Ethnohistory

Scribal Interaction and the Transmission

of Traditional Knowledge: A Postclassic
Maya Perspective

Gabrielle Vail, New College of Florida

Abstract. This article contributes to the discussion of literacy in colonial Meso-

america by providing a historical perspective concerning scribal practices in the
pre-­Hispanic Maya region—particularly those relating to the creation and use of
screenfold codices—and interactions among different literary traditions. This data
set provides an important point of departure for understanding later (colonial-­
period) practices among the elite of the northern Maya region, for whom reading,
writing, consulting, and reciting texts had been deeply embedded within the culture
for at least a millennium by the time they first came into contact with Europeans.
Keywords. scribe, Postclassic, Maya, codex, Venus

Introduction

As a means of addressing the issue of literacy in the pre-­Hispanic Maya area,

I explore questions of scribal process during the pre-­Hispanic period, with
an emphasis on scribes who engaged in painting rather than sculpting, as
their work most closely resembles that of scribes trained in the tradition of
alphabetic writing during the colonial period. For the pre-­Hispanic Maya,
painting and writing were considered synonymous, both described by the
verb tz’ib’, whereas scribes—those who wrote or painted—were called ah
tz’ib’. The books they painted were known as hu’un, a word also used for
paper more generally and for objects made of paper (such as the headbands
worn by Classic Maya kings).
Very few examples of codices are known from contexts dating to
the Classic period (ca. 250–900 CE). Several instances of what have been
reported as eroded codices have been recovered from tombs (Fash 1991:

Ethnohistory 62:3 (July 2015) DOI 10.1215/00141801-2890182

Copyright 2015 by American Society for Ethnohistory

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446 Gabrielle Vail

120; Reents-­Budet 1994: 57), although little information beyond this has
been forthcoming. The few that have survived from the Postclassic period
are very similar to each other in content, style, and their method of manufac-
ture. Sheets of paper made from the inner bark of the ficus tree were glued
together, folded into leaves, and then coated with calcium carbonate to pre-
pare them for painting (Coe and Kerr 1997: 143–44, 171). Studies of scribal
handwriting suggest that the Dresden Codex was the product of more than
one scribe (Nikolai Grube, pers. comm., September 2012), and nine scribal
hands have been identified in the Madrid Codex (Lacadena 2000).1

Scribal Practice

Scribes played an important role in Maya society from the Classic into the
colonial period. Even a generation after the conquest, scribes trained in
the hieroglyphic tradition continued to perform their duties, although this
had to be done in secret because of extirpation campaigns aimed at elimi-
nating idolatrous practices (Chuchiak 2004). A description of a ceremony
performed in August 1566 reveals the continuation of a pre-­Hispanic tradi-
tion almost fifty years after initial contact with Europeans: dressed in their
priestly outfits, four Maya priests (ah k’in) met at the house of the head priest
(the Ah K’in May) to celebrate a ritual cleansing of several Maya codices.2
This Pocam festival resembles that described by Bishop Diego de Landa in
his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán as part of the rituals associated with the
month Wo in the indigenous calendar (Tozzer 1941: 153).3 The three hiero-
glyphic codices present at the ceremony were anointed with suhuy ha’ (vir-
gin water) to purify them, after which the Ah K’in May opened the books
to divine the prophecies for the year (Chuchiak 2004: 167).

Classic-­Period Scribes
Classic-­period sources provide a wealth of information about scribes
and painters from the Maya lowlands in the form of artifactual evidence
(including ink pots and pigments found in archaeological contexts), depic-
tions of scribes in both human and supernatural forms, epigraphic data (the
presence of scribal titles and occasionally artists’ signatures), and architec-
tural features such as buildings and tombs that may have housed scribes
(see, e.g., Coe and Kerr 1997: 100–101; Fash 1991: 120; Reents-­Budet 1994:
chap. 2).
A majority of the evidence comes from painted polychrome pottery
vessels that depict scenes within royal courts as well as origin myths and
mythic episodes involving deities and other supernatural beings associated
with the scribal office. The pottery painters themselves are rarely depicted,

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 447

although scribes do sometimes appear. They are identified by several diag-

nostic features, including a cut-­conch paint pot, the inclusion of quill pens
in their headdresses, the wearing of an object representing a deer ear, and
the presence of a scroll of bar-­and-­dot numbers; additionally, they are often
pictured seated in front of depictions of a screenfold codex (Coe and Kerr
1997: 92; Reents-­Budet 1994: 36–43).
Classic-­period artists most likely worked within elite workshops,
some of which were attached to residential compounds belonging to the
royal family (Reents-­Budet 1994: 43), as recent excavations at the sites of
Aguateca and Motul de San José suggest (Foias and Emery 2012; Inomata
and Stiver 1998). Dorie Reents-­Budet (1994: 43) suggests that codical art-
ists, like those who painted polychrome vessels, were trained in “historical
and mythological pictorial programs as well as in mathematics, astronomy
and calendrical calculations.”
Many of the ah tz’ib’ portrayed in Classic-­period contexts are deities
rather than humans. Origin stories relate the beginning of the scribal arts to
an episode in which the Hero Twins turn their half-­brothers, One Batz and
One Chuen, into monkeys to repay them for their arrogance, “and since that
time they have been called upon by the flautists and the singers. The ancient
ones also called upon them, they who were the writers and the carvers”
(Christenson 2003: 147). It is therefore not surprising to see scribes and/or
scribal patrons depicted in the form of anthropomorphic monkeys in both
Classic and Postclassic sources.
The primary patron of scribal artists during the Classic period was
God N, or Pawahtun, a deity who can appear in singular or quatripartite
form (Reents-­Budet 1994: 43). Depictions on pottery vessels show Pawah-
tuns (or the creator deity Itzamna) reading or interpreting codices as well
as in the role of teacher. Pawahtuns are likewise associated with Structure
9N-­82 at Copan, which has been identified as either the residence of, or a
meeting place for, scribes and artisans (Fash 1991: 120). Excavations below
the northeast corner of the building revealed the burial of an individual who
can be identified as a scribe by the goods contained within his grave. Inscrip-
tions associated with the structure indicate a close affiliation between the
individuals identified with the building and Copan’s ruling dynasty (ibid.).
Excavations at the Terminal Classic site of Aguateca have also revealed
a building associated with scribes; excavations in Structure M8–10 recov-
ered conch shell ink pots, implements for grinding pigments, and containers
with actual pigments (Inomata and Stiver 1998). A brief hieroglyphic text
inscribed on a shell describes one of the scribes who practiced there as a
member of the royal family. Additionally, recent evidence from Xultun
reveals painted numerical and calendrical texts that provide evidence of a

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448 Gabrielle Vail

possible scribal workshop dating to the eighth century, contemporaneous

with the base dates of several of the astronomical tables in the Dresden
Codex (Aveni, Saturno, and Stuart 2013).
Excavations at these sites provide compelling evidence to suggest that
ah tz’ib’ were part of the elite class. We know that members of the royal
family were trained as scribes/painters; the fact that artists are sometimes
portrayed on vessels featuring a historical context, where they are shown
wearing elaborate clothing and jewelry and seated on or next to the ruler’s
throne, implies that they were an integral part of elite Maya society (Reents-­
Budet 1994: 47).4 Indeed, epigraphic evidence in the form of scribal sig-
natures confirms that ah tz’ib’ were, at least at times, important members
of royal lineages (55, 62–64). Even when pottery vessels were not signed,
painters often made reference to themselves by including a title such as
itz’at (artist, sage) or ah tz’ib’ (he the painter/writer) (see Stuart 1987 for
decipherment of these terms).
The cave site of Naj Tunich in Guatemala, which served as a pilgrim-
age center for members of the ruling class from Classic-­period sites in the
surrounding region, serves as another rich source of information about
scribes. Hieroglyphic texts painted on its walls commemorate royal visits
to this watery, underworld place as well as the rituals that were performed
there. Several texts were signed by the scribes, and at least one includes the
itz’at title (Stone 2005: 143). Based on these and other examples, Andrea
Stone (2005: 136) suggests that the Classic Maya endowed the scribal office
with a supernatural component, which involved rituals performed in under-
world locales such as caves and cenotes. The idea receives support from the
Postclassic period as well.
Only a handful of scribes are depicted in Postclassic (ca. 1200–1500 CE)
sources; they are represented by the Yucatec rain deity Chaak and the creator
Itzamna in the Maya codices and by a censer (incensario) depicting a Mon-
key Man scribe from Mayapán (Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003a; Reents-­
Budet 1994: 43). Ethnohistoric sources describe Itzamna as the “first priest”
and the inventor of writing and the calendar, a role he assumes on several
occasions in the Madrid Codex (Tozzer 1941: 153). Scribes are associated
with caves and cenotes on Madrid page 73b (see fig. 1) and also in a scene
from the Santa Rita murals (see gallery 1), which has been interpreted as the
birth of the scribal arts in a cave or underworld context (Vail 2008).

Postclassic-­Period Scribes
During the Postclassic period, scribes played a less prominent role than
previously, likely because of the decreased emphasis on royal courts and
divinely established ruling lineages. Fewer than a dozen depictions of

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 449

Figure 1. Chaak as scribe on Madrid 73b. After Léon de Rosny (1883: pl. 39)

scribes have been identified, and there are no known scribal signatures. On
the other hand, there is substantial physical evidence of the works produced
by ah tz’ib’ in terms of screenfold codices and painted murals.
Painted manuscripts attributed to three separate codical traditions sur-
vive from the Postclassic period; these include: the three or four extant Maya
codices, three of which are believed to derive from Yucatán;5 the codices of
the Borgia group, which can be linked to Puebla, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, and
possibly the Gulf Coast region; and those associated with the Mixtec tradi-
tion. Ethnohistoric and other lines of evidence make it clear that the number
of codices extant today—twenty or so—in no way reflects the actual situa-
tion at the time of the Spanish Conquest, at which time a large number of
codices were reported to have been seen by or shown to friars and colonial
administrators (Christenson 2003: 33; Chuchiak 2004).

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450 Gabrielle Vail

Painted murals are also an important component of the Postclassic

Maya artistic record. Although few of the extant examples include hiero-
glyphic texts of any length, captions (toponyms and/or dates) occur on
Postclasssic murals from several sites, most of them situated in the eastern
region of the Yucatán Peninsula (Grube 1999; Love 1994: 8–9; Vail 2008).
Ethnohistoric sources provide a wealth of information about scribal
practice and literacy at the juncture between the pre-­Hispanic and colonial
periods. Landa notes, for example, that the second sons of lords received
instruction in the “sciences as well as in writing books” (Tozzer 1941: 27).
They were taught by priests (ah k’in), who trained their charges in a variety
of subjects, including “the computations of the years, months and days, the
festivals and ceremonies, the administration of sacraments, the fateful days
and seasons, their methods of divination and their prophecies, events and
the cures for diseases, and their antiquities and how to read and write with
the letters and characters, with which they wrote, and drawings which illus-
trate the meanings of the writings” (27–28).
Current scholarship supports the idea that, among the Yucatec Maya
during the Postclassic period, only the priests and some members of the
nobility were literate in the hieroglyphic script (Roys 1972: 87). According
to the Relaciones de Yucatán (1898–1900, 1: 52), for example, “they did not
teach these [their letters] to any except noble persons; and for this reason
all the priests, who were the most concerned with them, were persons of
rank” (Roys 1972: 87). Mayapán appears to have played a significant role
in the dissemination of knowledge and the scribal arts during the Postclas-
sic period, likely serving as a center of codex production (Love 1994: 13). It
was to this important site that priests came from outlying provinces to be
instructed, later returning to their communities with sacred books (Tozzer
1941: 39).
Whether there were pre-­Hispanic Maya scribes who were not of elite
status remains an open question. Evidence that indigenous notaries during
the colonial period may not all have been members of the nobility (Bricker
2015, this issue) raises the question of whether this was a change brought
about by the conquest and the adoption of the Latin script or whether it
may have had earlier antecedents. While present studies do not allow a
definitive answer, the consensus of opinion (which I share) is that the cre-
ation of hieroglyphic texts was limited to elite members of society, who
not only had training in the technical aspects required (reading and writ-
ing) but also had access to the esoteric knowledge being disseminated. The
situation that Victoria R. Bricker (ibid.) discusses for eighteenth-­century
Tekanto specifically involves the creation of testaments—documents that
relate to the quotidian, rather than the ritual, sphere.

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 451

Literacy in the Pre-­Hispanic Period

As previously noted (Houston 1994, 2000: 155; Houston and Stuart 1992),
literacy is defined by two aspects: its production and its reception (the read-
ing and exegesis of texts). The former has been considered in detail in the
preceding discussion, making it clear that the production of written texts
was the province of scribes/priests, who were members of the elite class in
both the Classic and Postclassic periods.6
The public versus private context of writing is an important factor that
also needs to be considered, as it relates to the nature of the audience and
who could read the texts. Although there was likely a larger group of people
who could read the hieroglyphic script (or at least certain components, such
as the calendrical information) than were engaged in writing it, it is impor-
tant to keep in mind that many texts were not written to be read silently by
a single reader but were intended instead to be recited or performed orally
(Houston 2000: 155).
In considering pre-­Hispanic literacy, it is imperative to view each
region and time period separately. Major shifts in political structure and
the production of hieroglyphic texts occurred during the transition from
the Classic to the Postclassic period (Grube 1999: 340–41), resulting in a
decreased emphasis on public monuments and the increased importance
of highly specialized ritual texts. That the painting tradition continued in
a robust fashion may be seen not only from the hieroglyphic codices but
also in terms of murals found at numerous sites throughout the peninsula.
Examples from Cobá, Pistolas, Playa del Carmen, El Rey, Xelhá, and Santa
Rita include short hieroglyphic captions, often of a calendrical nature.
In light of these data, characterizations of the Postclassic period as a
time associated with the “death” of the hieroglyphic script made by sev-
eral scholars at recent conferences are clearly unjustified. Ethnohistoric
data indicate that indigenous scribes continued to hold an important posi-
tion in the community into the early colonial period (Chuchiak 2004), and
evidence from Landa himself suggests that hieroglyphic codices played a
prominent role in Postclassic daily life and rituals (Tozzer 1941: 111–12,
153). Indeed, Landa notes that codices were of such significance to the
priests that they were buried with them, and they were said to be the most
important among the possessions taken when Mayapán was abandoned in
the mid-­fifteenth century (ibid.: 39).
Although it is possible that such codices were kept as heirlooms rather
than being actively used, evidence to the contrary is provided by the Span-
ish themselves (see Chuchiak 2004; Tozzer 1941).7 Witnesses to an indige-
nous ritual celebrated in August 1566 in the Yucatec community of Calot-
mul, Yucatán, for example (described above), report that three hieroglyphic

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452 Gabrielle Vail

codices were anointed with suhuy ha’ and then consulted by the Ah K’in
May to pronounce the prophecies for the year (Chuchiak 2004: 167).
Clearly, then, the tradition of recording prophecies, calendrical infor-
mation, and ritual texts in hieroglyphic books was as important—if not
more so—during the Postclassic period in the Maya area as was the case
during the Classic period. While it is indisputable that texts were recorded
less frequently on other types of media, claims that the Postclassic period
was devoid of literary endeavors or a literate class are completely unjustified.

The Maya Codices and the Transmission

of Cultural Knowledge
Almanacs and tables in the extant Maya codices had various purposes: to
record astronomical and seasonal information, schedule events of impor-
tance throughout the year (planting, harvesting, and other subsistence
activities, rituals, etc.), and provide prognostications based on different
calendrical cycles. They are formatted in a variety of ways, but they are uni-
fied by an emphasis on relating activities and events to the ritual (260–­day)
and solar (365–­day) calendars.
There is little doubt that the codices currently housed in Dresden,
Madrid, and Paris date to the later part of the Postclassic period; they were
likely painted within a century or so of the Spanish Conquest (H. Bricker
and V. Bricker 2011; Love 1994; Vail 2006; Vail and Aveni 2004). This
is suggested not only by dates reconstructed for astronomical and other
instruments (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 2011) but also by a comparison of
the painting style found in the codices to that of murals that can be dated
by reference to their association with architectural features as well as the
types of pottery and other items of material culture depicted (see, e.g., Graff
1997; Love 1994; Paxton 1991, 2004; Thompson 1972). Evidence of this
nature likewise indicates that the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices were
products of the northern Maya area (Macri and Vail 2009: 4), although
they contain almanacs and tables with Classic-­period antecedents, some of
which may originally have been composed in the southern lowlands.8
In this section, I consider evidence internal to the codices to develop
hypotheses about how knowledge was transmitted over a period spanning
many centuries and what types of information were important to the Post-
classic scribes who drafted the codices. Building upon this knowledge base,
we can then develop models that may prove useful for interpreting Maya
scribal practice in the colonial period. If we take the Dresden Codex as our
starting point, the following factors must be considered: (1) evidence sug-
gesting it was composed by multiple scribes; (2) its mixed nature, consisting
of almanacs, astronomical tables, and several incomplete tables; (3) the fact

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 453

that most of the tables have base dates in the Late/Terminal Classic period
(eighth and ninth centuries) but use dates falling in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries; (4) the presence of both Yucatecan and Ch’olan vocabu-
lary and morphological features (although the two rarely occur in the same
almanac or table); and (5) the presence of almanacs with cognates in the
Dresden, the Madrid, and sometimes the Paris codices.
Texts in the Dresden Codex demonstrate a mixed literary/lexical tra-
dition, stemming from both the Yucatecan and Ch’olan language families
(Vail and Hernández 2013a). This may result from the fact that Yucatecan
scribes were copying texts originally written in a Ch’olan language and at
the same time incorporating Yucatecan spellings into their updated manu-
scripts (Vail 2000). A Ch’olan substrate would make sense if the texts being
copied were originally from Classic-­ period manuscripts, since current
scholarship suggests that an ancestral form of Ch’olti’an served as a lingua
franca throughout the Maya area during the Classic period (Houston 2000;
Houston, Robertson, and Stuart 2000). Almanacs written in a Yucatecan
language may indicate the translation of an earlier text or be a new addition
to the codex (e.g., drafted by one of the Postclassic scribes responsible for
painting the Dresden Codex).
There is less evidence of an underlying Ch’olan substrate in the Madrid
Codex, although it does include some Ch’olan vocabulary. It is likely, how-
ever, that these were archaic forms that had become fossilized graphically,
much as was true of the month glyphs used in the codices. Evidence from
the codex instead reflects what appears to be a period of intense interaction
between scribes (and/or populations more generally) from Yucatán and
highland Mexico. This may be seen, for example, in an almanac format
unique to the Madrid and Borgia group codices—the in extenso almanac,
which explicitly lists all 260 days of the ritual calendar. Correspondences
between those on pages 12b–­18b and 75–76 of the Madrid Codex and
examples in the Borgia codices, as well as other connections between the
Madrid almanacs and codices in the Borgia group (figs. 2–3; also see Boone
2005; Just 2004; Lacadena 2010; Thomas 1884), have raised questions con-
cerning what types of interactions may have led to the sharing of this alma-
nac type. Moreover, other almanac structures (such as circular and “cross-
over” almanacs), although present in small numbers in the Dresden Codex,
are far more common in the Madrid Codex and in the Mexican tradition.
The present composition of the codices can be explained by positing
that its almanacs and tables consist of those copied from Classic-­period
codices—sometimes without modification but more often with revisions
(ranging from minor to quite extensive)—and newer instruments drafted
by Postclassic scribes, often in situations of culture contact (V. Bricker

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454 Gabrielle Vail

Figure 2. Almanac on Fejérváry-­Mayer 1. Compare to Madrid 75–76 (fig. 3).

Drawing by Christine Hernández; reproduced with permission

and H. Bricker 1992; Macri and Vail 2009; Vail and Hernández 2013b).
An example of the former situation involves the k’atun pages in the Paris
Codex, which span the period from AD 475 to 731 (H. and V. Bricker 2011:
359)9—beginning a full millennium before the physical codex in which they
were included was actually painted! For reasons that remain unknown,
rather than recording a contemporary k’atun cycle, the scribe considered
the information from the earlier cycle to be more important to preserve.
The original version of the almanac was likely copied from a Classic-­period
manuscript into new codices a dozen or more times before it found its way
into the Paris Codex. Unfortunately, none of these intermediary steps was
preserved.

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 455

Figure 3. Almanac on Madrid 75–76. After de Rosny (1883: pl. 41–42)

The practice of copying ancient texts remains important in the Maya

area. A number of manuscripts and printed books were kept by Maya sec-
retaries or scribes in the region of Quintana Roo in the 1930s. One of these,
dated to 1875, included a copy of an earlier manuscript from 1628 that con-
tained an almost exact copy of a text from the Book of Chilam Balam of Chu-
mayel (Villa Rojas 1945: 73–74).
It is uncertain whether the copy of the Chilam Balam text was being
used by the indigenous scribes or was simply being preserved because of
its sacred nature. Similarly, we do not know in what contexts the users of
the Paris Codex would have referred to the k’atun pages. Despite the fact
that they contained astronomical information unique to a much earlier time
period, their prognostications were perhaps still considered relevant when
a particular k’atun returned, as would happen once every 256 years.

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456 Gabrielle Vail

The content of the codices cannot be explained only in terms of copy-

ing earlier instruments, however. Rather, much of the content was being
actively updated to reflect changing circumstances. The prefaces to astro-
nomical tables provide an explicit record of the different periods of time
when they (or previous versions of them) were in use. With reference to
the Venus table in the Dresden Codex, four separate entry dates are listed,
falling in the tenth through thirteenth centuries (H. Bricker and V. Bricker
2011: 187). The latest of these—which remained relevant into the early
fourteenth century—was the one being used by the scribes who composed
the Dresden Codex; the others were presumably preserved because they
provided important information of a sacred and historical nature.

Dialogical Processes in the Creation of Texts:

The Dresden Venus Table

Among the Aztec, the tlamatinime were the creators and keepers of tradi-
tional knowledge; they painted and owned the books in which “knowledge
was codified through painted images” (Boone 2005: 21). The Venus table
in the Dresden Codex provides a useful example for considering the ways
in which scribes were both keepers of traditional knowledge and innova-
tors responsible for keeping written records current, based on its earliest
use date in the tenth century and subsequent updates to make it relevant to
thirteenth- and fourteenth-­century users. It is significant that not only the
contemporary version of the table but also the earlier ones were considered
important enough to have been included in the Dresden Codex.
We do not, unfortunately, know what the earliest version looked like
and whether its iconography and texts would have matched those of the
later version—questions that are of particular interest with regard to better
understanding scribal process and interaction. The five pages of the table
proper include three registers characterized by texts and pictures on their
right-­hand sides that refer specifically to a beginning date in AD 1221. The
upper register pictures a series of deities who are named in the hieroglyphic
text as “feeding” and/or “arming” chak ek’, or Venus. These five deities
(Pawah Ayin, Kimil, Kan Pawahtun, the moon goddess, and Hun Ahaw)
are all Maya in origin and have links to Classic-­period iconography and
mythic cycles (gallery 2a).
Venus, or the great star, appears in five different manifestations in the
middle register, mirroring the five different paths the planet follows as a
Morning Star in the sky (gallery 2b). The first of these, God L, has clear
underworld associations, as seen not only in the codices but also at Classic-­
period sites such as Palenque (Taube 1992: 81). The next such figure, Lahun

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 457

Chan (Ten Sky) is the morning star aspect of Venus on Dresden 47, a deity
mentioned in the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel in reference to the west-
ern aspect of the planet (Knowlton 2010: 70) and described in the Corde-
mex dictionary as being of central Mexican origin, introduced to Yucatán
via the “Putun” Itzá (Barrera Vásquez et al. 1980: 432).
The third figure depicting the Morning Star/warrior aspect of Venus
is of particular interest, as it appears in the guise of a Monkey Man scribe
or artisan such as those pictured on Classic-­period vessels. Rather than an
inkpot and brush, however, this figure holds the atlatl and darts associated
with both Maya and Mexican Morning Star deities. Moreover, the name
given in the hieroglyphic caption is Tawisikal, likely a Mayanization of the
Nahuatl name Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the Aztec god of Venus as Morning
Star (Whittaker 1986).
The fourth manifestation of Venus in its warrior aspect, on Dresden
49, is Xiuhtecuhtli, the Mexican god of hearths, fire, and time. The same
deity is pictured, in a very similar pose, on page 1 of the Codex Fejérváry-­
Mayer (see fig. 2), one of the manuscripts from the Borgia group, as Bricker
(2010: 314) and others have previously noted. The caption to the Dresden
frame names this deity as chak xiwitei (“red” or “great” Xiwitei), a clear
Maya adaptation of the Nahuatl name (Taube and Bade 1991).
On the last page of the Venus table, the deity pictured as the Morning
Star/warrior aspect of Venus is Itztlacoliuhqui-­Ixquimilli, the Mexican god
of stone, cold, and castigation (Riese 1982; Taube 1992: 110). This figure is
frequently depicted, as he is here, as blindfolded and having a dart in his
headdress. Although the Maya have a version of this deity named Kisin
who is also pictured with bound eyes on occasion, they chose to represent
the Mexican deity in place of Kisin in the Venus table. Rather than being
given the name more commonly associated with this figure, however, his
name was instead recorded as ka-­ka-­tu-­na-­la, which may be interpreted as
Ka Akat Tunal, meaning Two (ka) Reed (akat for actatl) Day or Spirit (tunal
for tonal).10 This calendrical name signifies an association with Reed days
(Miller and Taube 1993: 164).
The bottom register shows the victims of Venus’s darts (gallery 2c),
who correspond closely with those from the Venus almanac on pages 53–54
of the Borgia Codex (fig. 4). Associations between the two are shown in
table 1, leading to the question of whether these correspondences are indica-
tive of scribal interchange or are the result of a shared ideology.
The two almanacs seem to be very closely associated, with the Dresden
version providing a Maya “translation” of the events depicted in the Mexi-
can manuscript. Specifically, Vail and Hernández (2013b: chap. 7) suggest
that its five pages represent a retelling of Maya and Mexican stories of cre-

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 Ethnohistory

458 Gabrielle Vail

Figure 4. Venus almanac on Borgia 53–54. Drawing by Christine Hernández;

reproduced with permission

ation leading to the birth of the present sun (Hun Ahaw), who is pictured
having risen into the sky from the underworld on Dresden 50a.
Why would Maya scribes have included Mexican deities in their
account of Venus’s descent to the underworld and its reemergence as a dan-
gerous warrior deity? Clearly, this could only have occurred as a result of
close interaction among members of two separate literary traditions, much as
occurred in later colonial-­period contexts with the intersection of European
and indigenous traditions (seen, for example, in the Yucatec Books of Chilam
Balam). The author(s) of the Dresden Venus table undertook a comparison of
creation accounts from the two traditions, which were then combined into
a single narrative with multiple strands—a reenvisioning in which the five
manifestations of Venus were framed within the Mexican story of the Five
Suns and the battles between the sun and Venus, which are also described in
colonial Yucatec accounts concerning Oxlahun-­ti’-­K’uh and Bolon-­ti’-­K’uh,
or Thirteen As God and Nine As God (Vail and Hernández 2013b).
The Dresden narrative in its entirety is discussed in Gabrielle Vail and
Christine M. Hernández (ibid.); here, a single example suffices to show the
interplay of Maya and highland Mexican elements in the table. Dresden
48 appears to be concerned with the Sun of Wind, the second of the five

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 Ethnohistory

Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 459

creations described in the Leyenda de los soles (Bierhorst 1992: 142–43).

According to this account: “These people, who lived in the second [age],
were blown away by the wind in the time of the sun 4 Wind. And when they
were blown away and destroyed, they turned into monkeys. All their houses
and trees were blown away. And the sun was also blown away” (ibid.: 142).
Links between this account and Dresden 48 include the appearance of
Pawahtun in the upper register, who may have functioned as a Maya wind
deity, and the presence of Tawiskal/the Monkey Man artisan in the middle
register. Tawisikal (Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli) is an aspect of the Mexican wind
deity Quetzalcoatl; additionally, in both Maya and Mexican accounts, the
race destroyed by winds was turned into monkeys (Bierhorst 1992: 142;
Christenson 2003: 90). Both Pawahtun and the Monkey Man, moreover,
have links to scribes; in this regard, it is of considerable interest that the year
date associated with the pictures on this page is 10 Wo. Not only does woh
refer to glyphs and to writing, but the month Wo involved an anointing of
the sacred books kept by the scribes (Tozzer 1941: 153–54).
The spearing of the maize god in the lower register of Dresden 48 has
connections to a mythological episode that was recorded several centuries
later in the Popol Vuh, an alphabetic text written in K’iche’ Maya that likely
derived from a pre-­Hispanic narrative tradition that can be documented in
both the lowland and highland regions. The wounding of the maize god is
comparable to his decapitation, death, and burial, as related in the later
Popol Vuh, when the lords of Xibalba placed his head in a tree, which
miraculously flowered (Christenson 2003: 125–26). A similar sequence of
events is suggested by the hieroglyphic captions on Dresden 48:
Nal u hu’ul
U mu’uk lak’in
Tu kab’ tu ch’een
U mu’uk nal winik
The maize god is the speared one.
He is buried in the east,
In the earth, in the cave.11
The maize person is buried.
Ox ti’ uh ox tu winik
U mu’uk k’an nal te’ ahaw
U mu’uk lak’in wuk ha’ nal
Three [the wind/flower deity] as the moon, three as the month.
The yellow maize tree lord is buried.
He is buried in the east, at Seven Water Place.12

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460 Gabrielle Vail

This retelling of a mythic narrative with elements from both Maya and
Mexican cosmogony serves to situate the events in the Venus table in both
primordial and historical time. Not only does the mythic past conflate with
the historical present, but the events that took place in that long-­ago era
have a very real effect on events in present time. In this sense, the Venus
table functions not only as a predictive instrument to highlight times of
danger associated with Venus’s heliacal rise during the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 2011: chap. 8) but, addition-
ally, as an explanatory device highlighting the mythological basis of these
predictions.
Although scholars have previously commented on the presence of
Nahuatl deities in the Venus table, there has been little attempt to contex-
tualize the epigraphic and iconographic data in light of the dialogic pro-
cesses involved in creating them. My analysis suggests that the table was
created in much the same way as that documented by Timothy W. Knowl-
ton (2010: chap. 3) in relation to the Books of Chilam Balam, which were
written during the process of negotiating Maya and European identities
and worldviews. Knowlton characterizes mythological texts (which would
apply to those in the Venus table) as “a species of discourse, by which cul-
tural knowledge emerges during its negotiation via one or more languages,
languages being historical and social verbal-­ideological systems that may
or may not coincide with our traditional concept of unitary ‘national lan-
guages’” (8). In the case of the Dresden Venus table, the underlying systems
being negotiated involved Maya and highland Mexican ideologies.
A similar process of negotiation, as Paja Faudree (2015, this issue)
notes, was involved in the creation of the Spanish translation of the Chon-
tal text found in the Title of Acalan-­Tixchel. Both examples stem from situa-
tions of cultural contact, although the Venus table is not a product of colo-
nialism (despite the fact that there may have been a differential prestige
attributed to Maya and Mexican ideologies). In considering the process by
which Nahua concepts were adopted and transmitted to a Maya audience,
it is important to keep in mind Faudree’s observation that “translation can
be a locus where meaning is constructed—rather than merely distorted or
destroyed”; she further notes the role of translators who “navigate divergent
cultural systems and create a space at their interface not only for themselves
but also for other hybrid figures” (ibid.). Much like the translators Faudree
describes, the Dresden scribe who transcribed and recast the Venus table
to incorporate Mexican ideologies can likewise be thought of as a “trans-
discursive agent.”

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 461

Scribal Interaction at Mayapán

Mayapán is known to have been a center of codex production (Tozzer 1941:

39); moreover, several of its mural paintings exhibit Mexican elements (Mil-
brath and Peraza Lope 2003b), and dozens of incensarios depicting Mexi-
can deities have been excavated (Masson and Peraza Lope 2010; Thomp-
son 1957), including one in the form of a Monkey Man scribe similar to
that seen in the Venus table (Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003a). Although
archaeological excavations have not yet revealed a Mexican enclave at the
site, ethnohistoric evidence suggests that several of the lineages living there
(including the ruling one) had ties to Mexican settlements in the Gulf Coast
region (Masson and Peraza Lope 2010; Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003b).
It was likely in this type of environment that interactions between literate
Mexicans and Yucatecans took place, which led to the creation of hybrid
almanacs like those seen in the Madrid Codex and to the incorporation of
Mexican deities and narratives in a Maya table concerning Venus.
In considering the Dresden Venus table and what it suggests about
scribal interaction, it is instructive to reflect on interactions characterizing
the colonial period, when, once again, two cultures having strong literary
traditions came into contact. What resulted during that later period is quite
similar to what we see in the Maya codices: the adoption of new forms
(i.e., the use of the Latin script both for indigenous Maya “genres” such as
almanacs and narrative histories and for new ones such as testaments, ser-
mons, etc.), the modification of content from nonlocal contexts to reflect
the indigenous worldview, and the creation of hybrid texts allowing for
comparisons of foreign and indigenous concepts in an attempt to better
understand where cultural forms of knowledge intersected and when they
remained separate.

Final Considerations

As we have seen, scribes played an integral role in keeping knowledge of the

past alive in both pre-­Hispanic and colonial Yucatán. The idea of scribes
as “creators and keepers” of traditional knowledge is one that resonates
especially well with what we know about the extant Maya codices and the
later Books of Chilam Balam. There is considerable evidence indicating that
much of the content of the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices was origi-
nally recorded in manuscripts dating at least six centuries prior to the ones
that were preserved from the late Postclassic period. This suggests that dur-
ing each generation, one or more scribes was responsible for maintaining
the traditional knowledge passed on by his forebears. The conditions under

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462 Gabrielle Vail

Table 1. Speared Victims and Their Significance

Dresden Borgia Associated with

K’awil a
Chalchiuhlicue (goddess Flood waters
of water)b
Jaguar Tezcatlipoca c Jaguars/the destruction of
Tezcatlipoca’s creation
Maize god Maize god Maize
Turtle constellation/ ? Unknown
sustenance place
Warrior figure (lord/ Shield and darts Warfare
stranger from west) (implements of warfare)
a
Another name for this deity may be Bolon Tz’akab. In mythic episodes related in the Chilam
Balam of Chumayel, Perez, and Tizimin, a flood occurs when Bolon Tz’akab steals the maize
from its underworld location and ascends with it into the sky (Knowlton 2010: 61–62).
b
Chalchiuhlicue is associated with the fourth Sun in Aztec accounts, which was destroyed by
a flood.
c
Tezcatlipoca is associated with the first Sun (the Sun of Earth) in Aztec accounts, which was
destroyed by jaguars. The jaguar is one of Tezcatlipoca’s aspects.

which this occurred are not known, but ethnohistoric sources, as well as
archaeological evidence from the Classic period, make it clear that work-
shops and/or schools served as training centers for the sons of the nobility to
become educated in the sciences, arts, calendar, and other forms of esoteric
knowledge. Thus, for Maya elite in the colonial period, the schools estab-
lished by the friars to teach reading, writing, and the catechism reflected in
most respects an institution already familiar to them.
Scribes were not only the keepers of traditional knowledge, however;
they were also the ones who created new knowledge (Boone 2005: 21–22).
Innovation of this nature is clearly evident in the Maya codices, as sug-
gested by the painting of new versions of almanacs that were intended for
use during the Postclassic period as well as the incorporation of Mexican
structural elements, dating methods, deities, and vocabulary. Similar types
of innovation likewise may be seen in adaptations of colonial text genres
to indigenous purposes (see, e.g., respectively, George-­Hirons, Hanks, and
Knowlton 2015, this issue).
Maya literary traditions were kept alive over a period of two millennia
through the training of nobles in the scribal arts, astronomy, mathematics,
calendrics, mythology, history, and other subjects. Following the conquest,
this tradition continued, albeit under Spanish control, through colonial-
period religious institutions. Despite the imposition of this new authority,
Maya scribes continued to produce texts in the indigenous tradition (Chu-
chiak 2004) while also adopting other genres introduced by the clerics and

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Scribal Interaction and the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge 463

administrators of the new realm. Literacy remained alive and well across
not only the Terminal Classic/Postclassic divide but also for several cen-
turies following the disruptions occasioned by the arrival of the Europeans.
A recent revival promises that this literary tradition will regain its vitality
and flourish in the globalized world of the twenty-­first century.

Notes

1 To the best of my knowledge, a similar study of the Paris Codex remains to be

undertaken.
2 The term priest is used in place of scribe by Bishop Diego de Landa and other
colonial sources (Tozzer 1941: 111). The role of the “priest” in Landa’s day seems
to relate particularly closely to that of scribe in the Classic period.
3 It is interesting that the month name (Wo) corresponds to the word for “glyph”
(wooh), since this month was associated with the ceremony for the priests (i.e.,
scribes).
4 This is suggested as well by the inscriptions from Xultun, which occur within
what has been identified as an elite residence (Saturno et al. 2012).
5 A fourth codex was purportedly found in a cave in Chiapas, Mexico, suggest-
ing Chiapas as a likely provenience, although its authenticity is still in question
(H. Bricker and V. Bricker 2011: 26–28; Coe 1973; Milbrath 2002).
6 Another form of writing involves graffiti, which has been found at a number
of Classic-­period sites. This genre remains to be further studied, as do pseudo-­
glyphs (glyphs that mimic writing but do not have an identifiable meaning).
7 Moreover, evidence from the surviving codices argues for their use and revision
into the fifteenth century (see discussion below).
8 An almanac can be differentiated from a table because it lacks references to
absolute (Long Count) dates, whereas astronomical tables are placed in linear
time.
9 Thirteen numbered k’atuns (a period of approximately twenty years) formed an
important historical cycle.
10 Ka is the Maya word for “two,” whereas acatl and tonal are Nahuatl terms.
11 Compare this to the burial of Hun Hunahpu (another name for the maize god)
in the ball court in the Popol Vuh (Christenson 2003: 125).
12 Seven Water Place is a Maya toponym that recalls the Mexican cave of origin,
Chicomoztoc.

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