The ook of the''Songs of Dzitbalché'' (), originally titled ''The Book of the Dances of the Ancients'', is a Mayan book containing poetry. It is the source of almost all the ancient

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

n lyric

poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

that have survived, and is closely connected to the ''Books of

Chilam Balam The Books of Chilam Balam () are handwritten, chiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Maya and ea ...

'' which are sacred books of the colonial Yucatec Maya. The sole surviving copy of the ''Songs of Dzitbalché'' was written in alphabetic

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

in the 18th century. The author of the book identifies himself as Ah Bam, an elder of the town of Dzitbalché. He appears to say that the book was originally written in 1440.

Manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has c ...

of this era were often copies of copies of copies, meaning scholars have to locate internal evidence for clues to the original date of composition. Many of the poems appear to be much older than the manuscript itself, and contain ancient ceremonial and ritual material. Other poems are songs of

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, and

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

. Many of them appear to have had a musical accompaniment. ''The Book of the Dances of the Ancients'', its original name, was changed to the current title by its first

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

Publication

The first full Spanish translation was crafted by the Mexican

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Barrera Vásquez in 1965. In 1982, Munro Edmunson produced an English version, followed by John Curl's online publication in 2005 of selected pieces from the codex. David Bowles, in 2013, composed English-verse translations of all of the songs in his ''Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry''.

References

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Songs Of Dzitbalche Mayan literature Yucatec Maya language

Publication

See also

References