meters long. The paper was made by pounding the fiber from the 

 inner bark (the bast) of Ficus cotuinifolia H BK., native to Yuca- 

 tan, which is probably Tlilaniatl, or black fig. The glyphs and 

 illustrations were executed only after the fiber had been moulded 

 into a paper and both surfaces sized with lime. All surviving 

 manuscripts mentioned are on this sized Ficus paper. In 1520, 

 Peter Martyr wrote of the process by which the codices were 

 executed using the inner bark of a plant which he believed that 

 they called philyra; conjoined leaves were accomplished with 

 fibers and what Martyr asserted to be bitumen. Diego de Landa, 

 in 1579 (Jhle Perez Martinez), asserted that i>ome of the nobles 

 were acquainted with the fields of knowledge found in these 

 codices, but that they did not display this knowledge. Likewise, 

 Antonio de Ciudad Real stated in 1873 that "only the priests of 

 the idols, called ah kins in that language, and an occasional noble 

 understood these figures and letters. Afterwards, some of our 

 friars understood them, knew how to read them, and even wrote 

 them." In all of these books, it would seem that prophecy and 

 history were integrally bound together, the reason being found in 

 the belief that each katun, or twenty years of 360 days each, would 

 recapitulate a previous katun that ended in the same number. 

 Prophecies for a given tun, or 360 day year, would begin at the 

 onset of that year and would relate to a previous sequence. Such 

 sequences would necessarily include disease and pestilence and 

 the shamanic cure by power. There is no evidence for the record- 

 ing of mundane affairs in such important codices. Ritual and 

 history were repeated in poetic forms that probably constituted 

 litanies or musical chants and incantations. 



The Maya probably believed, as the Mixtecas, that their 

 ancestry originated in the roots of the ceiba tree, Ceiba acumi- 

 nata (S. Wats.) Rose the seeds of which are enmeshed in a white 

 cottony fiber that is in the sky like clouds. Families were seen as 

 fruits on such a tree, according to Ximenez (1929 1931). Similar 

 belief systems are to be found throughout the world, a notable 

 example being that of the Eboka of equatorial Africa who 

 venerate Tabcrnanthe Ihoga Baill., a plant containing the spirits 

 of the deceased and from which all of their people originated 

 (Fernandez in Furst [ed.] 1972). 



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