432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHS0NL4.N INSTITUTION, 193 3 



Clearly enough certain astronomical events are celebrated in some 

 of the pictured events as in the indicated sacrifices to Venus, and it 

 might be added that apotheosis of great men and women is an estab- 

 lished thing in the religions of Central America. So the conflict in 

 opinion is not so vital as it might seem. 



Very early in my examination of the pieces in the Bodleian Library 

 I came upon proof which fixes once and for all the fact that human 

 beings and mundane affairs form the principle subject of these an- 

 cient records. In the Selden manuscript I noted that many persons 

 were attached to year signs by a crinkly red line especially on the 

 occasion of their first appearance in the narrative and that in later 

 references to these persons the day sign which had accompanied the 

 year sign was used as a personal name. Comparison with two very 



Figure 2. — The umbilicus and the dates of birth. 



naive representations of childbirth in the Zouche codex made it 

 perfectly clear that the crinkly red line was the umbilical cord (see 

 fig. 2), and it logically followed that the day sign which became a 

 name was merely the person's natal day in the cycle of 260 differ- 

 ently named days which distinguishes the Central American calendar. 

 Although Brinton ^ declared that among the Cakchiquel tribes 

 of Guatemala " the personal name was always that of the day of 

 birth, this being adopted for astrological reasons ", he gave no au- 

 thority for this statement. Madame Nuttall in her commentary "^ 

 took the position that among the Mexicans the calendarial names 

 indicated membership in one of 20 social groups comparable to clans. 

 This theory becomes manifestly absurd when observation is made of 

 the variety of day names applied to the children of a single couple. 

 Instances are found where a pair have the same day name, but oc- 

 curring side by side, they must be regarded as twins.^ 



« Brinton, D. G., Annals of the Cakchiquels, p. 33. Philadelphia, 1885. 

 'Op. cit., p. 19. 



* For example, a male and female among the oflfspring of Eight Wind and Ten Deer, 

 Zouche codex, p. 5, are both labeled Three Lizard. 



