Which Spanish friar wrote Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan?

The Spanish friar who wrote Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan was Diego de Landa. He composed the work around 1566 after serving as a Franciscan missionary and church official in Yucatan, where he gathered information about Maya history, religion, language, customs, and writing.

Landa’s account is one of the most important colonial-era sources on the Maya of Yucatan, but it must be read critically. He was involved in campaigns against Indigenous religious practices and was associated with the destruction of Maya sacred manuscripts at Mani in 1562. His book therefore combines valuable observations with a strongly Christian and colonial viewpoint.

The work includes descriptions of the Maya calendar, ceremonies, social life, place names, and words. It also presents what became known as Landa’s “alphabet,” an attempt to explain Maya writing through Spanish letter names. Although the explanation misunderstood how Maya hieroglyphic writing worked, later scholars used parts of it in the decipherment of the script.

The original manuscript has not survived intact. The text is known through later copies and was first published in the nineteenth century. Bernardino de Sahagun wrote about the Nahua of central Mexico, while Bartolome de las Casas and Francisco Ximenez produced different works, making them common but incorrect alternatives.