manuscripts that the Mayans recorded in the century after the conquest Shaped by the dominant Spanish culture, they contain much information about life in colonial Yucatán, but basically reflect the religious and mythological traditions of the Maya The Maya and the Spanish produced two categories of books during this time of transition and translation The Spanish authorities often solicited books written for legal purposes, and the second type were written as new sacred literature of the communities The first type of books served to secure privileges such as reducing tributes and conserving ancestral lands The authors tried to please the Spanish authorities, by demonstrating that they had assimilated the teachings of the friars and endeavoring to prove that they had embraced the doctrines of Christianity instead of the stories of their own past Books in the second category, new sacred literature of the communities, were written out of the desire of the Maya to reclaim the truth of their religion and their customs that the Spanish had invalidated New sacred books were written to replace the ancient codices and they reproduced the myths of the gods and the history of the Maya ancestors as well as recording the oral traditions passed down from father to son They also recorded the explanations that the old priests gave of the codices These new books did not serve any legal purpose, but were designated to be read in native community ceremonies as sources of songs and dances and rituals of prehistoric tradition The impetus for writing the new books in the Mayan language, using the writing that the Spanish taught, spread across the entire Yucatán peninsula and the entire Mayan area Although the style of the Yucatán books is different from the style of the Guatemala books, the structure and contents of all of the books faithfully preserve the religious traditions and the memory of the past All of them represent the moment in Mayan time when the Spanish conquered them and imposed a new religious, social, political, and economic way of life on them while reducing them to servitude in their own homelands Many of the old Mayan communities have preserved the books, some secretly The Maya had to hide some of these books that contained ancient spiritual rituals, because the Spaniards pursued and killed those who performed and participated in the rituals, considering them demonic Families closely guarded these books and passed them down from father to son The existence of these books did not become known until the 18th century, when scholars discovered them The most important of these books were the Popol Vuh of the Quiches, the Memorial de Solola of the Cakchiqueles, and the Libros de Chilam Balam of the Yucatán Mayans Chilam Balam, books of 75 The majority of the texts of the books of Chilam Balam are religious, describing individual parts of cosmological myths without a discernable connection between them Others are ritual texts, prophesies of the Katunes, symbolic formulas of religious initiations, calendar and astronomical texts, and historical descriptions about the main groups of Yucatán and the Spanish conquest The work ends with the famous prophesies about the arrival of a new religion, attributed to Chilam Balam and other prophets The myths and prophesies are written in archaic, symbolic language, using metaphors, colors, and natural beings to express ideas The authors use cryptic language and secret texts and as in many sacred books there are parallels, repetition of the same thought in different terms, and numberings that give the texts a rhythm that allows them to be recited or sung The books of Chilam Balam were written on European paper and bound in notebooks, some with cowhide covers The existing versions of the books of Chilam Balam are not the 16th century originals, but are copies of copies made in the last part of the 17th and 18th centuries Origins Historians surmise that the Chilam Balam de Chumayel originates in Chumayel, a district of Texhax, Yucatán, and that the compiler was a native of Yucatán named Juan José Hoil His name appears on page 81 of the manuscript next to the date listed as January 20, 1782 Later, other people integrated other texts and Justo Balam, the secretary of Jose Hoil, next owned the book He wrote two baptismal registrations on one of the blank pages of the book in 1832 and 1833 During the following decades, the book of Chumayel passed through several hands and in 1868, Dr Carl Hermann Berendt copied it by hand and Daniel Brinton published fragments of it in his work Maya Chronicles In 1910, George B Gordon, director of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, made a photographic reproduction and edited it in a facsimile form in 1913 Juan Martínez Hernández published a translation in Spanish from these chronicles and from other fragments of the book in 1912, 1913, 1927, and 1928 Antonio Mediz Bolio did the first complete Spanish translation of the books of Chilam Balam, which the Repertorio Americano edited in Costa Rica in 1930 Ralph L Roys translated the second complete version into English, edited by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1933 Alfredo Barrera Vásquez and Silvia Rendon included various fragments in their version of the Libros de Chilam Balam in 1938, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de