Maya Creation Myths

Words and Worlds of the Chilam Balam

Timothy Knowlton

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781607321989, 9781607320203
• eBook ISBN: 9781607320210
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

There is no Classical Yucatecan Maya word for "myth." But around the close of the seventeenth century, an anonymous Maya scribe penned what he called u kahlay cab tu kinil, "the world history of the era," before Christianity came to the Peten. He collected numerous accounts of the cyclical destruction and reestablishment of the cosmos; the origins of gods, human beings, and the rituals and activities upon which their relationship depends; and finally the dawn of the sun and the sacred calendar Maya diviners still use today to make sense of humanity's place in the otherwise inscrutable march of time. These creation myths eventually became part of the documents known today as the Books of Chilam Balam.

Maya Creation Myths provides not only new and outstanding translations of these myths but also an interpretive journey through these often misunderstood texts, providing insight into Maya cosmology and how Maya intellectuals met the challenge of the European clergy's attempts to eradicate their worldviews. Unlike many scholars who focus primarily on traces of pre-Hispanic culture or Christian influence within the Books of Chilam Balam, Knowlton emphasizes the diversity of Maya mythic traditions and the uniquely Maya discursive strategies that emerged in the Colonial period.

This book will be of significant interest to Maya scholars, folklorists, and historians, as well as students and scholars of religion, cosmology, and anthropology.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword
• 1: Introduction
• 2: Aspects of Ancient Maya Intellectual Culture
• 3: Clandestine Compilations and the Colonial Dialogue
• 4: Creation and Apocalypse: The Katun 11 Ahau Myth
• 5: Theogony, Cosmology, and Language in the Ritual of the Angels
• 6: The Creation of the First People and the Origin of Suffering
• 7: The Calendar and the Catechism
• 8: “In Whatever Way It Is Chronicled”
• Appendix: Cross-Reference of Material in the Katun 11 Ahau Creation Myth Shared by Two or More Redactions
• References
• Index