Item Summary

The text comprises incantations and herbal remedies for the treatment of a broad range of injuries and diseases, particularly for seizures (10 spells), snake stomach (5), and bites (4). Asthma, toothache, respiratory congestion, and bone ailments are represented by two spells each, and there is a spell apiece for gout, erysipelas, fever, ulcers, eruptions, burns, running sores, gum inflammation, and placenta ejection. There are also three spells for cooling things and a spell apiece for making fire, shaping flint, and deer calling. Two spells, included in an appendix, appear to be later than those in the remainder of the text.

Descriptive Information

Title
Ritual of the bacabs : manuscript, [between 1775 and 1800].
Call Number
C0744.01 (Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 1)
Identifier
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/bn999802r
Language
Mayan languages
Date Created
[between 1775 and 1800].
Format
Manuscript
Extent
1 v. (164 leaves) : paper ; 15.3 x 10 cm.
Provenance
Discovered in the Yucatan in native hands by Frederic J. Smith during the winter of 1914-1915, under the commission of William Gates; sold to Robert Garrett (purchased from William Gates in 1930); deposited by Garrett at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1942; removed from the Institute in 1949, at Garrett's request, and donated to the Princeton University Library.
Source Acquisition
Gift; Robert Garrett; 1949.
References
Weeks, J.M. Mesoamerican Ethnohistory in United States Libraries, 51
Rights Statement
No Known Copyright
Notes
Layout: 1 column, 14 lines.
The last 2 pages of manuscript are written on the verso of a fragment of a printed indulgence (Latin) that includes the printed date February 1779. From the language of the text it would appear that this manuscript was copied from a 16th- or 17th-century manuscript. There are two separate modern numbering systems, neither includes blank leaves.
Title supplied by William E. Gates.
Binding Note
Leather wrapper (type unidentified).

Discovery Information

Subject
Mayas—Medicine
Materia medica, Vegetable—Mexico—18th century
Medicinal plants—Mexico—18th century
Maya incantations
Mayas—Rites and ceremonies
Maya language—Texts
Indigenous Studies

Physical Characteristics

File Count
348

Institutional Information

Collection
Mesoamerican Manuscripts
IIIF Manifest URL

https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/959399f1-63ee-468a-bcb4-2e3ef0561a20/manifest