Munro Sterling Edmonson (May 18, 1924 – February 15, 2002)[1] was an Americanlinguist and anthropologist, renowned for his contributions to the study of Mesoamerican languages and Mesoamerican cultural heritage. At the time of his death in 2002, Edmonson was Professor (Emeritus) in Anthropology at Tulane University, New Orleans.
Edmonson authored a 1971 edition of the Popol Vuh entitled The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala published by the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) at Tulane University in New Orleans. His edition was the first to espouse the theory of multiple Popol Vuh manuscripts.

THE EIGHTH CENTURY
51

2 The Second Chronicle
56

3 The Third Chronicle
60

4 Izamal and Champoton
65

5 Uxmal
66

6 Chichen Itza
67

7 The Sermon of Ahau Pech
69

8 Cozumel
71

28 Caesar Augustus
150

29 The Ceremonial of the Baktun
152

30 The Language of Zuyua
168

31 Additional Riddles
194

32 Astronomical Notes 204

33 Caesar Augustus and the Chan War
208

34 Antonio Martinez
215

35 Valladolid Resurgent
217



9 The Sermon of Puc Tun
72

10 The Sermon of Xopan Nahuat
73

11Coba
77

12 The Ceremonial of the May
79

13 The Sermon of Tzin Yabun
99

14 The Building of the Pyramids
100

15 The Ceremonial of the Hab
103

16 Christianity Reaches Merida
107

17 The Count of the Katuns
111

18 Merida Seats the Cycle
114

19 The New Cycle of Merida
115

20 The Birth of the Uinal
120

21 The Sermon of Kauil Chel
127

22 The Cathedral of Merida
128

23 The Shield of Yucatan
130

24 The Inquisition in the East
131

25 The Civil War
137

26 The Military Orders
140

27 The War Indemnity
143

36 Chable
220

37 The Annals of Tixkokob
221

38 The Ending of Tribute at Chichen Itza
224

39 Calendrical Notes
225

40 Valladolid
227

41 The Sevenfold Creation
228

42 The Sins of the Itza 245

43 The Sheep and the Goats
249

44 Notes from Chumayel 252

45 Coba 255

46 Tizimin
256

Appendix A Concordance
267

Appendix B A Ceremonial Circuit 269

Appendix C The Mayan Calendar
273

Appendix D Seats and Lords of the Katun
275

Bibliography 277

When the Spaniards conquered the Yucatan Peninsula in the early 1500s, they made a great effort to destroy or Christianize the native cultures flourishing there. That they were in large part unsuccessful is evidenced by the survival of a number of documents written in Maya and preserved and added to by literate Mayas up to the 1830s. The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel is such a document, literally the history of Yucatan written by and for Mayas, and it contains much information not available from Spanish sources because it was part of an underground resistance movement of which the Spanish were largely unaware.
Well known to Mayanists, The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel is presented here in Munro S. Edmonson's English translation, extensively annotated. Edmonson reinterprets the book as literature and as history, placing it in chronological order and translating it as poetry. The ritual nature of Mayan history clearly emerges and casts new light on Mexican and Spanish acculturation of the Yucatecan Maya in the post-Classic and colonial periods.
Centered in the city of Merida, the Chumayel provides the western (Xiu) perspective on Yucatecan history, as Edmonson's earlier book The Ancient Future of the Itza: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin presented the eastern (Itza) viewpoint. Both document the changing calendar of the colonial period and the continuing vitality of pre-Columbian ritual thought down to the nineteenth century. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the survival of the long-count dating system down to the Baktun Ceremonial of 1618 (12.0.0.0.0). But there are others: the use of rebus writing, the survival of the tun until 1752, graphic if oblique accounts of Mayan ceremonial drama, and the depiction of the Spanish conquest as a long-term inter-Mayan civil war.