Yucatan: Before and After the Conquest by Diego De Landa

Author:Diego De Landa [Landa, Diego De]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486139197
Google: VxkFD_vu2BEC
Amazon: B00A3Y3OIS
Barnesnoble: B00A3Y3OIS
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-06T05:00:00+00:00

Verbi gratia. The Indians say that the Spaniards finally reached the city of Mérida in the year of Our Lord’s birth 1541, which was exactly at the first year of the era of Buluc (11) Ahau, which is in that block where the cross stands; also that they arrived in the month Pop’, which is the first month of their year. If the Spaniards had not arrived, they would have worshipped the image of Buluc Ahau until the year ’51, that is for ten years, and then would have set up another idol for Bolon (9) Ahau up to the year’ 61, when they would remove it from the temple and replace it with the idol for Vuc Ahau, then following the predictions of Bolon Ahau for another ten years, thus doing with all in their turn. Thus they venerated each katun for twenty years, and during ten years they governed themselves by their superstitions and deceits, all of which were so many and such as to hold in error these simple people, that one would have to marvel over it who did not know the things of Nature and the experience the devil possesses in dealing with them.

These people also used certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences; with these, and with figures, and certain signs in the figures, they understood their matters, made them known, and taught them. We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously, and which gave them great pain.

Of their letters we give here an a, b, c, their cumbersomeness not permitting more, because for all the aspirations of the letters they use one character, and then for uniting the parts another, going on in this way ad infinitum, as in the following example. Le means a lasso, and to hunt with one; to write it with their letters, they wrote them with three, at the aspiration of the 1 the vowel e, put before it; in this they are not at fault, although they use the e if they wish to do so for definiteness. Example: e l e lé; afterwards they put the syllable joined:

Há means water; because the sound of the letter aitch is composed of a, h, before it, they put it at the beginning with a, and a ha at the end in this fashion:

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