Chilam Balam of Chumayel: passages on the otherworld and the World Tree

Record summary

The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel combines Maya historical, calendrical, prophetic, medical, and Christian materials. Its passages concerning layered worlds, directional trees, creation cycles, and the movement of deities across cosmic regions provide a useful comparison with boundary-crossing traditions. This is a text transmitted and recopied under colonial conditions rather than a firsthand supernatural account. Scholars disagree over how to separate Indigenous concepts from European editorial influence, and translations can impose categories such as heaven, hell, or underworld where the original terminology is more complex.