five pages of the Kava have no visible num- bers. The next six pages are numbered consecutively with arabic numerals, beginning with “20.” No num bers are visible on the next six pages. The rest of the pages inthe fist book ofthe Kaua are numbered con: secutively, but intermittently, with roman numerals. beginning with “V" and ending with “CXXVI." The pagination of the second book of the Kaua is more homogeneous, relying only on arabic numbers in @ single, consecutive scheme from"I” 10"110.” Asin the frst book, numbers are missing from some pages. but the sequence vontinues as they were there. ‘The copy of the Kane at Harvard was printed with ‘out Maler’s numbers. The pages are numbered con seculively with arabic numerals with a single series of numbers being used for both parts of the manu: seript. The numbers were added to the facsimile in white ink after the prints had been made by Gates. They appear next to the original numbers at the top AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS. TH: BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF Kaua, of each page. used by Roys. (n.d, in his transcription of book 2 of the Kaua, but not for citing the few. prescriptions sevipt that he included in his earlier work, The Ethno Botany of he Mava (1931), For that, he had available to him only a notebook containing someone's tran sctiption of a small part of the Kana in which the pages were numbered as folios. In that ease, it was necessary to distinguish betwen the recto and verso pages associated swith a number. We do not know ‘who made that ranseription, nor what happened 10 he notebook, but we know that it once existed be cause information in it was later copied by Ermilo Solis Aleali (1928). who preserved the folio number ing, and we were able to verty Roys'seitations of the Kawa in The Ethno-Borany of the Mana by compar ing them with Solis Aleali's copy of the transcrip. po that manu tion, We use here the same consecutive numbering scheme for both paris of the Kaua that Roys (n.d.) adopted for his own transcription of the second part of the manuscript ‘The Harvard copy of the Kana contains two add tional numbering schemes that are found on no other copy. There are arabic numerals in white ink on the lower left corner of recto pages and the upper right comer of verso pages that refer to folios rather than pages. For example, pages 161 and 162 correspond te folio 81. In the second notation, cach signature is ‘numbered with arabic numerals in black india ink next to the binding edge near the bottom of the recto page on which the signature begins. Neither of these ‘numbering systems has been used in transcriptions of texts that come from the Kava Weppresentin Table | a concordance of all the pag- ination schemes known to us for the Kawa the three sets of numbers that appear on Maler copies, the folio numbers copied by Solis Alealé, and the two sets of. numbers in white ink that were added to the Harvard facsimile by Gates, including the system of conseeu Live arabic numbers for both volumes of the Kawa used by Roys (n.d.) and us, The third set of numbers farvard facsimile has not been included in ‘Table 1 because it refers 10 signatures, not pages oF Folios, and therefore does not represent a system of pagination The Pictures The Kana contains thirty formal pictures. several fomamented capital leters, and a few hieroglyphicCConcoupantit Pac NUMBERS | Nin Win Wl 1 =] xvi si i 2 i xX 2 a > 3 xx sO i, : 5 os xX! 7 oO q 3 5 xxi uO i 4 3 6 XXII 28 56 i 4 1 Xx » OS q 3 os xxv 58 i ; ag xv 08 i ‘ 3 xxv ow i é 6 ou xxv nu 6 i sn XXX) 32. au 8 i 3 xxx 2 8 " ‘ ou XXX 2 & 7 xan 2G ‘ ° He XXXII 3 66 q ° 7 OXXxn) & a. a XXXV) ot i v0 » b (XXXVD 38 4 1 0 (XxX * i 1 XXXVI ] 2 a XXXIX 2 q : 2 2 xt 3m 4 1 2 xu 4 : B 3 xu ik 38 i Pp 8 xu 38 38 ; a is xv, 9 4 15 ia xv FS is 1s xu 16 is XLVI 16 W6 XL 3 : i” 6 XUN ; ” ” L 2 ’ A " u ‘ : 18 is ut 8 i8 uu i ‘ : : 4 y 20 5 un ’ vt 2 » 8 Liv 5 4 vu at » Lv 46 vin 31 2 a6 i 2 uo wi 4% 4 x 2” 3 iin 1 on a ux 4 3 xi 2 is ix a xi 2 % ia 4 xin 2a 3 ix 4s i xv 35, #8 tx 5a, 4 xs » $0. 08 x6 x 0 : u © WoTABLE 1 (Comnued) Waram Mia! Original = Maler_—-Gates__Bricker Origins! Maler—t Maya squal Ay INTRODUCTION u in 1823 and was “discovered” by Don Carlos Maria Pacheco in 1854, Page 173 says that the Kawa be 10 the “young” Carlos Maria Pacheco and im- plies that it was sold to buy medicine, Therefore, the first owner was Pasqual Ay, who kept itt Yeast until 1823, and the second owner was Don Carlos Maria Pacheco, who discovered it in 1854 and purchased it for his son, the “young” Carlos Maria Pacheco, who must have been the third owner of the Kawa, There is no further information in the Kaa itself about what happened to it in subsequent years. ‘The only other information we have found con: ceming the owners of the Kaua is a brief statement by Alffed M. Tozzer (1921:190): "CHILAM BALAM DEKAUA. This isa qu ip containing 282 pages, also formerly owned by Seior Ricardo Figueroa and now in the Biblioteca Cepeda in Meri- dda.” Figueroa was a resident of Mérida who at one time owned the original manuscripts ofthe Chronicle of Calkini and the Books of Chilam Balam of Chu rmayel and Inil, as well as the Kaua (Roys 1933:7 Tozzer 1921:190) Itisnotclear whether Tozzersaw the original manu: script of the Kaua in the Cepeds Peraza Library in Mérida while he was conducting research in the Maya area between 1901 and 1905, The book containing his statement about its whereabouts was published many ‘years later, in 1921. after Gates had acquired a copy of the Maler copy of the Kaua and possibly after the original manuscript had disappeared from the library tunate that Maler had both the the opportunity to photograph the manu script nthe ate nineteenth century so that future gen- ctations of scholars would not be dependent on the continuing existence of the original manuscript Scribes We do not know who was responsible for compil ing the Kawa. Pasqual Ay and Carlos Maria Pacheco tare identified as the owners of the Book, not as the scribes who decided what should be included in it Other Books of Chilam Balam such as the Chumayel and the Nah contain postseripts by men who called ‘themselves scribes, There are no such notations in the Kawa The problem of determining how many seribes \were involved in compiling the Kawa is complicated by the fact that many texis in it were copied from published sources, and the seribe(s) sometimes imi {ated the printed font. If we exclude such pages, we ‘ean say with some confidence that the Kaua is write ten in at Ieast five hands, Scribe No. | was responsible for assembling ap. proximately three-quarters of the first volume, The hhand of Seribe No. 2 shows up in twa places, first in the middle of a tale from A Thousand and One Nights, on pages 99 through 108, and second at the very end of the first volume, on pages 146 through 173, The first manifestation of Scribe No. 2 coin cides with a break in the pagination of the first volume, Twelve unnumbered pages were inserted be ‘oven roman numerals LIL] and LXIV (Table 1) ten of which were penned by Scribe No. 2 (the re maining two pages represent a return to Scribe No. 1), Equally significant is the fact that the order of chapters in the tale is reversed in the middle of this range of pages. Seribe No. 3 was the person who cop ied the Spanish text on pages 138 through 145, The contribution of Scribe No. 4 was limited to the brief rote on page 18, which is ina later hand. The entire second volume is the work of Seribe No. 5 ‘The three scribes who had the most influence on the contents ofthe first volume of the Kava had a very poor command of Spanish orthography and grammar (be fourth left such a small sample ofhis writing that tis impossible to tell how literate he was in Spanish), In the section we have atributed to Seribe No. 3, the spelling of Spanish words is so biaarre that we won. der whether he recorded the words phonetically as the text was being dictated to him, instead of copying it himself from a written version, How else can the spelling of sefundé as segundo, no sin grande us nos Ignorante, mueve as nube, recibiesse as lesibiese, re: verberacién as revelacion, va as tla, and hazen as ‘acen on pages 138-14) be explained? These are the kinds of errors we would expect from someone who Was not a native speaker of Spanish ‘The medical texts in the second volume of the Kaua raise similar doubts about Seribe No. 3's com petence in Maya, For example, the passive subjunc tive suffixes -ac (in ea pakac ‘it should be smeared’) and -e (in ea hue “it should be drunk"), which are always spelled correctly in cognate texts in the Books of Chilam Balam of Nah and Tekax, are frequently ‘written as Iter snd stored in the gall Bladder), be was held to beconve chore; thai to be anges. ritable, ad fo se his sold with 3 jun diced eye. Taandice fans in modctn medical Sanguage S divesse ofthe lier or gall Blaéder in whch bles Present nthe bud to sc degree hat the eveblls and ody mats turn yellow. Finally, wth an abundance ofthe Ihamou calle peg (as scr ‘ere tpposed to become stolid te grow ph 1 the toa, people «a0 vndemon sesise: hat i The movement ofthe humors in the body was eon tuulled by the phases of the Moon, During the first and third quarters of lunation. the humors were be Tieved to move from the center ofthe body to is sur lace. These two weeks were favorable for medical procedures involsing the external surfaces of the ody: bleeding, baths, sweats, suunas, and medicines ‘capable of drawing the humors trom the interior 10 the surfaee. In the second and fourth quarters ofthe ‘Moon, the humors were thought to move fiom the surface of the body 10 the eetter. Purgatives were beneficial during those 1wo weeks. Laxatives were used for purging the lower part of the body. The up per part af the body was purged through vomiting TThe period liom 2] March to 23 September was the upper part of “he body be fone for purgin cause that is when the Sun draws the humors upward. The ater six months ofthe year were bes! for pa ing the lower part of the body. If vomiting was the 1 should be induced at 2 ume method of choive when the Moon as in ane of the ruminating sig snamely Aries (the Ram), Taurus athe Bull). of Cape cor tthe Goat), and in conjunction w th 2 retiograde planet Zamorino (S8S-¥01> Sibly. 3141, TheeFEEL. Jement of sympathetie magic at leary, an el vas, lems) namnvals that chew their Sy here Rurinats t oe e thei ometime after in- see ris, egurgitate thir food some ee gigs and planets in ro reverse their course (Aen: 1980) fins Fey 2 ee ry no monte "Ws very ie sorte fr poring. The dog dys (cnr ging. Daring ie akc! ofthe year the pores are closed, sand the humors expelled. They become thick and concentrated and fre difficult o purge (Zamorano 1585:300v-3011) “The medicines used to trea illnesses could be clas sified in terms of where and how they were admin: istered. Plasters, poultices, compresses, powders. ointments, lotions, oils, and soaps were applied tothe skin, Syrups, teas and other kinds of infusions, and tablets were swallowed. Drops were used for the eyes, the ears, and the nose. Other kinds of medicines, wore gargled, inhaled, sucked, or licked. Some com. ‘mon ingredients of medicines ey, alcohol, fat, rose oil, gum arabie, and Castile soap (cf. Alvarez de Morales y Ruiz-Matas 1980:passim), The venom of bees, ants, and snakes was used for treating some medical conditions, The medieval pharmacopoeia also included a wide variety of herbs and other plants, which were described in herbal ‘manuscripts and, after the invention of the printin press in 1455, in published books that could be mor Widely distributed Some illnesses were treated by diet, using eit pathic or allopathic principles. In homeopathy ie medicine, like was treated with like, For example an abscess might be treated with honey, which is vis- cous and yellow like pus. The reverse was true for a: lopathie medicine, an example of which would be treating a child who accidentally swallows some avid with a base. According to Pouchelle (1990:52), “prayers and incantations [Wwe care of patients, ha fe} also. involved in the clay She quotes at length from a medi eval French prescription whose ingredients included syrup, @ powder, a prayer, and an incantation’ for patients suffering trom wounds, nine small spoon fuls of ... syrup: just before swallowing, 1o each spoonful ‘ust be added some of the fallowing powder, Hire ines 28 much as you ean take in ad thi pons to 23s of syrup, you shoukl sprinkle InrRopuctiOn 2» FIGURE || —VEINS USED IN BLEEDING AND CUP. PING «, Front, b, Back. Anter de Li (1529-75-76) iti she shape of crass: saying each time: “In the name of the tithe and of the Son. and ofthe Holy Spirit. Ame! In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity! The right hand ofthe Lord hath made my strength; the right hand of the Lord hath exalted me; the right hand ofthe Lord hath made my strength. I shall not dic, bt live, and I shall pro: claim the works ofthe Lord. When he stote me the Lord smote me, but delivered me not unto death.” That is howe the mising must be don. but beforehand one must pra {devoutly to dhe Lord that he may heal the wound: The potion willbe wiven o the wounded mon. “Jordhree days. tree glasses a dav: making nine in all” [Pouhelle tow 33] This prescription also illustrates the importance of ‘humerolegy in treating ailments: three and nine are symbolic numbers in Christianity. the first associated with the Trinity and the second with the nine months that Christ spent in the womb. Here, the numbers de termine tle size and daily Hrequeney oF the doses and the total number of days that the medieine should be administered. In medieval times. the pulse and the urine used in disgnosis “to provide general indications of the various states oF body” (Shah 1966:232). Th pulse can be strong or weak. rapid or stow. and lar of mtegulat A strong and reguls pulse indicated much blood: 9 heavy and rapid pulse was a symptom,0 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA, ‘of bile or rage: and @ weak and regular pulse was a sign of phlegm (sce page 7 of the Kawa). ‘The colors of urine were also related fo the humors. For exam- ple, if the urine was very yellow, then it meant that there was an excess of yellow bile, whereas if it was very red, then it implied too much blood or hemor: shaging (Shah 1966:257). Other eriteria that eould be used for analyzing urine were its density turbidity or transparency, odor, frothiness, sediment, and q ty (Shah 1966:256). These, then, were the medical understandings that the Spaniards brought with them to Yueatin during the sixteenth century: (1) a belief that physical and mental health was the manifestation of a balance among the four humors known as blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile; (2) a belie thatthe Sign under which one was born determined which parts of the body were likely to become diseased: (3) some diagnostic procedures (including pulsing and vrosco- py) for determining which humor or humors were re sponsible for the discase: (4) a set of therapeutic procedures (bleeding, cupping, bathing, sweating and purging) that could be used for restoring the bal- ance among the humors by eliminating an excess of one of them; (5) an assortment of empirical remedies bhased on plants and other substances, for treating specific ailments. To these customs can be added (6) verbal formulae, such as incantations and prayers, that were sometimes added to prescriptions to in- crease their efficacy Agricultural Activities Crops. The scheduling of agricultural activities was regulated by both solar and lunar cycles. Season: al changes in Spain dictated during which months of the year the different kinds of erops should be plan cd, transplanted, pruned, fertilized, weeded, irigat ced, and harvested. and the phases of the Moon guided the farmer in the choice of days within the moni when such activities were likely to produce the best results, Most crops were planted as soon afier New Moon as possible, because it was believed that the ‘waxing Moon would promote the growth of plants, whereas the waning Moon would inhibit their dev ‘opment (Zamorano 1585:317v). Other activities, such as pruning the branches of trees, removing twigs from grapevines, and cutting wood for con- struction and other purposes, were best done during the waning Moon (Zamorano 1585:330r-3380) Livestock, The timetable for breeding and castrat ing livestoc sheep, goats, catle, and pies, was also seasonal, Breeding was scheduled so that the young would not be born in the winter, when il was ‘more difficult for them ta survive, Castration also did ot t ce during the winter, and it was always performed during the waning Moon. Sheep were sheared in the spring, sometime between late March ‘and the end of June, depending on elevation and tem perature; the most auspicious time in the month for hearing was between Full Moon and New Moon (Zamorano 1585:328v-330r). In this respect, the care of livestock was analogous tothe treatment of domes- ticated plants: activities that involved the growth and development of tissue were, ifpossible, scheduled for the waxing Moon, and activities that had as their ob ject the cutting back or removal of tissue were rele: gated to the two weeks of the waning Moon. e pl Bees. Apicullure was: other activity that was ulated by the passage of the seasons and the phases of the Moon. It was customary to harvest the honey- comb and clean the hives in February, duving the ‘waning Moon. The hives were cleaned again in March during the waxing Moon and in April during the waning Moon, Honeycomb could also be har vested during the waxing Moon in May and during the waning Moon in June. If, for some reason. it was not possible to harvest the honey in June, it could be done in September or October instead (Zamorano 1585:332V-335r, 3371) Weather Prediction, Spain isnot well watered, and the amount of rainfall varies greatly from region to re- gion and from year to year. Therefore, 1 perennial problem forthe Spanish farmer is determining the best Lime to plant his erops. Because he cannot control the timing and amount of rainfall, he relies on a system of prognostication known as the cabariuelas, which is based on the weather in January, to tell him what 10 expect duringtheremainingeleven monthsofthe year In simplest form the farmer observes the weather forthe First welve days of January, and the weather fur each of these days forecass the general weather for she numerial- ly corresponding month. Thus, ifthe seventh day is Sunt July, the seventh month, willbe fae if the tenth i rinys October wil be rainy... Oscasionaly the first test may be ebccked by observing the next rwelve days. this tim ward from December # reverse, s0 that one works ba Ianary [Foster 1960:61)ibis vinaion 5 Inti divine Swati val. Aether A Pa eae wenn An ttn open dscns eit pe hrc dys of Ag re Par ‘general indication for all hes Ts tc ncacon dy fr aary thethi f ae on Fone 10061). A ti Religion Religion and Conguest. The year of Columbus's discovery of the Americas was also the year that the Reconquest of Spain was completed, making Cathol- ieism once again the official religion of the entire Iberian Peninsula. Religion played a central role in the Spanish conquest, which was both military and spiritual. The Franciscan friars who were chosen to bring the Maya of Yucatin into the Christian fold were conscientious in their missionary efforts and ful in introducing thems to many of the tenets of the Catholic religion God, By the sixteenth century, the geocentric mod ! of the universe borrowed from the Greeks had been thoroughly integrated into Christian theology ‘The highest heaven, known as the Empytean sphere, had become the abode of God, where He sat on His throne and was surrounded by angels and archangels and all the martyrs and saints, God had three mani festations—as the Father the Son, and the Holy Ghost—and the concept of the Trinity ix one that found fertile soil in Yucatan The Angels. The angels have Nuetwated in number over the centuries since the Christian religion came intobeiny. New angels have beeniadded tothe official Foster and oki ones purge times in the hist from the Fist st various -yof Christianity. Atleast 269 hhave been recognized st one time oF another (Micht 196: the “planets” and the days of the week have hud the atest longevity: in the Middle A ). OF these, the seven that are associated with Ivropuction 7 Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Anael corresponded to the Sun and Sunday, the Moon and Monday, Mer- ceury and Wednesday. and Venus and Friday, respec tively (Mich! 1962b:204, 19626240, 19624247 24S, 1962¢ 252), whereas the angels Sammacl chicl, and Cassiel were identified with Mars and Tuesday, Jupiter and Thursday. and Saturn and Satur day, respectively (Michl 1962a: Morin 1988:90-91), The Saints. The list of officially recognized saints has also changed over time. The Church has elabo- rate procedures for determining who should be added to that list and has periodically removed saints who are no longer in favor from the fist (but not frown hood), The roster of saints ean be much because it ied with the solar calend ‘which has many more days than the week. Each of the 365 days of the vear is represented by at least one saint (eg.. Zamorano 1585:189/-194y). It was cus- tomary to name a child after the sponcled to his or her date of birth and to refer to that day as the child’s saint's day (dia del santo). rather than as the birthday Alto in the Christian year calendar, every day was dedivated to one or more saints, not all the equally important. Among the movable feasts. Ash Wednesday, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day. Pentecost. and Corpus Christi have already bboen mentioned. Good Friday and the First Sunday in Advent were two other movable feasts, To them may be added certain “immovable” feasts scheduled by the solar calendar, such as Epiphany in January, All Saints’ Day in November, Assumption Day in AU: gust, and Christmas in December. Beyond these feasts that were celebrated by everyone were those honoring local and regional patron saints, as well as others identified with certain occupations oF guilds The official calendar of saints changed over time, as saints were added to or subtracted from it, Vania- tion also existed at the Toe ssuints were honored and when level in terms of which 1 took time for peo: ple in remote paristies a aocept a substitution de- creed by Rome. especrally if meant deemphasizit 2 favorite local sain For this reason, there were many different saints calendars in use at one time and multiple versions of them were exported to Mes: ico and ultimately speak vontidently of a it Yueatan. Thus ais not possible t sits caenafar that sass sverywhere oF at all ume32 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CilILAM BALAM OF KAUA The Sacraments, Atte individual level, the most Important rituals were the ones that marked signifi- cant changes in the life eyele, The first was which was performed not Jong after birth and, in most cases, during the first year of life. The second was confirmation, which normally took place at the aye oF twelve, when the child had reached the age of reason, The thitd was marriage, The fourth was the last rites, also known as extreme unetion, performe ‘when someone was near death. These rituals, togcth cer with the cucharist, repentance, and ordination, are known collectively as the seven sacramen The eucharist, or communion, is part of the Mass, which “is daily renewal of the Passion of Christ (Callan and Meftugh 1934-11). Every aspect of the Mass—the garments worn by the priest, his words and gestures, the ritual objects, the prayers that are recited, the songs that are sung, the portions of the Bible that are read, the wine that is drunk, and the bread that is eaten—has both a historical and a reli- ‘gious meaning (sce pages 162-165 of the Kaua for 8 detailed explanation of the symbols of the Mass) Several verbal genres sre represented in the Mass. The four Gospels contain recollections of the life, acts, and words of Jesus by four of his disciples: Mat thew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Epistles are letters of adviee, instruction, admonition, and exhort local groups of Christians. The Mass also contains prayers (e.g,, the Lord’s Prayer), hymns (e.g.. the Gloria), and a cteed (the Confession of Faith). Nambers and Numerology Numbers. The Spanish number system is essen tially decimal in nature. The Arabic system of nota: tion was used for most purposes, with separate symbols for zer0 (0), one (1), two (2), three (3), four (4), five (5), six (6), seven (7). eight (8), and nine (9) Numbers above nine were expressed in a decimal place value notation, increasing by multiples of ten from right to left. For example, the number written as, 365 has three places: (I) “5” in the lowest position, which has a value of five (1 5 = 5): (2) "6" in the second position, which has a value of sixty (10 x 6 = 660); and (3)"3" in the third position, which has a vale ue of 300 (10 x 10 x 3 = 300). Therefore, the total value of the number is 365 (5 + 60 + 300 = 365), The Spaniards were also familiar with the Roman ‘number system, which was essentially quinary in na ture, using different leticrs of the alphabet for one (1, five (V), ten (X), fifty (L), one hundred (C). five hundred (D), and one thousand (M). Another differ ‘ence is thatthe Spanish number system has a symbol for zero, whereas the Roman one did not The decimal stru Aecwd in aumeriea re oF the number system is re nomenclature, which employs morphemes for the numbers from zero to ten cere, wio, fas, res, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, rhueve, die) and more complex expressions for elev- cen and hiigher. The names of the numbers from elev cen through Fifteen are derived from the names of the humbers for one 10 five (once, doce, treee, catorce, nd ure identified by a -ce suffix. The num bers from sixteen through nineteen are composed of the word for ten plus the words for six through nine. for example, die: y seis (10+ 6), diez v siete (10 +7), and so on. There are special number words for twen ty (veime), thirty (rreinta), forty (cuarenta), fifty (cineuenia), sixty (sesema), seventy (setenta). eighty (ochenta), and ninety (novenra), which are combined with the words for the numbers from one to nine for the other numbers in a decade, for example, veinte y uno (20 1), veinte y cinco (20 * 5). and treinta y dos (30 ~ 2). The word for one hundred is cien; one hun died and one is called eienca y uno (100 1). Higher multiples of one hundred are composed of the num bers from two to nine plus the word for one hundred, for example, doscientos, trescientos, cuatrocientos novecientos. One thousand is mil, two thousand is, dos mil, three thousand is tres mil, and so on. ‘The mathematical heritage of the Spaniards in- cluded methods of addition, subtraction, multiplica tion, and division. Special tables were used for ning multiplication, which were similar to the ‘ones used in American schools today (e.g.. Bi de Santa Rosa 1746:158-160: see also pages 33 and 34 of the Kaua), Fractions and decimals were also part of Spanish mathematical knowledge. quince) Numerology. Christian numerology was dominat- ed by the number three. whose significance was de- rived from the Trinity composed of the Pather. the Son, and the Holy Ghost and was also expressed in the three temptations of Christ, the three betrayals bY Peter, and the three erucifixions on Golgotha. The rhumber nine was almost ss important, because iP resented the nine months of pregnaney of the Vitei? Mary. It found ritual expression in the Novena, which refers to “public or private devotional practices Ove"arias lek 1s12-13] and the forty days beeen Ash Land (Exodus 16:35). a period The European Sources Introduetion. The first European book was brought into Maya territory by Gerénimo de Aguilar, a Span- iard who was shipwrecked off the coast of Yucatan in 1511. What the unfortunate Spaniard had saved from, the sea was a Book of Hours. a callection of prayers, for taymen (Diaz del Castillo 1977-103), The “hours” referred to in the book's ttle did not division of time lasting sinly minutes, nthe Middle Ages. before time-keeping became mechanized, the Hours ind ‘ated less exact portions ofthe day which were set aside religious or business duties, The Christian Chureh, fullow ing both Roman secular practice and Jewish religious tr rules or canons for the ers and devotions st specific times, These formed the ‘Canonical Hours in which the sly liturgy or Divine Once ord hurch was celebrated (Harthan 197711} The Book of Hours contained the prayers that had te be recited to the Virgin Mary at the ¢ IvTRODUCTION and it may also have contained a saints e pictures (ef. Alexander 1970), Such devoti Europe dun, slendar and ial Books were highly valued in the later Middle Ages and afterward, but only wealthy people could afford to own them because they were written and illuminated by hand. Thesituation changed dramatically after Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type (the first printed book, the Bible, was completed in 1455), Books could be produced in large quantities in a rel- atively short time, Prices dropped. and more people were uble fo learn how to read and write. This ex plains wy even a lowly Spanish seaman, such as the fone who was shipwrecked! off the coast of Yueatin, could own a Book of Hours only sixty years after the first book was printed in Mainz (Germany). ‘A nuniber of books of European origin made their way to the New World both before and afier the con- quest was completed. Charles V, the ruler of Spain between 1516 and 1555, was 9 humanist and a pan: Europeanist, and he was tolerant ofthe free export of books to New Spain. Chivalric romances, such as Amacs of Gaul, the Poem of El Cid. and the Song of Roland, were popular favorites, and numerous copies ‘ofthese books were shipped to New Spain during the carly years of the Colonial period (Kroptinger-von Kiigelgen 1973:13). However, Isabella, the wife of Charles V, did not approve of such books being ex: ported to the New World, because she was afraid that the Indians would be corrupted by the profanity in them. Her husband’s frequent absences during mili tary eampaigns gave her multiple opportunities to try to change the situation, In 1531 she sent. leter to the "asa de Contratacidn, the office that controlled the exportirade, in which she forbade the export of books of fiction and other secular works to the Indies, citing Amadis of Gaul as one of the book: re her con: cer (Leonard 196481). Her son Philip 11, who as sumed the throne in 1559, had the same narrow view of secular books and also tried to ban them from th colonies. Lists were made of books that were destined Forexpo they were supposed to be approved before ly sent io the New World. The policy was never enforced, however, and even the books that ella and Philip HI were most exercised about con- tinued 10 be shipped in significant quantities to the colonies, The Inquisition also wanted such lists w be made so that its off works and unauhorized translations of the Bible from the ers could remove heretic:34 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA, books destined for export. However, it expressed ne st in regulating shipments of romantic novels and other secular books. Some of the lists of exported books have survived in te Archivo General de Indias in Seville: they pro: vide us with detailed information on many of the ‘books that reached New Spain. There are, for exam= ple, twenty-nine lists of books that were shipped t0 ‘New Spain in the year 1586 alone, eonsisting of about 630 different titles in about 11,680 copies. all of which definitely reached San Juan de Ula, their port of destination (Kropfinger-von Kugelgen 1973:6) About half the titles on these lists can be generally de- seribed as Cl works (Kroplinger- von Kiigelgen 1973:12). Among them are copies o the Bible and sections of the New Testament such as the Gospel According to Matthew and the Epistles of Paul are commentaries on the Passion of Ciist, on Saint Mary, on the angels. and on Lucifer. ‘There are works on the Council of Trent and others that treat dogma and religious practice, such as the sacraments, several instructional tracts on Christian doctrine, a catechism for children, breviaries, prayer books, biographies of the saints, and martyrologies. ‘Some works are concerned with the education of men ‘and women in Christian ethics, OF interest also are ‘works on and related to the Inquisition (e.g., on exor cistie training). Nearly one-fourth of the books that were exported to New Spain were works of literature. They are representative of the genres of Spanish lit- erature dating from the second half of the fifteenth century and most of the sixteenth (Kropfinger-von Kiigelgen 1973:13), There are also several works of classical authors, books on history, dictionaries, and grammars, Medical texts make up about 8 percent of the books. There are also studies of natural sci astronomy, navigation, architecture, the art of war fare, law, philosophy. cthies, and music, educations books. and miscellancous items that do not belong in the other categories ‘The Kawa and the other Mays Books of Chilam Balam contain evidence that many of the books on these export lists were available to the Indians of Yueatin, Represented in these Books are all the cate gories mentioned above, except law, history. archi: Tecture, and the art of warfare, We focus here on the European works that are most relevant for under n in the Books of istian theolog standing the texts of European ori Chilam Bata. Theological Works. Pages 146 0 157 of the Kawa contain an extended discussion of Genesis that must have come fom a commentary on the Bible by one Of the Church fathers, The words of five Church fae thers—Saint Damascus, Saint Thoma ‘Aquinas, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and Saint Johin the Esangelist— are queted in the text. We have not been able to identify the exaet source ofthe Text, but one scetion of it closely parallels pant of Chapter VI in Book Hl of Exposition of the Orthoxlox Faith by Saint John of Damascus (Salmond 1955:23). The text we have titled “The Meaning of the Mass” on payes 162-165 could have come from a treatise on the sacraments such as Nieolais de Plove’s (158 Tractatus de sacramentis.. (Kropfinger-von KUgel- gen 1973.75), And the mystical text on pages 161 and 162 that we have called “The Tribulations of Jesus” may have been inspired by a commentary on the Passion of Christ, such as the ones authored by Francisco Sanchez del Campo (1567), Juan Coloma (1576), and Pedro Sinchez de Acre (1584) (Kropfin- sger-von Kiigelgen 1973:43, 86-87). The Kawa also contains a referenee 10 the Council of Trent, which met betwexn 1545 and 1563 and defined the dogmas of the Catholic faith and initiated the Counter Reformation, The decrees of the council were pub lished in 1579, and a copy of this publication was sent to New Spain in 1586 (Concilium Tridentinum 1579: Kropfinger-von Kiigelgen 1973:46). The table oof movable feasts on pages 52 and 53 of the Kana could have come from a Spanish reportorio of @ Catholic missal. and the ealendar of Christian saints that follows it on pages 54-71 could have been cop ied from a reportorio, a miss, or 2 Book of tours Several Latin prayers appear in the Kaa: a com munion prayer (on page 86). a breviary anthem (on page 88), the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salute tion (on page 143), the Apostles* Creed (on page 146), anda prayer to Mary (on pages 157-158). They could have been copied fiom prayer books such as the ones edited by Martin de Azpileueta Navarro (1561), Gerdnim Campos (1579), Andrés Capilla (1582), and Fray Luis de Granada (1586), and the Breviarium praedicatorun (1584), all of which ap- pear on sixteenth-century book-expor ists (Kropfin- ger-von Kiigelgen 1973236, 39, 40, 4, 58-$9). The nnuliple references to angels an the detailed de- scription of the fall of Lucifer on pages 1583 and 154 ofthe Kia suggest that the Maya seribe copied them Ean er eecrerreeim a cea I381) De praia et sa gone aged Ai de Ls Ree pergrin: La quel soso mihon Noman eguace wbih wee a0 th ee ere ae 40 New Spin it 1586 ot tego von Kuglgen 1978, 67) “Literature. The sixteenth century is known as the Golden Century” in Spanish literature (Rio 1982: 1336), Two gentes from this tradition are represented in the Maya Books of Chikam Balam. One is the eh valrie novel, which is documented by two brief refe fences to El Cid (Rouirigo Diaz de Bivar} on page of the Jxil. The other is the Moorish novel, which is, exemplified by a single text, Flistoria de la donzella Theodor, on pages 99-108 and 111-117 of the Kate, ‘on pages 31-37 of the Cédice Pérez, and on ps "72-96 of the Clan Kan, The book-export lists R 1586 mention a 1568 edition of the Poem of El Cid and a 1543 edition of the Historia de la doncella The- ‘odor (Ksopfinger-von Kiigelgen 1973:45, 50). Music, Page 16 of the Kava illusirates a Guidonian hand used in Europe for teaching singing under the title El arte de canta Hlano “A Guide to Plainsong.” Two copies of a book with the same title are men tioned on a list of books that arrived in Mexico in 1376 (Leonard 1953:273). Other references to Euro- pean musical terms appear in the Historia de ta don zella Theodor text on page 100 of the Kawa. Medicine, The medical books mentioned in the export lists include the works of classical authors, such as Hippocrates and Galen, and commentaries on them (Vallesius 1577; Argenterius 1578). Page | of ‘he Kaua implies that the Fourth Book of Isidore of Seville’s E1ymologies (cited in Borst 1983:48S) was another medical work available in Yueatin, Thereare also general treatises on medicine by sixteenth century European doctors (e.g., Joubert 1582) and more specialized works on such topics as poisons, (ioscorides 1586), blood (Carvinus 1562) and bloodletting (Botallus 1583), the pulses (Mercado 1584), and surgery (A. Perey 1568). The lists also in Clude several works on the preparation of medicines, (c-g.. Oviedo 1581; Monardes Alfaro 1380). OF these topics, only surgery is not explicitly covered in the Kaua. However, the medical texts in the Books of Chilam Batam of Kava, Tekas, il, Nah, and Chan INTRODUCTION Kan probably did not come direetly from such books: her, they seem to have been eopied from the books of such Mexican authors as Agustin Furl (1592) and Gregoria Lopez (1672), who were familiae with New World medicinal plants but applied them tems of prineiples derived from the Arabic tradition, Grammars and Dictionaries. Grammars and dic- tignaries were also among the books exported from Europe to New Spain. Eliy Antonio de Nebrija (1444-1532) was the most famous grammarian and Texivographer of sixteenth-ventury Spain, and refer ences to his grammars and dictionaries of Latin and Spanish appear in the export lists (Nebrija 1558, 1581, 1585), His works served as models for the de seription of the indigenous languages of the New World, As in the ease of medical works, the Mayan grammar that was the source of several texts in the Kaw was originally published in Mexico, not Spain, bout it was based on a European prototype (Beltrin de Santa Rosa 1746), Natwral Sciences. The principal natural sciences represented in the Kawa are mathematics and astron: omy. The Maya seribe copied two mathematical texts from a colonial Mayan grammar (Beltran de Santa Rosa 1746:152-16D). The first is a table of numbers from | to 215, together with their Spanish and Mayan ames. The first part of the table appears on the last five pages of the Kawa; the table continues on the fourth page of the Kana. The second text is the mul tiplication table on pages 33 and 34 of the Kawa, itis also in Maya and Spanish. ‘The first volume of the Kaua contains numerous texts on astronomy (and asiralogy) and ealendi many of which were copied from Spanish almanacs known as reportorios de los tiempos. An eclipse ta ble on pages 119 and 120 of the Kaua shares exrors with a similar table on pages 233-240 of Rodrigo Zamorano’s (1585) reportorio, suggesting that the former was direetly derived from the latter. A text on comets on the preceding page of the Kaua shares a picture with a similar text on folios 272 and 273 of 142 of the Kan vopy of the ttle page oF this partorto apne: to New Spain in 1973:99). Not all astronomical texts in the Kawa eame from Zamorano’s 1585) edition of the reportorio, In seme the reportorto, and pi weontains a rortovio. The same re- ‘on one of the lists af books exported 1586 (Krop! ger-von Kiiyelgen36 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: ‘THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM CF KAUA Sun Venus a {pe Venus Moon FicuRe 12~SKYBANDS. a, Skyband. 6, Skyband with cclipse sign in serpent constellation. Aer Villacorta C and Villacorta(1996:122), ‘cases, they must have been derived from earlier re portorios, such as the ones compiled by Andiés de Li (1529), Sancho de Salaya (1542). and an anonymous Spaniard (1554), The same is true of the calendrical text on page 37 of the Kawa, which contains ortho: ‘graphic evidence that it must have been copied from 8 reportorio predating the one published by Zamo rang in 1585) Thus, a number of European books were available to the Maya, and selections from a variety of them found their way into the Kaua, Of these books, the Spanish reportorios seem to have been of most inter est to the compilers of the Kana; significant chunks ‘of the first volume of that Book can be traced to one (or more sixteenth-century reportortos. On the other hhand, most of the texts in the second volume of the Kaua probably came from works that were pub- lished in Mexico but were clearly inspired by Euro peat) medical ideas. In other words, many of the texts that give the Kaua its distinctive character ean be traced to Kurapean or Europeanized sources, thanks to the book-export lists that were intended to control the flow of information from the Old World to the New THE Maya Back’ ROUND The Universe The Heavens. Customary explanations of trai tional Maya cosmology are based on documents ston in the Latin siphabet afer the conquest (Mor Jey 1940.216;. Thompson 1950:10). If we imit our- selves 10 information from the four Maya codices and the procolumbian monuments, we have a simpler mode! of the Maya unive correspond to colonial documents. The colonial sources suggest that the Mays uni erse eonsisted of layers (las or jul) that were ouped into thinwcen heavens or overworids and pos sibly as many as nine underworlds. The Earth was in ‘he center of this universe, representing the lowest or thirteenth overworld, directly above the h denworld. This model ofthe Maya universe is based on three kinds of evidence: (1) references to thrtcun heavens (oxlalun tas caan or oxlahua val ean) in the Books of Chilum Balam of Chumayel and Ti- zimin; (2) references to thirteen gods (oxlahum 1 ku) and nine gods (dofon 1i ku) in the same Books, and (3) a nine-day sequence of days in Classic Maya in scriptions that J. Eric 8. Thompson (1929) has relat ed to the nine lords ofthe night of central Mexico. I has been assumed, but not proved, thatthe “thirteen gods” mentioned in the Chumayet and the Tizinin corresponded to the thirteen heavens and that there must have been a set of nine underworlds corre- sponding tothe “nine gods.” The problem with these assumptions is that sas and af refer nat only tothe “layers” of the sky in these Books of Chilam Balam but also to the celestial spheres ofthe European uni verse in the Kana. Is therefore possible thatthe rf erences to oxlafin tas caan and oxlahwn yal caan represent a syneretism of European and Maya con- cepts of the universe, not a survival of the Mays worldview into colonial times. There is furthermore no evidence in any Maya source. precolumbian oF colonial, ofa belie in nine lords of th The precolumbian sources suyest that there Was only one “heaven,” dtvetly above the Earth, which ‘was occupied by the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the planets, This heaven is frequently depicted as & skyband” in Maya art, & narrow belt, either at the top ofa picture or surrounding it on three sides. 6% taining the glyphs forthe Sun or day (hin) the ight (ukbal), the Moon (1), Venus (chac ek “great sa") se and one that does notis so ae Cem a) thom erp are representcd as zoomorphs dangling trom sfobants ford, which wis called etna proba rears tien and probably other pl he Constellations Th prccolumbian Maya divi Larne Cant ct ars lying onor nea ite ecitc ito el te Pa atelatons They ave known from the 20. spuetalmanae inthe Pais Code, which ass etseonseltion period of weny-cigh ays (Fig. Set3) Two conselations inthe European 2odiae sy have diteet couterpansin the Maya ane Sor a = Bricker 1992) For example, the Mava rauanake constellation ab) corresponds othe Pleiades which ienotpartof he European zodas ane Maya tune Orion's beh, but Orion snotinclodd inthe European wre shared bythe two cultures but were interpreted Gemini InTRODUCTION 3 differently. For example, one of the Maya bird eon: slellations probably corresponded to Gemini, but the Europeans identified Gemini asa pair of twins, not as bird (H, Bricker and V. Bricker 1992) Vor the Maya, as for the Europeans, the changing positions of the constellations in the night sky from Sunset to Sunrise and from season to season served 1g the passage of time. The two peoples differed in what they regarded as ant stations of the constellations, In Europe. the Sun was said to be “in a sign” when the constel lation in question was invisibly. The Maya were more interested in the visible stations of a sign, especially when the constellation first reappeared in the east at Sunrise ater us period of invisibility (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 1992) The Sun. The precolumbian Maya and the six: twenth-century Spaniards shared a geocentric mode! ofthe universe, with the Sun, the Moon, and the plan cts moving around the Earth, The Maya, however, be- lieved in a flat Earth, a quadritateral plane composed Of four basic directions —vast, north, west, and Scorpio Orion Pleiades Flot: [3 “THE ZODIACAL. ALMANAC ON PAGES 238 AND 248 OF THE PARIS CODEN. After Villacorta and Villacorta(1976:220, 22AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CiIILAM BALAM OF KAUA south— cach of which was associated with a color: red, white, black, an] yellow, respectively: Two ether directions —zenith, the highest point of the sky, and nadir, the lowestpoint of the underworld completed the set 3 was the primary direction in Maya cosmolo- xy because it wa lay, the Sun passed through the zenith on its w the west. Afler setting in the west, it traveled throu the underworld, moving from west to vast and pass- ing the nadir at midnight Not having clocks, the prevolumbian Maya proba. bly determined the dates of the solstives and equi- oxes by observing the day-to-day change in the position of the rising or setting Sun alone the horizon. against the backdrop of buildings or natural Features in the landscape. The Sua reaches its most northerly rising and setting points at the time of the summer solstice, and it arrives at its most southerly rising and setting points on the day of the winter solstice. The cequinoxes represent the midpoint of the Sun’s jour~ ney north or south of the celestial equator betweer the solstices (Aveni [980:62-63). The four tropical ‘year stations are recorded in one table and in several falmanaes in the Dresden and Madrid codices (V. Bricker and H. Bricker 1988). where the Sun rose. During the The Moon, Substantial evidence of an interest in lunar eyeles ean be found in precolumbian Maya his torical documents. In many cases, the records of im- portant events inthe lives of rulers and their families included not only she dates on which the events took place, but also the age of the Moon on the dates in question, the position of the lunar month ina semes ter of five or six lunations, and an integer valus for the length of the month, either twenty-nine or thirty ays (Morley 1916; Tecple 1931) The Maya were also concerned with the relation- ship between the Moon and Venus, recording con junctions ofthese planets in skybands inthe Dresden Codex (V. Bricker and H. Bricker 1986a) and one of their oppositions on the walls of tomb at Rio Azul (V. Bricker 1988 Eclipses. The Maya seem to have been as anxious. as the Spaniards 1o be informed in advance of a solar or a lunar eclipse, and for this purpose they con: structed the intricate table that appears on pages $1~ 58 of the Dresden Codex, This is a table that warns the user of possible eclipses: it is nota record of ob- served eclipses. The original able covers a period of thirty-three years, beginning in A.D, 755, A table of snultiples of the 11,960-day length of the warning ta- ble, with some correction factors, permitted it 10 be reeyeled for centuries after the date of its composi tion (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 1983), There are also numerous references to both solar tnd lunar eclipses in other parts of the Dresden Co: dex, as well as in the codices now in Madrid and Paris (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 1992; V, Bricker and H. Bricker 1986a, 1986b, 1988, 1992). In some ceases, solar eclipse glyphs are shown in the mouths ‘oF the animals that belong te the Maya zodiae (i ures 12b and 13). The implication is that the eclipse in question would take place when the Sun was in the pictured constellation and thatthe occultation of the ‘Sun by the Moon was construed as the Sun being eat ten by the zodiacal beast, Page 12 of the Book of Chi lam Balam of Chumayel refers explicitly to the Sun being “bitten” in the course of a solar eclipse The Planets. Apart from the Sun and the Moon, ‘Venus was the heavenly body that received the most attention in the surviving Mayan texts. Pages 24 and 46-30 of the Dresden Codex contain a table of the four principal Venus stations: first appearance as a morning star after inferior conjunction, last appea ance as a morning star before superior conjunction, first appearance as an evening star after superior con- junction, and last appearance as an evening star be- fore inferior conjunction. The table refers to sixty five synodic periods of Venus covering 104 years beginning in 4.0. 934 (Lounsbury 1983 References to Venus on Classic-pcriod mont: ments focus on dates when Venus was visible in the 1 sky. This celestial event scems to have been re- sided as an appropriate time for one Maya city 10 id another (Lounsbury 1982; Riese 1982). The pic- tures on the Venus pages of the Dresden Codes are also concerned with warfare. Another version of the Venus table appears inthe, Grolier Codex (Carlson 1983; Coe 1973; Hats 1972). I, 100, is aeeompanied by pictures of fies hholding spears. Other references to Venus can 8 found inthe eclipse table and in an agricultural aim nae in the Dresden Codex; the glyph for Venus isa jacent to the glyph for the Moon in two skybands corresponding 1 dates when the planets were ineo™ humetion (V, Bricker and H, Brieker 19862)pages 43b to 436 ofthe Drewlen Codes contain a ars table. Here the Focus i om the seventy-tive-day wpograde period of Mars, when the pl ‘hen appears to move backward for a number of days before stopping for the second time for a Few days se after which it resumes normal forward motion (V "Bricker and H, Bricker 1986b). ‘Evidence that the Maya were interested in other lanets is less explicit. The almanac on pages 30:~ Spe of the Dresden Codex seems fo commensurate the synodie periods of Mercury and Venus (V. Brick. tr 1988b). And a pair of dates on a monument from Bi Cayo may refer to the two stationary points in the synodie period of Saturn that bracket the retrograde period of the planet (Fox and Justeson 1978) ‘The Calendar Introduction. The precolumbian Maya reckoned time in terms of the permutation of two calendrical ceycles—the 260-day reolkint and the 365-day haab— and a system of absolute or linear chronatogy called the “long count.” which was based on the rw of 360 cays (cf. Closs 1983; Morley 1915; J. Thompson 1950). The éeodkin was useful for scheduling ritual events and for making astronomical predictions. The faa’ had its own ritual cycle and also regulated some seasonal activities such as planti arvesting, beekeeping, and hunting. The intermeshing of the ‘zolkin and the haah produced a larger cycle of ap: proximately fifty-two years, which is known as the “calendar round.” And the Jon cit possi ble to handle much larger periods of time corre- sponding to our centuries and millennia, count m Cycles Based on the Taolkin, The s2olkin (a ncol ogism based on rzof “count” and kit “day") was itself ‘permutation of two smaller eycles, consisting of the rrumbers from I 10 13 and a sequence of twenty day names: Imix, tk, Akbal, Kan, Chiechan, Cimi, Ma nik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men. Cib, Caban, Edznab, Cava, and Aha, A date in the ‘zolkin was specified by the combination of a day umber and day name, The first day in the was 1 Imix; the second day was 2 Ths the third day was 3 Akbal: the thirteenth day was 13 Bre; the four teenth day was 1 [x3 and so Forth, The 260th dy of the tolkin was 13 Ahay, the day before 1 lmix, hich began the next cycle The only known graphic representation of the Maya ofkin, on pages 75 and 76 af the Maxlrid IsTRODUCTION xv Codex. is shaped like a tormée cross, the four arms of which are o.tented tod ins (Fig. ure 14), The dass ate shown ss crudely drawn blick footprints in the corners of the diagram and as black dots everywhere else. The r2ofkin is divided into four sixty-ve-day periods corresponding co the four arms, of the eross and the four directions. The period of 260 days had some interesting astro rnomicil properties, which must have been known to the Maya, Two fcolkin periods 10 days} were a lose approximation to three eclipse half years of 173.31 days (3 x 173.31 = 519.93) The eclipse half year represents the distance between dates when the Moon crosses suecessive nodes in its journey north and south of the ecliptic. This relationship benseen the double ofkin and the eclipse half-year is implicit in the eclipse table in the Dresden Codex. which equates twenty-three double tcolkins with sixty-nine eclipse nalf-years (Teeple 1931:86). Three tzofkin periods (= 780 days) corresponded closely (© one Martian synodie revolution of 779.94 days (Stabl man and Gingerich 1963:xv) and are what gives th Mars table in the Dresden Codex is distinctive struc ture (V, Bricker and H, Bricker 1986b) Cycles Based on the Hab. The 365-day haab was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each (Pop. Uo, Zip, Zodz, Zee. Xul, Yaxkin. Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac. Ceh, Mac. Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab. and ‘Cumku) plus a shor. interealary month, Uayeb, with only fivedays, During the Classie period of Maya his tory (ca. 4.0. 300-950). the twenty days in each nor- ‘mal month were numbered trom 0 to 19. and those in Uayeb were numbered from Oto 4, Therefore, the first, day ofthe aah was 0 Pop (expressed metaphorically as the “seating” of Pop). the second day was | Pop, the third day was ? Pop, and the last day was 4 Layets In other words, the days of the month were counted in terms of elapsed me, not curfent time, the day re ceiving a number only alter it had been completed This system of numbering lly. te: phiced by one based on current time. so that by the second decade of the sixteenth century. when the Spaniards arrived in Yucatan, th bering the days in the first eightecn months of the Jat rors [10 20 and the days in Usyed from L to 5, and they were referring w | Pop instead of © Pop as the “seating” of Pop The prineipal stations of the hah were the New Year on 0 Pop (Classic) oF 1 Pop (Late Postelassie ‘was event Maya were mumFicunt [4 -THE ALMANAC ON PAGES 75 AND 76 OF THE MADRID CODEX. Alter Villacorta C. and Villacorta (19760374, 376), ‘ear and the Hal Year are prominent inthe sea- e in the Dresden Codex, and the Uayeb days are the subject of almanues in the Dresden Madrid, and Paris codices, The huab, Vike the Europe slightly shorter than the sel: precolumbian e not employ a syst the‘925. By 950, however, the Half Year had and the i aria btween the (ICY The fe istice is shown iconographically in Figure isnt es, the summer solstice was repre: warn ibe cies th ; he eocee f Miys go siting ona Sky sen ag et Te soo ofthe al Y Ih footprints moving from right to road marked and the sam ares in Fig fac that has been dated to 8.0. 899, a ye the summer solstice preceded the Half Year by tive days. The order ofthe pictures in the almanac —sum. mer solstice before Half Year—agrecs with the ekro: ological postion of the corresponding events in t year. There is only one picture in Figure 156, which inas been dated to A.D. 925. That was th the Half Year coineided with the summer solstice, and the footprint and skyband symbols have been appro- priately merged into a single composition. Figure 1S¢ illustrates the situation in A.0. 950, when the summer solstice followed the Half Year by eight days, Here the images have been reversed (o agree with the changed positions of the ab and tropic: year stations—summer solstice after Half Year (V Bricker and H. Bricker 1988:S41). The Calendar Rowid, When referring to a day in the Maya year it was customary to mention not only the month of the haah in which it fell and the position of the day in that month (e.g.. 3 Pop), but also the name and coeftivient af that day in the fzolkin eyele (eg. 2 Ahau). A date such as 2 Ahaw 3 Pop in Mayst notation can occur only once in an 18.980-kay pe fd, the least common multiple of the 365-day fr and the 260-day ¢zolkin, which is equ tat This eyele of 18,980 days has been e: dar round’ 1950:123) al 10 52 sd the “ealen- by Maya scholars (e.g.. J. Thompson Thus, cach day in the year could be specified in terms of four different eycles: (1) the eyele of twenty ay names (mix, 1k, Akba, ete.); (2) the eyele of numbers from I so 13 dat served as the evetlieient of the days; (3) the set of nineteen months beginning with Pop and ending with Uayebs anil (4 the eyele oF humbers from 0 19 19 (Classic) oF | 10 20 (Late Post lassie and Colonial) with whieh the days in the Month were numbered (0 4 oF | 10 5 in he ease of Ixrropt ction 41 > Fine 1S--HALF YEAR AND SUMMER SOLSTICE ICONOGRAPHY. 2. D.29b. 4, M. He. 6, D, 655-660. AF. ter Villagara €, and Villacorta (1976:68, 149, 142, 2461 Cayeb). The days in the first eyele, however, eannot co-oceur lively with all the month positions in the Fourth. Ia Early Classic times, for example, only four of the twenty named days could be paired with the zeroth day oF the month or the year, namely Tk, Mae nik, 1b, and Caban. These days are known as “year bearers” (w euch haabob in Maya) because ould begin the year. They eould aceur al with the ays oF the month whose coefficients were 5, 10, and [Steg $ Yay. 10 Vax. and 15 Yax). Akal, Lamat Ben, sand Edlznab were rest numbered 1.6, Hand 16 ed to days of the month 1 Pop, 6 Pop, |2 AN ENCOUNTER UF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF Cull AM BALAM OF KAUA, Fioue 16—TURTLE SCULITURE WITH AAU GLYPHS (AFTER TAUBE 1988:FIG. 24) and 16 Pop). Kan, Mulue, 1s, and Cauae were limited to days numbered 2, 7, 12, and 17 ¢g.,2 Lo. 7 Us. 12 Uo, and 17 Uo). And the other sets of days— Chiechan, Oc, Men, and Ahswu; Imix, Cimi, Chuen, and Cib—were tied 10 days numbered 3 and 4, r spectively. and days ofthe month reached by adding multiples of five to those numbers “The Ik, Manik, Eb, and Caban set of yearbearers \was widely used in the Maya lowlands in Early Clas sie times. In this volume we refer to them 3s Tikal yyearbearers because they first appeared at that sive (Edmonson 1976:713). During the Late Classi per fod. another set of yearbearers, Akbal, Lamat, Ben, ‘and Edznab, showed up in the inseriptions at few sites in the Campeche region and elsewhere. We call them Campeche yearbearers because they were frst recognized in that region (Edmonson 1976:713). A tbied calendar, based on Kan, Mulue, Ix, and Cause, ‘was introduced in Vucatin sometime during the Post lassie period and is documented in the Chronicle of Oxkutzeab (Morley 1920:471), Another calendrical reform, involving a one-day shift in the haab instead of the zofkin, had token place by the time the Sp iards arrived in the Yucatin Peninsula. The calendar resulting from this reform used the same yearbearers a the Oxkutzeab calendar but began the year on | Pop instead of O Pop. We follow Edmonson (1976: 713) in referring to it asthe Mayeapan calendar. This js the version of the Maya calendar that is document ed most frequently in the Books of Chilam Batam and other colonial sources. The Long Count. To keep track of periods of time longer than the ‘zolkin, the hawb, and the calendar round, the prevolumbian Maya developed a system Cf linear oF absolute chronology based on the 360 day sum rather than the 365-day haab. The ren was di vided into vighteen months of uinats, each of which contained Wwenly days or kins, A group of wenty ‘uns was called & katun, and twemy katuns constitu ed a unit of time known as a Baktus, In the ealen rical notation normally employed for recordin, historical dates, a complete eyele or era contained thirteen bakers (= 1,872,000 days). tn other nota tions, the system was expanded to include much lary: ler units of time: the pictun composed of twenty sakians, the cafabtun containing twenty picts, and the kinchiftun encompassing twenty calabruns. But for most purposes, the five-place era notation based fon the bakin, kati, tn, uinal, and kin sutficed Maya long-count dates were usually paired with ccalendar-round permutations in the following way V1.16.1.11.7 2 Manik 10 Kayab The first part of this expression, which contains the five components of the long count, tells us that the following temporal units of the current Maya era hhave been completed: 11 bakruns (out of a possible 13, numbered 0 to 12, or 13 10 12), 16 karwns (of 20, numbered 0 to 19), | a» (of 20, numbered 0 t0 19), 11 inals (of 18, numbered 0 to 17), and 7 kins oF days (of 20, numbered 0 to 19). The second part of the expression is the calendar round. 2 Manik was the sixty-seventh day of the 260-day rzo/kin cycle, and 10 Kayab was the eleventh day of the sixteenth ‘month of the haab, What made this stem linear was that it had an ar- bitrary beginning, which was writen in wo different ‘ways on precolumbian Maya monuments: (1)000.00 4 Ahau8 Cumku (2)13.00.00 4 Ahav 8 Cumku In the first notation, all place values have been set 10 zero, implying that it represented the beginning of the era count. In the second, the highest place value was set at 13, which was the maximum number of, Daktwns in an era, implying that there were other es predating the long count, And that was indeed the ‘case, as is discussed at some length in the section be- low on other types of eulendrical notation. Whether this date was written as 0.0.0.0.0 of #5 13.0.0.0.0. it always served as the base of the current Maya era, as long. as it was paired with 4 Ahau 8 waited chee s ce[xtRopt cTiON “ 5 ah cometh 4.2012 Ta que The Katun Cycle, The inherent vigesimal structure ‘of the long count and the Fact that 4 Ahau 8 Cumku served as the era base meant that the four largest unity of the long count—hakiuns, ars, tis, and twinals—ended on days named Abu. On the eve of the Spanish conquest, the Maya of Yueatin named -katuns after the days on which they ended. The nu ‘merical coefficients of those days avcurred in a rey: ular sequence: 13, 11,9, 7.5.3, 1, 12.10,8,6.4. and 2. There were thirteen such time per plete katun eyele, which equaled 260 sans oF approx mately 256 solar years. ‘This cyele provided the temporal framework for Maya hastory in the Books of Chilam Balam ‘There are very few examples of initial series nota: tion in the northern pint of the Maya area, Another notation, hased om the ey ss of thirteon Autus de senbed above, substituted for ital sites in northern Yueatan and is also mentioned in colonial Maya Sourees, The basic elements of this notation for any date at issue were: (1) the ealendar-round permuta tion of the date. (2) the position in a katt oF the ium in whieh it fell, andy the mame of the last day of that Karat, An example of the use ofthis notation ap. pears in the inscription on the Fourth lintel of the Temple of Four Lintels at Chichen za: 9 Lamt 11 Yox 13 awis 1 Nhu [esays that the date, 9 Lamat 11 Yas. fell n the thirtcenth sur: ofa Rut ending on the day | Ahau. JES. Thompson (193 the information contained in this expression is sulTi cient for calculating the Tong-count position of the date as 10.2.12.1.8. Katun | Ahaw sas the thied kn in the tenth buku, and 9 Lamat 1 Yax occurred during the fn beginning on 10.2.12.00. Karl Taube (1988) has identified a possible graph Je representation of the thirteen-Ausur eycle at the site of Mayapan in the northwestern part of the Yucatin Peninsula. The artifact in question isa sculp tured turtle with thirteen Ahau glyphs carved around the rim ofits shell (Figure 16). The eireular shape of the turtle carapace contrasts with the essentially square format of the formee cross that represents the ccolkin (compare Figure 16 with Figure 14) Othe: Calendric.al Norations. What distinguished the Maya long count from other systems of ealendri cal notation that are documented in the monumental and codieal inscriptions was the use of the era base 0.0.0.00 or 130.000 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. Long. count dates were calculated strietly in terms of that base and fell completely within the limits of the cur ‘ent Maya era, The other types of ealendr tion—ring numbers and long rounds, serpent numbers, and the pictur count were derived from ‘earlier bases and! were not restricted in their range to the thirteen bakers following the era base date of + haw 8 Cumku The astronomical tables in the Dresden Codes em ployed a system oF ealendrieal notation that ex: pressed dates in terms of two distance numbers, known as “ring numbers” and “long rounds.” Ring. numbers could be identified by the red ring oF ribbon, that enclosed their lowest term (shown outlined in black in Figure I7w) They referred t0 da sins, winals, tus, and, occasionally the era base. Long rounds vonnceted the pre ets bases reached by the ring numbers to other dates that ell during the eurient Mays era, The cumulative to tals of some rin suns before ‘numbers and long rounds represent. ed int ager multiples of the astronomical periods covered by the Lubles. For example, the ring number12 Kayab LONG 8 3 ROUNDS . 3 0 : = Sy 13 Akbal (DE i seme date it solid black