44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



know (and this [included] those best instructed in their antiquities) 

 how much time had elapsed since this or that thing had happenel, etc., 

 and therefore they did not know anything more than the present time, 

 putting their reason to use [only] with natural instinct, as it were, 

 like so many animals. 



Names of months according to the natives. 



In order to comprehend the method or manner in which these 

 Indians counted the months of the year, it must be understood 

 that their year always began the 21st of December, and thus those 

 days which elapsed between the last conjunction and the 21st were 

 vacant [days], and according to their way of expressing it they 

 said: there are no days, and on the 21st, whatever number of days 

 old the moon might be, they began to reckon the month of Aaxcomil, 

 which lasted during all of the following moon, and the new year 

 began ; therefore this month alone comprised 2 moons, that of De- 

 cember, though only in part, yet some years in its entirety, which 

 happened when the conjunction passed the 21st, and that of January. 

 The same thing happened in the month of Siutecar, which corresponds 

 to the month of June, with the only difference that if the 21st of 

 June fell in the full of the moon, the days before the full of the 

 moon were not vacant [days], but were added to the preceding 

 month, Tocoboaix, and on the 21st the other month started, but if it 

 fell before the full of the moon, the month began the day of the 

 full of the moon, and the other ensuing month followed. All the 

 other months began with the conjunctions of the moon; for that 

 reason they never or scarcely ever agreed with ours. 



What is described above is all that these Indians had in their 

 calendar, which served them for gathering their seeds, as we have 

 said, and for celebrating their feasts. They were ignorant of the 

 number of days of which the months were composed, and much 

 more so the years, and were only governed by the phases of the 

 moon ; this latter indicated to them the days on which they were to 



