[Maya]
[English]1. U zihilob, the births, probably meaning the beginning of things. Pauaha en cuh has no meaning that I can make out; I therefore suppose it an error for pachah u cah, and translate in accordance with this emendation. The phrase seems to refer to the first settlement of the country, or to the first time the scattered inhabitants were gathered together in towns by their chiefs.
[Maya]
[English]2. “These were their names”; but no names are given. They seem to have been omitted by the copyist.
[Maya]
[English]3. Emciob noh hemal ɔeemal, faulty orthography for noh emel, ɔeemel, the latter syncopated from ɔeɔemel. Literally, “since they descended; the Great Descent, the Little Descent.”
The tradition here referred to is given at more length by Father Lizana, in his Historia de Yucatan, and is discussed also by Cogolludo (Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV, cap. III). As the work of the former is wholly inaccessible, I quote from the reprint of a portion of it in Brasseur’s edition of Diego de Landa’s Relacion p. 354. “In former times they called the East Cen-ial, the Little Descent, and the West Nohen-ial, the Great Descent. The reason they give for this is that on the east of this land a few people descended, and on the west a great many; and with that syllable they understand little or much, to the east and the west; and that few people came from one direction and many from the other.” Father Lizana goes on to express his opinion that the few who came from the East were the Carthaginians, and the many from the West were the Mexicans.
The very corrupt form in which he has given the words has led Señor Eligio Ancona to suppose they belonged to the archaic and secret language of the priests (Historia de Yucatan, Tomo I, p. 24), and Dr. Carl Schultz-Sellack to imagine that they referred to East and West, right and left, as he adopted the misreading ɔiic, left, for ɔeɔ, little (Die Amerikanischen Götter der Vier Weltgegenden, in the Archiv für Ethnologie, Band XI, 1879). But they are readily analyzed when we have their correct orthography, as given above. The reference to them in this place shows that the author of the chant was dealing with the most ancient legends of his race.
The Itzas who resided in the Peten district left the region around Chichen Itza some time in the fifteenth century, probably after the fall of Mayapan. They were ruled by an hereditary chieftain, called by the Spaniards “the great king, Canek.” Under him the territory was divided into four districts, each with its own chief, with whom the Canek consulted about important undertakings.
Evidently in removing to Peten the Itzas were retracing their steps on the line of their first entrance to the peninsula. They even attempted to go further west, and guided, probably, by ancient memories, a large number set out for Tabasco and the banks of the Usumaciuta, where repose the ruins of Palenque, possibly the home of their ancestors. But they were attacked and driven back by the natives of Tabasco, with the loss of their leader, a brother-in-law of the great Canek. These and other particulars about them are repeated by Villagutierre Sotomayor, Historia de la Conquista de la Provincia de el Itza, folio, Madrid, 1701.
[Maya]
[English]4. The elliptical form of expression here renders the translation difficult. The verb cutal (old form cultal), pret. culhi or cuthi, fut. culac, means to sit down, to remain in a place, to be at home there, to reside, etc. Perhaps the translation both here and in § 2 should be, “for thirteen katuns they ruled, etc.”
[Maya]
[English]5. The word yum, plural yumob, means father and also chief, leader, ruler, etc. In modern Maya it is the translation of Sir, Mister, Señor.