Chronicle
The Books of Chilam Balam
Chilam Balam
Anonymous · 1700
Synopsis
Books written in Yucatec Maya with the Latin alphabet, copied from village to village over two centuries: prophecies, calendars, remedies, genealogies, accounts of the conquest, and pieces of Spanish almanacs copied alongside. They are the only texts in which Maya thought speaks after the conquest, and it speaks there in the writing of the conquerors.
Context
The books of Chilam Balam are about ten manuscripts copied by Mayas of Yucatán over the two centuries that followed the conquest, in the Maya language but in the Latin alphabet learned from the missionaries. They mix prophecies, dynastic chronicles, ritual calendars, medical recipes and borrowings from European culture. Each village had its own, named after it, and five of these books have disappeared. The name comes from two Maya words, the diviner and the jaguar, and is said to designate a priest who would have announced the coming of the Spaniards.
Who it is for
Composite texts, with no narrative unity, to be read as archives rather than as a book.
Prizes and reception
Major sources for Postclassic Maya history, they have been translated and commented on since the nineteenth century and are held in several libraries.