1893.] ^ ' ^ [Brinton. 



to pay for masses for the dead.* A curious feature of the invo- 

 cations on this day is one to their navel strings, which, at birth, 

 are buried within or close to the house. This recalls an ancient 

 Mexican superstition, f 



§ 9. Where was the Calendar Invented, and by What 



Nation ? 



The comparison I institute throughout the different nations 

 which adopted this Calendar of the names of the 20 da3'S which 

 make up the month, and those of the IS months which make up 

 the solar year, proves beyond doubt that the former are transla- 

 tions from some one original source, while the latter are almost 

 entirely different in the different nations, and represent, therefore, 

 later developments of the astrological Calendar, and various 

 adaptations of it to the solar years of the several nations. 



This fact leads the wa}'- to an important historical inquiry : 

 To which one of the many linguistic stocks employing this Cal- 

 endar must we assign the original form and meaning of the 

 names of the days ? Whichever it is, to it we must also assign 

 the first invention of this strange and intricate sj^stem which has 

 played so important a part in the development of Mexican and 

 Central American art, thought and religion. 



Most of the older authors who credulously accepted the fables 

 of the natives, and those of later date who follow in their foot- 

 steps, join in attributing the Calendar to the " Toltecs," who are 

 imagined to have been a mighty people, of high culture, whose 

 " empire " extended far and wide in southern Mexico and Cen- 

 tral America. In another publication I have given abundant 

 reasons to disprove this ancient stor}', and to reduce the Toltecs 

 to the inhabitants of the small town of Tula, north of the city of 

 Mexico. I 



* Another name for this day is gua rdbalhd, which I suppose to refer to this ceremony, 

 and to be a compound of gua, fountain, spring ; r, his or its ; balih, to fill ; hd, house ; 

 " the water that supplies the house," or something to that eflfect. 



■f At birth, the Nahuas buried the navel string (aud placenta) with important ceremonies, 

 as they believed its disposition influenced the after-life of the child. If it was a boy, an 

 arrow and a shield were interred with it, that he might be brave ; if a girl, a metate and 

 corn-roller were substituted, that she might make a diligent house-wife. See the Codex 

 Mendoza in Kingsborough's Xexlco, Vol. v, p. 91, and Sahagun, Hisloria, Lib. v, Appen- 

 dix. 



X See the article entitled " The Toltecs and their Fabulous Empire," in my Essays of an 

 Americanist (Philadelphia, 1890). 



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



