tTioIias] the MAYA CODICES AND BOOKS. 7 



Bereiidt and Brintou, tlie numeratiou was definite and expressed in 

 specific terms ui) to 64,000,000. The vigesimal character and some of 

 the terms indicate that the system was initiated through counting on 

 the fingers, and i^erhaps also on the toes; but the concepts of the count 

 appear to have interacted with industrial, calendaric, and, i^erhaps, my th- 

 ologic concepts, and so the stages in tlie development of the system, 

 like those of our own Arabic system, are lost, probably never to be 

 regained. 



The Maya calendar system recorded by the Spanish conquerors was 

 of highly elaborate character, being determined ai)parently (1) by the 

 system of numeration, (2) by the seasons, and (3) by the phases of the 

 moon, together with the customary recognition of the day as a primary 

 unit; but in this system, too, the stages of development are sometimes 

 obscure. It is to be observed that hitherto the calendar system of the 

 codices has been, in some respects, inharmonious with that of the modern 

 Maya and Spanish chronicles. 



II. 



The autographic records or records proper of the Mayas are of two 

 classes: (1) codices written in the aboriginal graphic system, chiefly or 

 wholly before the Conquest; (2) ''Books of Chilan Balam " and other 

 manuscripts written in the Maya language but in characters introduced 

 by the early missionaries and conquerors. According to Brintou, Chilan 

 Balam u * * * is not a proper name, 'but a title, and in ancient 

 times designated the priest who announced the will of the gods and 

 explained the sacred oracles."' 



The latter records were at one time numerous, probably every village 

 being supplied with one and the name of the village being added to 

 the title; but by far the greater part have disappeared. The earliest 

 were com j)osed before the close of the sixteenth century ; many were 

 added during the seventeenth century; but most were written during 

 the later half of the eighteenth century. The records comj)rise chron- 

 icles of events of local or general nature, prophecies, astrologic and 

 divinatory inscriptions, and a variety of matters of little consequence 

 save as indices to modes of thought and inethods of expression. Stu- 

 dents of the subject are under a profound obligation to Dr. Daniel G. 

 Brinton, of Philadelphia, for the publication of a number of these 

 "books," with translations and notes, in the first volume of his Library 

 of Aboriginal American Literature, under the title, "The Maya Chroni- 

 cles." 



The codices, which are of special importance as autographic records 

 of perhaps the highest aboriginal culture on the Western Hemisphere, 

 existed in considerable numbers at the time of the Conquest. Unhap- 

 pily their value was not appreciated by the conquistadores, and they 

 fell under the ban of the missionaries and most of them were destroyed 



'The Mayn Chronicles. Philadephia, 1882, p. 70. 



