The Annals of the Cakchiquels

A native member of a ruling family records a chronicle of his people’s origins, migrations, myths and early history, preserving language samples and calendrical lore alongside accounts of social organization, religious practices, and intertribal relations. The editor supplies the original text with an English translation, linguistic notes, vocabulary, and commentary on ethnology, geography, time reckoning, names, social ranks, and ritual. Mythic narratives of ancestral movements and foundation legends alternate with practical details of timekeeping and titles, while annotations clarify lexical forms and manuscript variants. Together the narrative and apparatus enable study of the language and the community’s traditional worldview.