Diego de Landa's account was composed around 1566, but the original manuscript is lost, and the surviving text is an abridged copy, first printed only in 1864 by Brasseur de Bourbourg, the year this record uses since no earlier printed date exists, with the standard modern English edition being Tozzer's 1941 annotated translation. This record states the honestly uncomfortable fact about its author: Landa is the principal colonial source for the Haab month names and Maya ritual practice precisely because he also burned the Maya books he found in Yucatan, destroying much of the primary evidence his own account now substitutes for. As a primary text in this abridged surviving form it is authoritative for what Landa himself reported, not for what the destroyed Maya texts themselves would have shown. Use Tozzer's annotated edition alongside it for critical context.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier2
Diego de Landa's mid sixteenth century account of Yucatec Maya custom, the principal colonial source for the Haab month names and for Maya ritual practice; the original is lost and only an abridged later copy survives, and it was written by the same churchman who burned the Maya books he found, which is why it sits below the top tier despite its unique detail. NotesComposed c.1566. The original is lost and the surviving text is an abridged copy; first printed by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1864, which is the year recorded here, with the standard English edition by Tozzer in 1941. The principal colonial source for the Haab month names and for Maya ritual practice, written by the man who burned the Maya books he found in Yucatan.
Citation
AuthorDiego de Landa
PublisherDante S.A.
This is a 2003 critical edition; Landa's manuscript is a 16th-century work first published in 1864. Publication Year1864
URLhttps://archive.org/details/relaciondelascos0000land
Source Typeprimary-text
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Maya, Figures This source names Maya directly: "source for the Haab month names and Maya ritual practice precisely because he also burned the Maya books he found in Yucatan, destroying much of the primary evidence his own account now substitutes..."
Claims Backed By This Source (68 claims)
This source backs 68 claims across the atlas. As facts: 35 well-attested, 5 scholarly debate, 1 open question. As cited relationships: 1 holds, 2 connected. Plus 24 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Haab Months, 32 claims: 7 well-attested, 5 scholarly debate, 1 connected, 19 general references.
- Articles, 10 claims: 10 well-attested.
- Open Questions, 9 claims: 7 well-attested, 1 connected, 1 general references.
- Sources, 9 claims: 8 well-attested, 1 holds.
- Historical Figures, 5 claims: 3 well-attested, 1 open question, 1 general references.
- Regions, 2 claims: 2 general references.
- Religions, 1 claims: 1 general references.
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