The document is made up of the depositions and statements of a number of members of the Xahila family, but that around which the chief interest centres, and that which alone is printed in this volume, is the history of his nation as written out by one of them who had already reached adult years, at the epoch of the first arrival of the Spaniards, in 1524. Unfortunately, his simple-hearted modesty led him to make few personal allusions, and we can glean little information about his own history. The writer first names himself, in the year 1582, where he speaks of "me, Francisco Ernantez Arana."[1] The greater part of the manuscript, however, was composed many years before this. Its author says that his grandfather, the king Hun Yg, and his father, Balam, both died in 1521, and his own marriage took place in 1522. As it was the custom of his nation to marry young, he was probably, at the time, not over 15 years of age.[2]
That Francisco Ernantez was not the author of the first part of the document seems evident. Under the year 1560 occurs the following entry:—
"Twenty days before the Feast of the Nativity my mother died; soon after, my late father was carried off (xchaptah) while they were burying my mother; my father took medicine but once before we buried him. The pest continued to rage for seven days after Easter; my mother, my father, my brother and my sister died this year."
