The Teabo Manuscript: Maya Christian Copybooks, Chilam Balams, and Native Writing in Colonial Yucatan

FAIN: FT-61365-14

Mark Zinn Christensen
Assumption College (Worcester, MA 01609-1296)

My project concerns the translation and analysis of a late eighteenth-century manuscript written in Maya from the Yucatecan town of Teabo that I discovered in the archives of Brigham Young University. This previously unknown, forty-four page manuscript, that I refer to as the Teabo Manuscript, has many features that associate it with the Maya Books of Chilam Balam. However, because it is essentially a collection of Christian texts redacted and translated by the Maya, it falls into a separate and little-studied category of Maya Christian copybooks. My project translates the manuscript and provides an extensive analysis of each of its sections. This analysis not only compares the manuscript with the existing Books of Chilam Balam and the only other translated Maya religious copybook, the Morley Manuscript, but also presents new insights into how the Mayas negotiated their precontact intellectual traditions within a Spanish and Catholic colonial world.

Associated Products

The Teabo Mansucript: Maya Christian Copybooks, Chilam Balams, and Native Text Production in Yucatan (Book)
Title: The Teabo Mansucript: Maya Christian Copybooks, Chilam Balams, and Native Text Production in Yucatan
Author: Mark Christensen
Abstract: The book concerns the translation and analysis of a late eighteenth-century manuscript written in Maya from the Yucatecan town of Teabo that I discovered in the archives of Brigham Young University. This previously unknown manuscript, that I refer to as the Teabo Manuscript, has many features that associate it with the Maya Books of Chilam Balam. However, because it is essentially a collection of Christian texts redacted and translated by the Maya, it falls in a separate and little-studied category I term Maya Christian copybooks. The project translates the manuscript and provides extensive analysis and discussion of each of the manuscript’s sections. This analysis not only compares the manuscript with the existing Books of Chilam Balam and the only other examined religious copybook in Maya, the Morley Manuscript, but because many of the texts included in the Teabo Manuscript derive from European scripture, tales, or texts, the book provides new insights into how Mayas negotiated their precontact intellectual traditions within a Spanish and Catholic colonial world.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/christensen-teabo-manuscript
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: No

The TEABO Manuscript (Maya Christian Copybooks, Chilam Balams, and Native Text Production in Yucatan) (Book)
Title: The TEABO Manuscript (Maya Christian Copybooks, Chilam Balams, and Native Text Production in Yucatan)
Author: Mark Z. Christensen
Abstract: Among the surviving documents from the colonial period in Mexico are rare Maya-authored manuscript compilations of Christian texts, translated and adapted into the Maya language and worldview, which were used to evangelize the local population. The Morely Manuscript is well known to scholars, and now The Teabo Manuscript introduces an additional example of what Mark Z. Christensen terms a Maya Christian copybook. Recently discovered in the archives of Brigham Young University, the Teabo Manuscript represents a Yucatecan Maya recounting of various aspects of Christian doctrine, including the creation of the world, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the genealogy of Christ. The Teabo Manuscript presents the first English translation and analysis of this late colonial Maya-language document, a facsimile and transcription of which are also included in the book. Working through the manuscript section by section, Christensen makes a strong case for its native authorship, as well as its connections with other European and Maya religious texts, including the Morely Manuscript and the Books of Chilam Balam. He uses the Teabo Manuscript as a platform to explore various topics, such as the evangelization of the Maya, their literary compositions, and the aspects of Christianity that they deemed important enough to write about and preserve. This pioneering research offers important new insights into how the Maya negotiated their precontact intellectual traditions within a Spanish and Catholic colonial world.
Year: 2016
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781477310816
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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