Continuing
form the previous post regarding an indepth understanding of the term “Tulan”
and “Bountiful,” as used in Mesoamerica and in the Land of Promise.
Like the Popol Vuh, the Título
de Totonicapán describes how the ancestors of the K'iche' travelled from a
mythical location referred to as Seven Caves, Seven Canyons, or ravines (Siwan,
as in Tiqajunamaj k’a ruqasaxik siwan,
tinamït is translated as “ravine”), to another place called Tulan Suywa (Chi q’equ’m, chi aq’a;, xepe ul Tulan
Suywa’, cha: “Out of blackness, out of night, they came from Tulan Suywa,
it is said”) in order to receive their gods. According to the Título the
Pa Tulán, Pa Civán (seven caves, seven canyons) was "in the other
part of the ocean, where the sun rises," i.e., the East. They were the
"descendants of Israel, of the same language and the same customs."
When they rose from Pa Tulán, Pa Civán the leader of the three tribes
was Balam-Qitzé. The great father Naxit gave them a present called Giron-Gaga—meaning the
"Bundle," a symbol of power and majesty, the carefully kept stone
which made peoples fear and respect the Quichés (Popul Vuh, p205).
When they arrived at the edge of the sea, "Balam-Quizé touched it with his
staff and at once a path opened, which closed up again for thus the great God
wished it to be done, because they were sons of Abraham and Jakob.”
The
paraíso terrenal (Terrestrial
Paradise, or the Garden of Eden) named Wuqub’
Pek Wuqub’ Siwan, lists Siwan Tulan, Panparar,
Panpaxil and Panc’aeala’, i.e., Split Place and Bitter Water Place where
they were told about the center of the earthly paradise and their being formed
there by God the great lord, that is, in the Garden of Eden (Robert Carmack and
James L. Mondloch 1983: p174) – people (of all seven nations of Tecpan) with
great capacities arrived ch’aqa choo
ch’aqa palow “across the lake, across the sea” from Tulan Siwan.
(This
was their arrival, across the lake, across the sea, from Tulan, from Siwan—but
it does not specify where this Tulan or Siwan were located).
One
of the translators of this original Mayan work is James L. Mondloch, an adjunct
professor at the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New
Mexico, and a linguistic anthropologist whose areas of specialization include
the K’ichee’ Maya language and culture. He founded the K'iche' Maya Oral
History Project, a digitized collection of more than one hundred oral histories
gathered in the municipios of Nahualá and Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán in Sololá,
Guatemala, during the 1960s and 1970s. He is the author of several books and
articles on the subject, including Basic Quiche Grammar (Centro Indígena, 1973)
(Central Native), and he has translated and annotated three sixteenth century
K’ichee’ documents in collaboration with Carmack. “The K’ichee’ Language of the
Popol Wuj: Challenges It Presents to Translators and Students of This
Document.” He has co-translated and annotated several sixteenth century
K'ichee' documents, including El Título de Totonicapán, El Título Yax,
and El Título K'oyoy in collaboration with Robert Carmack of BYU.
Carmack is an ethnohistorian with an
area specialization in Mesoamerica, and especially in the K’ichee’ Maya region.
Currently Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Albany, he
is the author of numerous books and articles on the subject, including Quichean
Civilization (University of California Press, 1973) and The Quiché Mayas of
Ututlán (University of Oklahoma Press, 1982).
These professionals have given us a
rare understanding of the actual wordage, complete with a thorough
understanding of metaphoric linguistics of native K’ichee’ that enables us to
fully understand what is written in the native documents. As an example, in the Memorial
de Sololá, it reads: “It was four where people come from Tulan’ in the east
is one Tulan’ another one there in Zinb’alb’ay; another one there in the west,
and the one where we come from is in the west; another one there in K’ab’owil.
(Memorial de Sololí transcription Irma
Otzoy Tekum Umam, University of Caliufornia Davis, 1999, 4, p155).
It
is important to note that the “where they came from,” i.e., those who landed in
Tulan (Bountiful), came from the Tulan in the West—not the east, i.e.,
Bountiful in Arabia. In the West Tulan has been identified as that area of
Bountiful that was the landing site of the West Sea—that is, the West Sea of
the Land of Promise—and that Tulan or Bountiful was in the Land of Bountiful
where Hagoth built and launched his ships.
The
Memorial de Sololá differs from the
other sources, but mainly from the Popol Vuh, in that it relates that the Kaqchikel
progenitors came to Tulan ch’aqa lalow
“across the sea” from r(i) uqajib’al q’if
“where the sun descends, the west” (Frauke Sachse, University of Bonn, and
Allen J. Christenson, BYU, Tulan and the
Other Side of the Sea: Unraveling a Metaphorical Concept from Colonial
Guatemalan Highland Sources, Mesoweb Publications; with translation of
K’iche’ text by James L. Mondloch).
So
those who landed in the Mesoamerican area (Guatemala), came from the site of
Bountiful along the West Sea, or in Hagoth’s ships. In fact, it should be kept
in mind that these immigrants who went in Hagoth’s ships with much provisions
and supplies to resettle elsewhere headed for “a land which was northward,” and
carried with them their scriptures, which, after eleven hundred years (from 421
A.D. to 1540 A.D.) would have changed considerably through the generations, for
at one point, their ancestors obtained the book (or some section
of it) on a pilgrimage that took them down from the highlands to the shore, and
they called it "The Light That Came from Beside the Sea,"
because the book told of events that happened before the first true dawn, and
of a time when their ancestors hid themselves and the stones that contained the
spirit familiars of their gods in forests, they also called it "Our Place
in the Shadows." And because it told of the rise of the morning star and
the sun and moon and foretold the rise and radiant splendor of the Quiche
lords, they called it "The Dawn of Life."
Such are what myths and legends are
made of—one time truths that did not weather time accurately, but as images and
ideas, opinions, and falsehoods crept into the jargon that was passed on from
one generation to the next.
In this series that follows, “A Peruvian -Mesoamerican Legend:
Leaving Tulan Bountiful for Where?” we will take at an indepth look at what is
meant by the Popol Vuh and the Book
of Mormon regarding the Land of Promise and where Lehi landed.
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Hi Del- you indicate that those that went north in Hagoth's ships carried with them their scriptures. How do we know that? Am I missing it? I see in Alma 63:12 that copies of some scriptures were sent throughout the land but all I see the Nephites took with them on the boat was "much provisions" "also women and children". What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteYou are not missing anything. It is an assumption on my part based on the fact that the Nephites were basically a religious people and religious people would have taken their scriptures (or whatever they had) to immigrate to a new land--sorry if this caused any difficulty.
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