Tulán

Los traductores han interpretado el lugar de Tulán en diferentes maneras a lo largo del tiempo. El padre dominico Francisco de Ximénez describe "tulan zu" (tulan zuiva in the K'ich'e) como el "monte" (huyub), el cual término quizá está relacionado a una prática k'iche'. Historicamente los k'iche' construyen sus fortalezas, las así llamadas tinamit, en las cimas de las montañas. Por su parte el notable académico Sam Colop (2008: 141n223) identifica Tulan con Tula de Guerrero, hoy día un pequeño pueblo en el noreste del estado Mexicano de Guerrero. El antropólogo Dennis Tedlock (1996: 359) identifica "Zuya" y "Siete Cuevas, Siete Cañones" (Wuqub' pek, wuqub' siwan) como sinónimos de Tulán. El autor guatemalteco Adrián Recinos (1950: tercerca parte n8) coincide con Tedlock con esta interpretación, pues afirma que la variedad de nombres para Tulán proporciona evidencia "de la comunidad de origen de los quichés y demás pueblos de Guatemala y de las tribus que se establecieron en los tiempos antiguos en diversas partes de México y Yucatán. Tulán-Zuiva, la Cueva de Tulán, Vucub-Pec, Siete Cuevas, y Vucub-Ziván, Siete Barrancas, son los nombres quichés del sitio a que la tradición mexicana da el nombre de Chicomoztoc, que en lengua náhuatl significa igualmente Siete Cuevas."

Translators have interpreted the place and meaning of Tulán in different ways. Anthropologist Allen J. Christenson (2007: 209-10n547) explains its etymology as "Nahua Tullan or Tollan: 'Place of Cattail Reeds'. In the Quiché language, tulan is a 'palace, or manor-house' (Basseta), while tolan is a city or house that has been abandoned, perhaps referring to the ruins of once great cities that dot the region and that belong to the legendary ancestors of the Maya people. In Aztec theology, Tollan was a mythic place located near Coatepec (Snake Mountain) where the ancestors of the Mexica received their patron god Huitzilopochtli. In this myth, Tollan was inhabited by the Toltecs, great sages who invented the sciences of astronomy, calendrics, agriculture, and medcine, as well as the arts of writing, painting, sculpture, metalwork, jade carving, and weaving. Throughout Mesoamerica in the late Postclassic era (ca. 1200–1524), the legendary Toltecs where the bearers of political legitimacy. The Aztecs used the name Tollan to refer to thier own legendary palce of origin, as well as a general term for 'city.' Thus Tollan was an alternative name for the ancient Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, as well as Tula in Hidalgo, Teotihuacan, Cholula, and Chichen Itza (Schele and Matthews 1998: 38-39; Akkeren 2000: 62, 88). The Tulan mentioned here [in the Popol Vuh] was likely either Chichen Itza, a major center of power during the Terminal Classic (800–900) and early Postclassic (900–1200) periods, or its successor Mayapan (Recinos 1950: 63-69; Recinos and Goetz 1953: 65n; Fox 1978: 1-2, 119-120; Carmack 1981: 46-48). Both would have been "across the sea" (the Gulf of Mexico) with respect to the Guatemalan highlands as described in the Popol Vuh."

Along these lines, anthropologist Dennis Tedlock (1996: 359) identifies Tulan as "a town in the east that was like the Classic Maya site of Copán in having a bat as its insignia. The lords of the Quiché, Cakchiquel, and other 'mountain people' gathered there, paying tribute and acquiring their respective patron deities. by the time they found their own places to rule, Tulan had been abandoned. The site was probably not called Tulan until after its demise." Tedlock also lists Suywa and "Seven Caves, Seven Canyons" as other names of Tulan, arguing that they are all "an epithet for Tulan, the citadel where the ruling Quiché lineages acquired thier patron deities. Numerous Mayan ruins have natural caves beneath them; Rotten Cane [Q'umarkaj] has three artificial caves, the longest of which runs to a point beneath the main plaza." a translation that Recinos (1950: tercera parte, n8) also uses with "Tulán-Zuiva, Vucub-Psc, Vucub-Ziván."