1893.] ^^5 [Brinton. 



§ 4. The 5-day Periods and " Year-bearers." 



The sequence of the days is found to be the same in all the 

 Calendars which have been preserved, from whatever stock they 

 have been derived. In all, also, the " month" of 20 days was 

 divided into a series of 4 shorter periods of 5 days each. But 

 here the similarity ends, for these 5-day periods did not uni- 

 formly begin on the day which we know was the first of the 20, 

 nor was there any agreemeiit between the various Calendars as 

 to when they should begin. As the counts of the 3'ears and 

 cycles were named after and adjusted b}'' these " Dominical 

 days," or, as the Maj^as called them, " Year-bearers," this led to 

 a certain confusion. 



The differences will be seen in the following table, in which the 

 numbers are those of the 20-day period on which the shorter 

 periods of 5 days began in the several Calendars. 



It will be seen that the only two which agree are the Tzental 

 and the Nahuatl ; and the only one which began the 5-day and 

 the 20-da3^ periods on the same da}^ was the Zapotec. 



Nevertheless, the fact that the Calendar did begin on the 

 first day of the 20-day period was distinctly recognized by these 

 peoples. It is mentioned concerning the Maj^as by Bishop 

 Landa,* and by various writers of the Mexicans, "Why and 

 when the change was made remains extremely obscure and has 

 received a variety of explanations at the hands of students. 



Orozco y Berra questioned the accuracy of Landa's statement, 

 that the day Iniix began the count in Maya, and suggested that 

 what his informant meant was, that the day and number of Imix 

 were duplicated every four years as a bissextile day, and in that 

 sense began the i-eckoning.f 



Dr. Seler explains the Nahuatl and Ma3'a Dominical da^'s 

 thus : " The day Acatl, like Kan, belongs to the four chief signs 

 with which the sequence of the years is indicated, and both refer 



* Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 246. 

 t Historia Antigua de Mexico, Tom. ii, p. 128. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXI. 142. 2 H. PRINTED NOV. 18, 1893. 



