Lai yabil hauic, etc. This is an important sentence, as fixing a date in the ancient chronology. U tunil balcah is an ancient term, not explained in the dictionaries. Balcah (or baalcah) means “a town and the people who compose it” (Pio Perez, Diccionario), hence people, the world, as the French use monde. From many references in the Maya manuscripts I derive the impression that the last stone in the katun pillar was placed in turn by the towns, each giving its name to the stone and the cycle (see ante, p. [171]).
Assuming the correctness of the figures 1517—and there is no reason to doubt it—then Pech counted the katuns as of 24 years each, as Pio Perez maintained was correct; because he has already informed us in his introductory paragraph that the year 1541 was the close of the 11th Ahau, and 1541-1517=24.
[Maya]
[English]16. The two previous visits referred to were probably those of Cordova, 1517, and Grijalva, 1518. “Those who knew to speak the true words,” refers to the Catholic priests. All the historians of Cortes’ expedition dwell on the effect produced on the natives of Cozumel by the religious services he held there.
The date, Feb. 28, 1519, seems correct, although it is not mentioned by any other writer I have at hand. Cortes left Havana, Feb. 19.
Lai yabil, “in this year,” evidently a date is omitted, as the first arrival of the Spaniards at Chichen Itza was either at the close of 1526 or beginning of 1527. One of the Maya MSS. gives the year as bulucil Muluc, the 11th Muluc. The Maya year, it will be remembered, began on the 16th of July.
“It was on the memorable thirteenth of August, 1521, the day of St. Hippolytus, that Cortes led his warlike array for the last time across the black and blasted environs which lay around the Indian capital, etc.” Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Book VI, chap. VIII. There is little doubt but that the tidings of the dreadful destruction of the mighty Tenochtitlan was rapidly disseminated among the tribes far down into Yucatan and Central America, and made a profound impression on them.
This section is confused and difficult. Avila translates:—
“Fueron atacados por tercera vez los mismos Españoles por todos los pueblos aqui en el pueblo de Cupul cuando hallaron à Ah Ceh Pech muriendose en una casa no embarrada y à su compañero el otro Rey Cen Pot,” etc.
[Maya]
[English]18. The official date of the founding of the city of Merida was Jan. 6, 1542.
The anona or custard-apple does not seem to have been eaten by the natives, and it impressed them as strange and somewhat unnatural to witness the Spaniards suck them.