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.

8 Ahau
3

8 Ahau
15

3 The Conspiracy Collapses
22

6 Ahau
23

4 Ahau
24

6 Hopes of the Xiu
25

2 Ahau
29

13 Ahau
30

25 The SevenDay Week
129

26 Zuyua
135

1 Ahau
138

28 The Surrender of Merida
140

29 A Word from Mani 142

12 Ahau
145

31 Class War
147

10 Ahau
151



9 The Council of Mayapan
31

10 The End of the Era
38

11 Ahau
42

12 The Flower Katun of the Xiu
45

13 The Mayapan Calendar of the Itza
54

14 The Death of the Gods
56

9 Ahau
57

17 The Inquisition
59

7 Ahau
61

19 The Council of Merida
63

5 Ahau
67

21 Zotzil
68

22 The Annals of Bacalar
69

3 Ahau
113

24 Days of the Year 115

33 Christian Defeat
152

8 Ahau 157

6 Ahau
160

36 Early History
162

4 Ahau 165

38 End of the Long Count
168

2 Ahau
172

13 Ahau
179

41 The Word of Itzam Na 182

11 Ahau
185

The Mayan Calendar
195

Bibliography
201

Index
205

The title of Edmonson's work refers to the Mayan custom of first predicting their history and then living it, and it may be that no other peoples have ever gone so far in this direction. The Book of Chilam Balam was a sacred text prepared by generations of Mayan priests to record the past and to predict the future. The official prophet of each twenty-year rule was the Chilam Balam, or Spokesman of the Jaguar—the Jaguar being the supreme authority charged with converting the prophet's words into fact.
This is a literal but poetic translation of one of fourteen known manuscripts in Yucatecan Maya on ritual and history. It pictures a world of all but incredible numerological order, slowly yielding to Christianity and Spanish political pressure but never surrendering. In fact, it demonstrates the surprising truth of a secret Mayan government during the Spanish rule, which continued to collect tribute in the names of the ruined Classic cities and preserved the essence of the Mayan calendar as a legacy for the tradition's modern inheritors.
The history of the Yucatecan Maya from the seventh to the nineteenth century is revealed. And this is history as the Maya saw it—of a people concerned with lords and priests, with the cosmology which justified their rule, and with the civil war which they perceived as the real dimension of the colonial period.
A work of both history and literature, the Tizimin presents a great deal of Mayan thought, some of which has been suspected but not previously documented. Edmonson's skillful reordering of the text not only makes perfect historical sense but also resolves the long-standing problem of correlating the two colonial Mayan calendars. The book includes both interpretative and literal translations, as well as the Maya parallel couplets and extensive annotations on each page. The beauty of the sacred text is illuminated by the literal translation, while both versions unveil the magnificent historical, philosophical, and social traditions of the most sophisticated native culture in the New World.
The prophetic history of the Tizimin creates a portrait of the continuity and vitality, of the ancient past and the foreordained future of the Maya.