970 



Briiiton.] -a I KJ [Oct. G, 



vieja). The Mayas spoke of the 20-day period as u, the moon 

 or lunar month. The Tzentals employed the corresponding 

 term i, moon or month, and for year the word avil from the 

 same root as the Maya haab. 



There was no uniformity in the date of beginning the solar 

 year. The Mayas were said to have begun it on July 16, the 

 Cakchiquels on January 31, and as for the Quiches, three author- 

 ities before me, Ximenes, Gavarrete and a native Calendar, assign 

 respectively Februar^^ 21, December 24 and February 7. The 

 same uncertainty prevailed everywhere. 



§ 7. Methods of Divination by the Calendar. 



A study of the methods of divination hy the Calendar as em- 

 ploj'ed by these nations would be by no means profitless. To 

 them, this use of it was far more important than as a time 

 count. Man's fears and hopes, all the emotions which prompt 

 his actions, look to the future rather than to the past; and for 

 that reason prophets, when accredited, have ever enjoyed greater 

 popular consideration than historians. We may be reasonably 

 sure that the key to the few ancient Calendars which have been 

 preserved to us, and also to the strange inscriptions on the 

 ruined buildings of Central America, is to be found in astrology 

 rather than in chronolog3\ 



The onl3' early writer who enters into this with any degree of 

 fullness is Father Sahagun, who devotes the fourth book of his 

 " History' of New Spain " to the judicial astrology of the ancient 

 Mexicans.* Writing a hundred and fifty years later. Bishop 

 Nuilez de la Vega, of the Diocese of Chiapas, states explicitly 

 that the general principles then in use for soothsaying from the 

 Calendar in that district were the same as those practiced in 

 Mexico from the remotest known period ; f and that they have 



* The information on this subject sui)plied by Father Duran in his ITistoria dc lax In- 

 dias de Nueva Espana, Tom. ii, App. Cap. ii, is, according to his own statements, of doubt- 

 ful correctness. 



t "En cada suecesso escogian un Dios ; y lleg6 cada uno a tener su nagunl, y ann mu- 

 chos, uno solo de astros, elementos, aves, pezes, y brnlos animales, y algunos tan viles, y 

 asquerosos, como hormigas, ratones, lecliuzas y murcielagos. Este error fue passando y ar- 

 raigando.'e tanto en los subsequeiites NaguaUsi.os, que hasta oi en dia se ha practicado por 

 Reportorios y Kalendarios del primitivo gentilismo, que en la substancia y modo de pro- 

 nosticar por el numero de 20 y de 1;!. concuerdan los mas modernos con los mas antiguos, 

 que se practicavan en Mexico; y solo en los nombres significado por los 20 caracteres en 

 cada provincia son diversos, 6 por ser differente los idiomas, 6 por no ser unos mismos 

 los que i)oblaron. ' Nunez de la Vega, Constitucioncs Dioccsanas, Lib. ii, p. LM (Roma, 

 1702). 



