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

(About the Earthly Paradise)

Endnotes #223-228

223. For comparison with a more standard description, see Pedro de Cordoba’s Christian Doctrine for the Instruction and Information of the Indians (Stoudemire 1970:66).

224. Phelan 1970:72-73.

225. The number twelve is a recurrent theme in this passage. This line refers to Revelations 22:2: ". . . the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month . . ." Placing twelve fruits associated with twelve months on u yax cheel cab may also have been an effort to legitimate the European calendar to a Maya audience.

226. Revelations 22:8, "I John am he who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me."

227. Laahcappiz .V. tulumil u hool: This may refer to the 12 gates in the wall of the holy city. Revelations 21:12: "It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels." However, the classifier ppiz suggests "measuring." Revelations 21:15-21 describes the measuring of the holy city and the precious materials from which it is built, including "and the twelve gates were twelve pearls." While .V. generally means moon or month, it could also represent the third person singular pronoun. Is the author describing the tree here, perhaps saying, "Twelve measured moons encircle its crown"?

228. tumil u hool I am assuming is a miswriting or abbreviated form of tulumil u hool.

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