The Chilam Balam of Ixil: Facsimile and Study of an Unpublished Maya Book

Abstract

This study continues to demonstrate why the Books of Chilam Balam rank among the most significant writings produced by Indigenous people and are extremely valuable in the study of the Maya. Authored and preserved throughout the colonial period by literate Maya, the books contain a potpourri of subjects ranging from medicinal remedies, to local histories, to Christian texts. As technically forbidden compilations, these books offer scholars rare insights into what the Maya recorded and preserved, largely of their own volition, and how they made sense of European concepts within their own worldview. Although other Chilam Balams have received scholarly attention for years, that from Ixil has remained in relative obscurity. With this work, Laura Caso Barrera brings the first translation of the Chilam Balam of Ixil in its entirety to English readers. First appearing in Spanish in 2011, this updated edition brings the same beautiful color images of and astute insight into the manuscript that appeared nearly a decade earlier. The first part of the book contains a facsimile of the manuscript, while the second part holds essays written by Caso Barrera and Mario M. Aliphat Fernández, followed by a full transcription and translation of the manuscript. Two appendixes illustrating the flora and fauna appearing in the Ixil complement the main text.The two essays that introduce the translation of the Ixil are important and of significant value in understanding not only the contents of the manuscript itself but also the colonial Maya in general. In her essay, Caso Barrera examines the European and Indigenous contributions to the Chilam Balam of Ixil to reveal the impact of both foreign and local ideologies on its various texts. Throughout, she demonstrates how European works such as almanacs and medical and biblical texts all informed the content of the Maya manuscript. Here, Caso Barrera’s detective work in locating possible Old World archetypes is impressive, as she identifies specific texts as likely suspects. Moreover, the essay gives due credit to Maya culture and its influence on the final text while recognizing the authorial and creative role of its composers who acted as more than mere copyists of European genres. As such, the Books of Chilam Balam became “tools used by the Maya to understand and modify the latest European concepts and theories to amalgamate them with their own knowledge” (96). Aliphat Fernández authors the second essay, which provides additional details and insights into Maya calendrics, numerology, and cosmic worldview. The excellent overview delivers the background necessary to appreciate the appearance of such themes in the Ixil and how the Ixil incorporated and familiarized similar European concepts into their own culture.Overall, this important work joins those previous in the historiography that reveal the importance of locating both the European and Indigenous elements of Maya texts to better understand how the Maya negotiated their colonial world. The Books of Chilam Balam provide an excellent observatory from which to view these elements, and English-language readers will welcome this new addition.