San Antonio College Library

The literal but poetic translation of the "Book of Chilam Balam de Tizimin", one of fourteen known manuscripts in Yucatecan Maya on ritual and history, presents the hisport of Yucatan from the seenth century to the nineteenth. And this is history in the Mayan manner: the "Tizimin" reflects a world view dominated by cyclical repetition and a profound faith in the calendrical calculations of the priests.

Annotation In the year 1572, the Spanish chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa completed one of the earliest official versions of the history of the Inka empire. In his account, he stated that the ancestors of the Inkas originated from a cave at a place to the south of the imperial city of Cuzco called Pacariqtambo. The History of a Mythexplores how and why this version of the origin myth (there were others) came to form the basis of an official history....

Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-long speculation about why the ritual calendars of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala and the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan in Mexico revolve around festivals in honor of the Catholic saints. During these festivals, at the insistence of the Maya, a Catholic priest comes to their villages to celebrate mass and baptize newborns. Refuting the often-repeated thesis of a "spiritual conquest" by the Spaniards...