CHILAN BALAM, the Books of, a series of Maya writings dating back to the end of the first century of the Christian era. They were written by a priest or chilan by the name of Balam, in the Maya language with Latin characters, which had al ready replaced the ancient Maya system of writing throughout Yucatan. The books of Chilan Balam seem to have been a collection of Maya stories and records which had been, at the time of the conquest, and probably long previous to it, written in the ancient Maya script. Balam either copied these manuscripts or retold the Maya stories as he knew them from his connection with the Maya people, for he is supposed to have been a full-blooded Maya Indian. These books, we are told, recite all the old traditions which still lingered in the memory of the natives of Yucatan with whom the writer came into contact. They lay long
in manuscript, and were copied in whole and in part several times. Brinton, the American scholar, had a copy of them made and published under the title of °Maya Chronicles,' in the first volume of his