Diego de Landa records the Maya having a ceremony similar to baptism; the ceremony results in the candidate being "born anew/again."
- Type
- Book
- Source
- Diego de Landa Non-LDS
- Hearsay
- DirectTranslation
- Reference
Diego de Landa, Landa’s Relación De Las Cosas De Yucatan: A Translation, ed. Alfred M. Tozzer (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1966), 102
- Scribe/Publisher
- Kraus Reprint Corporation
- People
- Diego de Landa
- Audience
- Reading Public
- Transcription
Baptism is not found in any part of the Indies except in Yucatan, where it even exists under a name which means “to be born anew or again” which is the same as renascor in the Latin language, for in the language of Yucatan sihil means “to be born anew or again,” and it is only used in compound words, and so caput sihil means “to be born anew.”
- BHR Staff Commentary
In ibid., 102n462, we read that:
It is not clear at what age baptism among the Mayas took place; for the boy soon after birth, at the age of three (Landa) or “from fourteen to fifteen,” for the girl, from three to twelve. It is described in the Relación of Motul (RY, 1:79) as follows: “They had baptism and the boys were baptized when they were fourteen or fifteen years old, and they cold not marry until they were twenty, and they had to be baptized to get married and they did not marry them if they were not.”
- Citations in Mormonr Qnas
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