Diego de Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán does not exist!
Fray Diego de Landa Calderón (1524-1579) was a Franciscan priest born in Alcarreña de Cifuentes, Guadalajara, Spain, who traveled to Yucatan and became the asistente del guardián of Izamal in 1549. In 1552, he was promoted to guardián and in 1561 promoted again to provincial of the province of Yucatan. The following year, de Landa initiated an auto de fé in Maní, Yucatan, in which he famously gathered and burned all the Mayan codices he could get his hands on at the time. The Mayas who were rounded up during the search for evidence that would incriminate them of the crime of continuing to secretly worship the old gods were all severally punished and tortured unmercifully. Many were killed out-right, died during the torture, or committed suicide. When the bishop of Yucatan, Francisco de Toral, heard of these proceedings, he complained about De Landa in a letter to the Spanish king, Felipe II. De Landa, in turn, traveled to Spain in 1563 to defend himself of the bishop’s accusations, which he did successfully and was subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing. The torture was done in the name of God, after all.
While he was in Spain, De Landa wrote a document outlining his understanding and observations of the Mayan culture. He may have planned on using it in his defense, or he may have planned on publishing it, but he ended up doing neither. By 1566, De Landa stopped work on the manuscript. The King had recently issued a decree forbidding the publication of books about superstitions and the manner in which the Indians of the New World lived, so that was that.