He states that he was the son of Ak Kom Pech, in baptism Martin Pech, and the grandson of Ah Tunal Pech, while the head of the house of Pech seems to have been Ah Naum Pech, baptized Don Francisco de Montejo Pech.
Pech always uses as the name of his town Chac Xulub Chen, which means “the well of the great horns,” probably because some huge antlers were found there, or were set up to mark the spot. The modern name Chic Xulub was probably applied to it as a parody, or a play on words. It means to cuckold one, to put horns on him.[191-1]
A literal translation of the document was made by Don Manuel Encarnacion Avila, of Merida, about 1860, and this has been of service to me in completing the present rendering. But Señor Avila, though familiar with the Maya of to-day, was evidently not at all acquainted with the ancient terms with reference to the calendar, and the usages of the natives before the Conquest. He therefore made serious errors wherever such occurred.
Moreover, as it was his purpose to give an extremely literal translation, he often sacrificed to this both clearness and correctness, and in various passages his sentences are unintelligible.
The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg) commenced to copy the original when in Merida, but completed only the first two paragraphs. He applied for a copy of the remainder; but by an error he received instead of this an unfinished transcript of another paper by the Pech family. These fragments he inserted, with a translation of his own, in the second volume of the Reports of the Mission Scientifique au Mexique et à l’Amérique Centrale, pp. 110-120 (4 to, Paris, Imprimerie Impériale: 1870). As his lexicographic resources were, by his own statement, quite deficient (id., note to p. 116), he is scarcely to be criticised if, as is the case, much of his translation but faintly presents the meaning of the original.
It will be seen that I have sacrificed every attempt at elegance in the English translation to an endeavor to preserve faithfully the style of the original, even to its needless repetitions and awkward sentences.
TEXT.
Concixta yetel Mapa.