T168 as Itsa’: Maya Sorcerers and Their Succession

Abstract

The reading of T168 has long been a major problem for Maya epigraphers (Thompson, 1950; Berlin, 1968; Proskouriakoff, 1960, 1963, 1964; Barthel, 1968; Lounsbury, 1976; Marcus, 1976; Mathews and Justeson, 1984). The only evidence for its meaning which does not rest upon a translation is provided by its apperance with titles such as those examined in Appendix B of this paper. Similarly the nature of the itsa' has long been a thorn in the side of Maya historians (Roys, 1933; Thompson, 1970, 1977; Edmonson, 1982; Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, 1983). The primary evidence concerning the nature of the itsa' comes from such difficu1.t to interpret sources as the Yucatec Books of Chilam Balam and the accounts of early Spanish chroniclers. The reading presented here, of Tl68 as itsa', suggests these two problems cannot be examined in isolation as they are facets of the same problem, a problem of paramount importance to Maya studies as a whole.