Chilam Balam [de] Chumayel ; Chilam Balam de Tizimin.

Format:

Manuscript

Standardized Title:

Books of Chilam Balam.

Language:

Mayan languages

Spanish

Subjects (All):

Mayan languages--Texts.

Maya calendar.

Maya astronomy.

Mayas--History.

Mayas.

History.

Calendars--Early works to 1800.

Indians of Mexico--Languages--Early works to 1800.

Language and languages.

Indians of Mexico--Languages.

Calendars.

Mayan languages.

Mexico--Languages--Early works to 1800.

Mexico.

Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)

calendars (documents)

chronicles

Manuscripts, Spanish.

Texts.

Penn Provenance:

Accessioned, 1942.

Note (f. 91): Chilam Balam of Tizimin (J.A.M. 1944) ; note in same hand (f. 1): Chilam Balam of Chumayel; and note laid in following f. 70 (J.A.M. 2/18/44).

No ex libris stamp of Daniel Garrison Brinton; does not appear in Brinton's 1900 list of Berendt's collection.

Copied, with some rearrangements and omissions, from a manuscript of C. Hermann Berendt dated Mérida, 1868-1870 (Ms. Coll. 700, Item 49). Berendt copied much of the material from a manuscript of Juan Pío Pérez, which is referred to once in the present copy (f. 76r).

Physical Description:

144 leaves : paper ; 209 x 174 mm bound to 218 x 184 mm

Contained In:

Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection. Item 187

Place of Publication:

[between 1870 and 1942]

Language Note:

Maya, with occasional use of Spanish.

Summary:

Copy in an unidentified hand based on a manuscript of C. Hermann Berendt dated Merida, 1868-1870 (see Ms. Coll. 700, Item 49), including primarily the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and the Chilam Balam of Tizimin, with other sections drawn from the Chilam Balam of Ixil, the Chilam Balam of Kaua, and an item referred to by Berendt as Cuaderno de Teabo. A rearrangement, in comparison to Berendt's manuscript, occurs in the first section, the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, which is presented here as a continuous piece, compared to two distinct sections of excerpts found in Berendt's manuscript that were copied by him at different times but that together encompassed the entirety of the book. Aside from the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, the present manuscript consistently follows the content and arrangement of Berendt's manuscript, with omission of most of the drawings and diagrams, as well as most of Berendt's supplied title pages, prefaces and notes. However, Berendt's title page for the Chilam Balam of Tizimin, dated Mérida,1870, is included (f. 90r). Also included, in the section from the Chilam Balam of Kaua, is a note by Berendt in which he explains that the annotations in that section written in blue ink were drawn from a similar item found in the collection of Juan Pio Pérez, copied by Pérez from the Chilam Balam of Mani (f. 76r; in Item 49 the note is found on p. 82); the present manuscript reproduces all of the said annotations, in a similar format, but without any differentiation in color of ink (f. 76r-79v). Throughout the present copy are pencilled page-number references in the margins that correlate to the pagination of Berendt's manuscript, and, similarly, Berendt's manuscript has pencilled page-number references in the margins that correlate to the original pagination in the present copy (i.e. the stamped page numbers). The subject matter is the same as for Berendt's manuscript (Item 49), mainly calendrical and historical information; dates in the text range from 1513 (f. 51v) to 1921 (f. 80r). The present copy may be related to a project that the University of Pennsylvania Museum pursued circa 1910 with the aim of publishing a version of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel; according to G.B. Gordon, the Museum initially produced a transcription of Berendt's manuscript, which was then collated with the original document by the scholar Audomaro Molina, of Mérida, who found that Berendt's copy differed in some details from the original (The Book of Chumayel. Philadelphia, 1913; p. 6). (For another manuscript copy of Chilam Balam material in the current collection written in the same hand and exhibiting a similar system of pencilled page-number cross-referencing in relationship to a different Berendt manuscript, see Ms. Coll. 700, Item 231.)

Contents:

1. pp. 1-28, 30, 32-141 (=f. 1-70r): Chilam Balam de Chumayel.

2. pp. [142] (=f. 70v): [Table from an unidentified Chilam Balam book; corresponds to Ms. Coll. 700, Item 49, p. 73].

3. pp. 95-96 (=f. 71v-r): [Repeated excerpt from Chilam Balam de Chumayel that appears in sequence on f. 41v-42r].

4. pp. 97-103 (=f. 72-75r): [Chilam Balam de Ixil].

5. pp. 104-121 (=f. 75v-84r): [Chilam Balam of Kaua].

6. pp. 121-125 (=f. 84r-86r): [Cuaderno de Teabo].

7. pp. 125-132 (=f. 86r-89v): [Chilam Balam de Ixil].

8. pp. 133-229 (=f. 90r-139r): Chilam Balam de Tizimin.

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title from section titles, the first based on a section title added in a later hand, circa 1944 (Chilam Balam of Chumayel; f. 1r), and the second original to the manuscript (f. 90r).

Late pencil annotations suggest preparation for an unknown publication.

Pagination: Paper, 144 leaves; page numbers originally stamped in blue ink, upper outer corners, but pages in the first portion of the volume, prior to p. 95, have been rearranged, removed, and/or renumbered, and new pages without original numeration laid in. The original numeration holds for pp. 1-28 and pp. 95-200, followed by a blank leaf p. 201-[202], and a final section, pp. 201-238, in which stamped page numbers reading 1-38 have been supplemented in pencil to read 201-238. Intervening between original p. 28 and p. 95 are 56 leaves (f. 15-70) that have been numbered or renumbered as p. 30, 32-142. The following pages are blank: p. 163 (=f. 105r), p.230-238 (=f. 139v-143v). Modern pencil foliation, lower right recto.

Decoration: Spherical diagram with quadrants (f. 44v); pencilled circles (f. 72v, 74r); line drawings of faces (f. 74r).

Binding: Half leather in very poor condition; covers detached and pages loose. R200 in gilt at base of spine was observed in previous cataloging; more recently a strip of the lower spine covering was found to be detached and the gilt labeling only partially legible.

Origin: Copied some time between 1870, the year of completion of the Berendt manuscript on which the copy is based; and 1942, the recorded date of accession (f. 1r).

Cited in:

Described (in part) in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), pp. 120-121 (no. 1047).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 187

Contains:

Chilam Balam de Chumayel (Manuscript)

Chilam Balam de Tizimín (Manuscript)

Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua.

Chilam Balam de Ixil.

Chilam Balam de Mani.

OCLC:

155930678