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more passive in regard to these da\'s, inasniucli as tlioy nierelv took 

 care to avoid conjiuing up mischief for the coming year, while the 

 Mayas did things more thoroughly. During these days, so portentous 

 for the entire year, they banished the evil which might threaten them. 

 They prepared a clay image of the demon of evil, Uuayayab, that is, 

 u-uayab-haab ("l)y whom the year is poisoned"), confronted it with 

 the deity who had supreme power during the year in question, and 

 then carried it out of the village in the direction of that cardinal point 

 to which the new year belonged. 



Of these live days writers commonl}^ say " they were not counted." 

 And we take this to mean that the ordinary designation of the days by 

 numerals and signs was not applied to these days. It is true that 

 Sahagun's Aztec text affords ground for this supposition, for it says 

 of the nemontemi: Yn aoctle yn toca tonalli, yn aocmo ompouih, yn 

 aocmo om pouhque (""The days no longer have names; they are no 

 longer counted"). And farther on: Ca atle y tonal, ca atle ytoca 

 . . . ca nel amo ompouhque atle ypouallo ('"They have no signs, 

 no names . . . for in truth they are not counted"). Duran states 

 even more (dearly: Los cinco dias que sobraban, tenian los esta 

 nacion por dias aciagos, sin cuenta ni provecho; asi los dejaban en 

 bianco, sin ponerles ligura ni cuenta, y asi los llamaban nemontemi, 

 ((ue quiere decir dias demasiados y sin provecho (''The tive days that 

 remained this nation held to ])e unfortunate days, of no account or 

 advantage; so they left them blank, without giving them figure or 

 account, and so called them nemontemi, which means days superfluous 

 and of no advantage"). In Yucatan these days were also directly 

 designated as xma kaba kin ("days without names"). And what 

 Duran states is illustrated in Landa; in the calendar recorded by him, 

 the five superfluous days are left ])lank, without number or sign. Are 

 we therefore actually to suppose that these days interrupted the con- 

 tinuous tonalamatl calculation? 1 think not. The acam pouhqui and 

 aocmo ompouhque do not state that these days are dropped out of the 

 reckoning, })ut, as Sahagun also quite correctly explains, that no feast 

 was celebrated upon them; that they were held improper and worth- 

 less for civic action. Compare acan ompoui, cosa insuticiente y falta, 

 6 persona de quien no se hace caso ("insufficient and faulty thing, or 

 person held of no account"). (Molina.) We nuist also attach the 

 same meaning to the phrase atle ytoca and the Maya designation xma 

 kaba kin. And if these days were left blank, according to Diiian and 

 Landa, this oidy signified that men avoided mentioning these unlucky 

 days in any way. They were coimted in silence. Otherwise Ivanda, 

 for instance, could not state that the successive years began with th(< 

 dominical letters Kan, Muluc, Ix, Cauac, that is, with signs IV, IX, 

 XIV, XIX; but we should have to assume, as, indeed, old (Jama does, 

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