sEiER] THE MEXICAN CHRONOLOGY 21 



assertion. And 3 et I have seen l)lne numeral signs in a Maya manu- 

 script, which might be interpreted in the sense of a correction or 

 possibly also of an interpolation. On pages 23 and 24 of the Fere/ 

 codex, the Mexican manuscript of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris 

 are thirteen columns of 5 days each, which nuist be read from right 

 to left and from above downward, as the addition and as the position 

 of the hieroglyphs sliow, which, unlike the mode of writing employed 

 elsewhere in the Maya manuscripts, is face backward (to the left). 

 The separate dates in the series each ditier by 28 days and the last date 

 in the first (top) row diti'ers from the tirst date in the second row by 28 

 days also. There are in all 5x13x28, or 7x260 days^ that is, the 

 space of 7 tonalamatl. The muiierals belonging to the dates of the 

 days are, as usual, written in red, but above or below each column of 

 tigures another figure is written in blue, which would denote a date 

 some 20 daj's further on. This is evidently a correction, but scarcely 

 one which can be taken for a sort of intercalation. It is a correction 

 which states what tigures belong to the dates when the beginning of 

 the whole series is pushed forward by a unit of 20 days. 



Leon y Gama varies Sigiienza's theory of intercalation l)y stating 

 (Dos Piedras, pages 52 and 53) that the Mexicans interpolated 25 days 

 at the close of a double cycle of 104 j^ears, or 12^ days at the end of a 

 52-year cycle, and according to this the days of the one cycle l)egan in 

 the morning, those of the other in the evening. But this is mere spec- 

 ulation. FinalW, the theory of the Jesuit Fabrega, with which A. 

 von Humboldt agrees (Vue des Cordilleres, volume 2, page 81), that 

 the Mexicans suppressed 7 days at the close of a great period of 20 

 cycles, or 1,040 years, and thus reduced their 3'ear to almost the exact 

 length of the tropical year, rests upon an actual error. The passage in 

 question from the Borgian codex (pages 62 to 66) by no means treats of 

 so long a space of time. The simple series of twenty day signs is repre- 

 sented by beginning with ^Nlalinalli, or XII, on page (56 and ending on 

 page 62 with Ozomatli, or XI. The signs were undoubtedly originally 

 intended to be distributed around four sides of a square with the last 

 (Ozomatli) in the middle. 



If, as I believe, the theory of intercalation is to l)e rejected, the 

 (juestion arises all the more forcibly. How did the Mexicans contrive 

 to make their system of chronology agree with the actual time'^ Must 

 they not have speedily observed that their annual feasts, which fell in 

 portions of the year determined by the course of the sun, the alterna- 

 tion of wet and dry weather, winter sleep and perfection of vegetation, 

 were noticeably advanced in the course of successive years ? Doubtless 

 they did observe it, but they could hardly have known how to remedy 

 it. And doubtless the confused and contradictory statements given 

 by th(> Indians themselves in regard to the time of their now year and 

 the true time of the various festivals were due to this uncertainty, to 



