Maya Literature

FAIN: FT-13186-76

Munro S. Edmonson
Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund, The (New Orleans, LA 70118-5698)

To complete work on two manuscripts and begin on some others. The prophetic, divinatory and historical texts known as the Books of the Jaguar Priests (Chilam Balam) of the Yucatecan Maya constitute an invaluable source for the interpretation of the culture of the colonial Maya, and a unique link to the older traditions of the still untranslated hieroglyphic record. These books have been partially translated several times--never completely, and never altogether satisfactorily. Study will clarify considerably both the translation and interpretation of these texts.