La Crónica Matichu: reconstrucción de su stemma y posible restauración del texto

Abstract

The First Chronicle Matichu is a historical account (kahlay or k’aajlay) found in parallel in the Chilam Balam de Chumayel, Chilam Balam de Tizimín and Codex Pérez books narrating events from the Postclassic (or even earlier) and early colonial periods. Despite its importance, several reasons (including the fact that it is a product of successive copies) have diminished its credibility as a primary historical source for the last phase of the pre-Hispanic period in the northern Yucatán peninsula. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a possible reconstruction of the textual history of the chronicle as a phase prior to the restoration of the original text. Proceeding in this way, it was possible to draw a stemma of the textual history of the Matichu Chronicle, which affirms the existence of an Ω archetype, dated in the first half of the seventeenth century, and a α subarchetype, ancestor of the versions of Tizimín and Pérez, confirming the suggestions made by the literature. It was also possible to find a reconstruction of Ω using the Maasian method. This reconstruction has important properties, such as semantic, chronological, and syntactic coherence, which provides strong evidence of its plausibility.