The first publication of the document was in the Appendix to the second volume of Mr. Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York, 1843). It included the original Maya text, with a not very accurate translation into English of Pio Perez’s rendering of the Maya. From Mr. Stephen’s volume, the document has been copied into various publications in Mexico, Yucatan and Europe.
The other attempt at an independent translation was that of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), published at Paris in 1864, in the same volume with Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan. The text he took from Stephens’ book, errors and omissions included, and his translation is entirely based on the English one, as he evidently did not have access to the original Spanish of Pio Perez.
The most important recent study of the subject has been made by Dr. Valentini, who published the notes of Pio Perez on his translation, and gave a general re-examination of ancient Maya history, with a great deal of sagacity and a large acquaintance with the related Spanish literature.[92-1] He is, however, in error in stating that he was the first to publish the notes of Perez, as they had previously been printed in a work by Canon Carrillo.[92-2]
Much use of this chronicle has been made by the recent historians of Yucatan, Don Eligio Ancona and the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona; but I am surprised to find that they have depended entirely on the previous labors of Pio Perez, Stephens and Brasseur, and have made no attempt to verify or extend them.
Dr. Berendt, although earnestly devoted to collecting and copying these records did not, as Dr. Valentini observes, ever attempt a translation of any of them.
No hint is given as to the author of the document, nor do we know from what sources he derived his information. It has been plausibly suggested that it was an epitome of the history of their nations, which was learned by heart and handed down from master to disciple, and which served as a verbal key to the interpretation of the painted and sculptured records, and to the “katun stones” which were erected at the expiration of each cycle and inscribed with the principal events which had transpired in it.
The Abbé Brasseur placed at the head of his edition of this chronicle the title, in Maya:—
“Lelo lai u tzolan katunil ti Mayab,”
which he translates—
“Séries des Epoques de l’Histoire Maya.”