SELF.R] THE MEXICAN "CHRONOLOGY 25 



Therefore 2 Aoati is the opening year of the tirst and ,)f all followino- 

 cycles. As such it is also desionated in all pictui-e manuscripts of 

 historical nature by the tire drill. The statement of the interpretei' 

 of the Codex Telleriano-Kemensis, part 4, paiL>e 24, on which Orozco y 

 Berra hiys so nuich stress, that the betrinninj,^ of the cycle was lirst 

 changed from 1 Tochtli to 2 Acatl in the year J .5()(), under Motecuhzoma, 

 on account of the famine which reoularly occurred in preyious years, 

 is merel}' an attempt to explain the remarkable fact that the cycle 

 begins with the numeral 2 in a euhemeristic way. But Clayigero's 

 assertion that the cycle began wnth 1 Tochtli is simply an error. It 

 contradicts the accounts of ancient authorities and all that documents 

 tell us. 



With what days did the years begin? Duran and Cristobal del 

 Castillo sa}' that the year l)egan with Cipactli, the tirst of the twenty 

 signs for the dsiys. And if this is to be accepted as the initial day of 

 one year, then the others would begin with Miquiztli, Ozomatli, Cozca- 

 quauhtli, VI, XT, and XVI of the signs for the da3's. This is Clayi- 

 gero's theory. He begins the j^ears Tochtli, Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli, 

 corresponding wdth Cipactli, Miquiztli, Ozomatli, Cozcacjuauhtli. I, 

 myself, formerly )»elieyed that the years Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli, Tochtli 

 were to be coupled with the da3^s Cipactli, Miquiztli, Ozomatli, and 

 Cozcaijuauhtli as initial days, relying upon page 12 of the Borgian 

 codex wliich agrees witli Codex Vaticaiuis B, page 2S, where we see 

 represented l)y tiye Tlaloc tigures the live cardinal points and their 

 signiticance in the life and housekeeping of men, and among the lirst 

 four of them the signs for the four years coordinated in the al)()\e 

 manner with the signs of the aforesaid four days. But I haye recently 

 become puzzled again, since the aboye-mentioned pages of the manu- 

 scripts yery readily admit of another explanation. For not only were 

 the years of the cycle apportioned among the four cardinal points, but 

 so also were the four divisions of the tonalamatl, ])egiiming with 1 

 Cipactli. The initial days of the four quarters were plainly d(\signated 

 in the Zapotec calendar— which, as we shall see, perhaps represents 

 one of the most primitiye forms of this chronologic system -as the 

 Cocijo or pitao, that is, ''the holders of time", ''the rain gods", or 

 "the great ones", "the gods". " In these names we find, then, a direct 

 reference to the Tlaloc figures, which we see depicted in the Borgian 

 codex, page 12, and Codex Vaticanus H, page 28, as representatiyes of 

 the cardinal points. And the day signs set down under the latter 

 signify those yery initial days of the tonalamatl diyisions and the initial 

 years of the cycle divisions which were supposed to be coordinated 

 with the cardinal points. 



The wisdom of the Mexican priest chroniclers spent itself in elabo- 

 rating the tonalamatl from its arithmetico-theoretic and augural side. 

 There is not— aside from a passage in the Maya manuscript, of which 



