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FAMSI © 2003:
Gretchen Whalen |
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An Annotated Translation of a Colonial Yucatec Manuscript:
On Religious and Cosmological Topics by a Native Author
(About Eve’s Fall)
Endnotes #243-262
- For the portrayal of Lucifer on the medieval stage, see Russell 1984:245-73. In these plays, the devil frequently exits the stage to the sound of a fart, perhaps leading to the Yucatec Maya practice of referring to the devil as cisin, farter.
- Ricard:196.
- I am reading this as the verb culcinah with the syllables reversed. See the last line on ms. p.200.
- Once again we have alternate spellings of the word for rib within a few lines.
- An interesting description of Eve’s appearance, including the two Spanish loan words, angelesob and oro. Medieval illustrations of Adam and Eve sometimes depict them with light hair; see, for example, the depiction of Adam and Eve in the translation of the Vulgate ordered by Alfonso the Wise in 1280 (Flores 1978:27).
- bac, bone, may be a play on ix baac, meaning girl.
- Note spelling.
- toholal: CMM, salud con arte, consuelo o consolación y paz o quietud del corazon. I am not sure which meaning the author intends.
- In the Popul Vuh, the figures made of wood are destroyed when all their utensils and animals rise against them (Goetz and Morley 1950:90-91).
- Note Spanish loan word, plural, without Maya plural ending as in sillasob, next line.
- The use of the Spanish loan word audiencia for the meeting of the devils seems especially humorous.
- Notice the repetition (and alternate spellings) of heletace in these lines to heighten the sense of urgency.
- chi chich would be reduplication for emphasis, so this is retriplication? This is the first time I have seen it.
- The description of this transformation process involves some disordered syntax and some ambiguity. hoch can mean an image, or copy. hochtal might also mean to become empty.
- As for the creature described, many medieval illustrations of the serpent portray it with a woman’s face, and sometimes with a woman’s torso with arms and hands, artistic conceptions borrowed from mystery plays in which the serpent spoke and handed the forbidden fruit to Eve (Bonnell 1917:255). The Maya author may have seen illustrations; however, his use of dialogue suggests the possibility that he had witnessed the performance of an auto of the fall of Adam and Eve, like the one staged by the natives of Tlaxcala during Holy Week of 1539 (Ricard:196).
- hun xaman hun chikin: BMTV, A todas partes, aca y allá, unas veces al norte, otras al poniente. Literally one north, one west, a metonym for everywhere.
- In the Popol Vuh, the people made of maize can at first see everything, and the limitlessness of their gaze is emphasized: "They were able to know all, and they examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky and the round face of the earth." The Creator and the Maker are displeased, prefering that their creatures see only that which is near, and blow mist into their eyes (Goetz and Morley 1950:168-169).
- A reversal of the syllables in bacacex?
- ca chuy tu tzem then it hung in her chest? Perhaps possible in the context of providing explanations for the difference in body parts between males and females.
- ox muchix U thanalob is problematic to translate. I am guessing that much = much, which is a classifier for things in heaps. I take ox in this context as an intensifier, rather than the number three. thanal than: CMM, dialogo o disputa de palabra o baraja de palabras, o brega. It is possible that an alternate meaning for the phrase is that the three of them, God and Adam and Eve, came together in dialogue. However, according to the next two lines, Adam and Eve never speak, because they are cowering yalan che, yalan aban, a formulaic expression meaning in exile.
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