An Annotated Translation of a Colonial Yucatec Manuscript:
On Religious and Cosmological Topics by a Native Author

(The Fifteen Signs Before Final Judgment, or Xot Kin)

Endnotes #85-111

85. Voragine; Berceo. See also The Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday (Heist) and El Evangelio de San Bernabé (Bernabé Pons).

86. On the religious-historical ideology of these Franciscans, see Phelan and Frost.

87. On the Cruzob Maya, see Bricker 1981 and Villa Rojas 1978.

88. Sullivan 1989: 205-210. See also Sullivan 1984.

89. Grube 1996.

90. Not all Franciscan evangelists shared millennarian, apocalyptic beliefs. Sahagún, among famous pro-Indian religious leaders, was specifically non-apocalyptic (Phelan:74). I have seen no translations of the fifteen signs into Nahuatl.

91. Burns 1977:268-9. See also Villa Rojas 1978.

92. tunil = tusinil.

93. There is a small cross - + - in the left margin next to the phrase Kulen Dzib Lae.

94. -bal: Esta sílaba bal, puesta en lugar de la última sílaba de los neutros, quiere decir cosa que está a pique, o a punto…" Arte de lengua maya, Fray Juan Coronel. The first sign includes three verbs ending in -bal.

95. This is a curious line, which appears in neither the European sources I have found nor in the Chilam Balam of Tusik version. bay bin pactabal may mean that the lord will be seeing the risen waters, or will be seen above them. In either case, the lord on the nohoch mul, the man-made mound or pyramid, seems to suggest a native lord rather than the Christian God. However, David Bolles argues that yahau here means great (CMM, yahau: cosa grande en calidad y en cantidad rather than lord (letter July 7, 1997)).

96. tatah: CMM, palabras mal sabidas y hazerlas, tatah auat: BMTV, aullar, y aullido en general, clamar dando vozes, y el tal clamor.

97. hom elec: DMMSOL: hom kak.t. chamuscar.

98. can can may be a reduplication of can meaning rezia o fuertamente, CMM. However, in the fifteen signs preceding judgment listed in The Golden Legend, "On the seventh day, the stones will rub against one against the other, and will break into four pieces" suggests this alternate meaning. (Voragine:4).

99. Note change in classifier.

100. binic = binil.

101. bobil te, a contraction of bayobil te?

102. ticinnac from tiicilancil, bullir como hormigas y alborotarse comunidad.

103. The author uses the letters i and the longer version of i which I represent with j in place of the number 11.

104. For some reason the author uses a rather ornate capital N in the word for tombs here and in the next line.

105. Above the line following lae, a small number 6 has been written. What may be the number 5 appears after the sign for the eighth day.

106. Note the linked, living crosses, like those described by Cecilio Can Canul.

107. Latin. Also, the name of a Latin chant, among those included in the performance of sixteenth century Nahua religious dramas (Weckmann:300).

108. This passage is organized around the phrase ca bin emec, when He (or it) will descend. In the katun count for Vaxac Ahau in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel a similar formula appears: emom chimal emom halal tu pach yahaulil cabob. "The shield will descend, the arrow will descend, behind the lord of the lands," illustrated by a drawing of a crowned figure placed above the named implements.

109. Literally, "to-be-a-hat."

110. Misspelled Spanish for clavos, nails.

111. These "passions" refer to the implements of Christ’s crucifixion, graphic depictions of which were common in medieval art. A lienzo may have been used for illustration.

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page