Introduction by Robert D. Bruce to The Last Lords of Palenque

I first met Chan K'in of Naha’ in 1957, when I was twenty-three and on leave from my studies at the University of Oklahoma. To my surprise, he already seemed to know all about me, possibly because of my introduction the year before to the Lacandon Maya community of Monte Líbano in Chiapas, Mexico. There I had administered medicines for the familiar symptoms of malaria, internal parasites, infections and snakebite. Most of the questions I had asked Jose Guero, the leader of the community, regarding the gods and the cult I was seeing were met with the evasive "I don't remember ... but maybe Chan K'in of Naha’ does . . " I had not realized that what he was really telling me, in his own way, was that no one was going to instruct me in the Lacandon religion without the approval of their highest traditional authority. I hadn't even known that they recognized such an authority, although I should have been able to interpret their affirmation that "he knows more than anyone else."

When I first saw Chan K'in I felt at once that I must never tell him the smallest lie, but I was not aware of anything that I would then have called "supernatural" about him. It simply seemed obvious that, just as I can see from a person's eyes and expression whether he is happy or sad, worried or amused, Old Chan K'in could see a bit more of the same; he could also see if a person was lying or telling the truth, if he was hiding something, and if so, make a pretty good guess at what it might be. (All my observations since then tend to bear out my first impression, except for those instances in which he revealed capacities that could be called parapsychological, for lack of a better understanding of them.)

When I told him that I hoped to learn of his traditions and write them down so they would never be lost, his answer was instantaneous: "Yes, I already know of your interest in our ways. Come to my house and I will teach you what you want to know."

After only a few days of Chan K'in's instruction, listening to the stories of the creation of the earth and the exploits of the gods, I had virtually the same information as the recognized authorities on Lacandon mythology had, only more of it. And there were significant differences in the sequence and structure of the narratives. On these points of difference, I began imagining how their informants must have said it in pidgin Spanish, and how my predecessors must have committed their errors in translation, But then I asked myself, "Or am I the one who has made the error in translation? Or to what degree are we all mistaken?"

Chan K'in would dictate to me something clumsy, unwieldy, which didn't make much sense no matter how hard he struggled for the words in his limited Spanish. Finally, he himself would become impatient and break over into Lacandon Maya, no longer telling the story to me but to any other Lacandon who might be present. The change was dramatic: His voice became smooth and fluid, full of changing inflections, and when I looked at the face of any Lacandon listener, I could see that the old man's words had picked him up and carried him away to some other world. This was not what I had been getting, nor had any of the other investigators gotten it.

There was only one solution to the problem: I must do my study in the original Lacandon Maya and expand my limited vocabulary from a few useful phrases to a proper and fluent command of the language. With Chan K'in's patient coaching and three- and four-hour-long daily drills in grammar and vocabulary, I soon made some progress. Besides the paradigms I made from short phrases with their rough and free translation into Spanish, my principal texts consisted of the recitations I had transcribed (without ever fully understanding their content), in which Old Chan K'in told of the creation of the earth and how the gods established their respective dominions over the various aspects of reality. I found that these stories often paralleled Genesis or the Quiche Mayas' Popol Vuh (Book of Counsel); corrected and somewhat expanded they still form the basis of what I now call The Book of Chan K'in.

I dedicated myself not only to studying the Lacandon language and culture full time, but to living as a Lacandon as well. I wore the cotton tunic (xikul), went barefoot and let my hair grow halfway down my back, and I carried a machete and a deerskin pouch over my shoulders. Besides cartridges and fishhooks, a file and a pocketknife, I also carried a notebook and pen, the only significant variation on the customary contents of a Lacandon man's pooxah (leather pouch). I also preferred a .22 caliber target revolver to a rifle or shotgun, the longer barrel of which would hang up on the brush and vines.

Except when I took out my pen and notebook and became engrossed in my work as an anthropologist and linguist, I began to look and act as much like a Lacandon as my physical and racial type would permit. Months of isolation completed my familiarity with the jungle environ ment to which the Lacandon culture was so admirably adapted. After three or four months my own adaptation was so complete that even now, years later, one or another professional colleague will say of me, "Bruce is no linguist. He is a Lacandon informant."