[10-1] “In questo loco pigliorono una Nave loro carica di mercantia et merce la quale dicevono veniva da una cierta provintia chiamata Maiam vel Iuncatam con molte veste di bambasio de le quale ne erono il forcio di sede di diversi colori.” Informatione di Bartolomeo Colombo. It is thus printed in Harisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 473; but in the original MS. in the Magliabechian library the words “vel Iuncatam” are superscribed over the word “Maiam,” and do not belong to the text. (Note of Dr. C. H. Berendt.) They are, doubtless, a later gloss, as the name “Yucatan” cannot be traced to any such early date. The mention of silk is, of course, a mistake. Peter Martyr also mentions the name in his account of the fourth voyage: “Ex Guaassa insula et Taia Maiaque et cerabazano, regionibus Veraguæ occidentalibus scriptum reliquit Colonus, hujus inventi princeps,” etc. Decad. III, Lib. IV.
[10-2] I have collected this evidence, drawing largely from the manuscript works on the Arawack language left by the Moravian missionary, the Rev. Theodore Schultz, and published it in a monograph, entitled: The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations. (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1871.) There was a province in Cuba named Maiye; see Nicolas Fort y Roldan, Cuba Indígena, pp. 112, 167 (Madrid, 1881). According to Fort, this meant “origin and beginning,” in the ancient language of Cuba; but there is little doubt but that it presents the Arawack negative prefix ma (which happens to be the same in the Maya) and may be a form of majùjun, not wet, dry.
[12-1] Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yucatan, Tom. I, p. 31 (Merida, 1878).
[12-2] Diccionario Maya-Español del Convento de Motul. MS. Sub voce, ichech. The manuscript dictionaries which I use will be described in the last section of this Introduction. The example given is:—
“Ichech; tu eres, en lengua de Campeche; ichex, vosotros seis; in en, yo soy; in on, nosotros somos. De aqui sale en lengua de Maya, tech cech ichech e, tu que eres por ahi quien quiera,” etc.
[13-1] See Eligio Ancona, Hist. de Yucatan, Tom. I, p. 37.
[13-2] “Maya (accento en la primera); nombre proprio de esta tierra de Yucatan.” Diccionario de Motul, MS. “Una provincia que llamavan de la Maya, de la qual la lengua de Yucatan se llama Mayathan.” Diego de Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 14. “Esta tierra de Yucatan, à quien los naturales llaman Ma´ya,” Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, Lib. IV, Cap. III. “El antiguo Reyno de Maya ò Mayapan que hoy se llama Yucatan.” Villagutierre, Historia de el Itza y de el Lacandon, p. 25. The numerous MSS. of the Books of Chilan Balam are also decisive on this point.
[14-1] Nombres Geograficos en Lengua Maya, folio, MS. in my collection.
[15-1] Note to Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 14.
[15-2] Vocabulaire Maya-Francais-Espagnole, sub voce, Maya.