sEi.EK] THE MEXICAN CHRONOLOGY 23 



idols of clay and their braziers, and if necessary they rebuilt the house or 

 renovated it, and placed upon the wall the memory of these things in 

 their proper characters"); that is, they established the character which 

 the 3'ear was to have and renewed their objects of worship and house- 

 hold utensils — ceremonies whose original meaning can only have been 

 that the beginning of the year was set at this time. In fact, the Zotzil 

 of Chiapas, whose people were near kin to the Mayas, seem also to 

 have begun the year with the month Chen, which they called Tzun, 

 that is, "beginning" (see Pineda, quoted by Orozco y Berra, volume 

 2, page 14:2). I may remark by the wa^^ that, just as we find the 

 New Year's feast of the Mexicans among the Mayas, so, too, the man- 

 ner in which half a year later, in the month of Jul}^, the Mayas 

 observed their real New Year by solemnly conducting the spirit of 

 evil out of the village finds an analogy among the Mexicans in the 

 broom festival (Ochpaniztli), observed in August. 



The decision of the Indian conference at Tlaltelolco — that the first 

 day, Quauitleua, fell at the beginning of Februar}^ — nuist therefore also 

 be regarded as corresponding quite closely to the actual custom, because 

 if it did so the various festivals were suited to the seasons in which 

 they fell. The sixth feast, Etzalqualiztli, which refers to the setting 

 in of the rainy season, fell on May 13. Don Cristobal del Castillo, 

 who drew his information from Tetzcocan sources, and whom Gama 

 follows, begins the year with the feast Tititl, which lay two twenties 

 back, but sets the beginning of the year full 24 days earlier, so that by 

 his reckoning the feast Etzalqualiztli, belonging to the opening of the 

 rainy season, falls on the 29th of Ma3^ The interpreter of the Codex 

 Vaticanus A in one place accepts the 15th, in another the 21:th of Feb- 

 ruary, as the beginning of the year. According to this Etzalqualiztli 

 would fall on May 26 or June 4. Clavigero's opinion that the 2()th of 

 February and Duran's that the 1st of March was the beginning of the 

 3'ear do not differ very widel}' from what is indicated b}- the nature of 

 the seasons. Etzalqualiztli, the setting in of the rainy season, would 

 fall on the 6th or Uth of June. We should thus have for the latter 

 event, specially important in the life of the civilized peoples of 

 Mexico, a range of about the length of one of our months, which 

 fully corresponds with the nattiral conditions. If, finally, Tlaxcaltec 

 sources make the year begin with Atemoztli, a feast occurring some 

 three twenties before Quauitleua, this gives us as the latest term which 

 we find appointed for Quauitleua the last of December as the beginning 

 of the year— a theory which again changes the beginning of the year 

 to what was a significant time as well to the Mexicans as the Mayas: 

 the middle of the dry season. But the very fact that the nemontemi, 

 the final and supplementary days of the year, were set now before 

 Quauitleua, now before Tititl, now before Atemoztli, or elsewhere, as 

 before Tlacaxipeualiztli, as according to the Guatemalan Cronica Fran- 



