SELBR] MEXICAN PICTURE WRITINGS FRAGMENT I 141 



the 20th, the hist day of the month Tecuilhuitontli. The Spaniards 

 probably left the hostile city on the night before the feast, and the 

 narrator counts the whole days Avhich lay between the ninth day of 

 Quecholli and the feast Tecuilhuitontli. It can be computed with 

 tolerable accuracy that this day, the "noche triste " of unhallowed 

 memory to the Spanish, was the 30th of June, 1520." But from Nov- 

 ember 8, 1519, to June 30, 1520, there are actualW 235 days, since 1520 

 was a leap year. The authenticated European chronology and that 

 of our Indian informant thus agree perfectl3^ 



If we now comj^are these newly acquired dates with the one first 

 quoted, the day of Quauhtemoc's capture, we have the following com- 

 putation: Between November 8, 1510, and August 13, 1521, there 

 elapsed 644 days. If we count 644 days from the 9th day of Que- 

 cholli in the Indian calendar of feasts, in doing which we should take 

 into account that the Mexicans had no leap years, we come to the third 

 day of the month Xocotluetzi. We must conclude that in the Indian 

 calendar of feasts this was the day of Quauhtemoc's capture. 



But now, before I draw further conclusions from this result, I 

 must mention that it contradicts certain other records. According 

 to an account quoted by Leon y Gama '' Quauhtemoc's capture did not 

 take place in the month Xocotluetzi, but in Nexochimaco, or Tlaxo- 

 chimaco, the preceding month. Chimalpahin seems to make a simi- 

 lar statement, for he says, in the passage from which I quoted 

 above: Auh yye ohuacic nauhpohuallonmatlaqu-ilhuitl yn otech 

 icalque tlaxochimaco yye . . . yc tixitinque (" after they had 

 striven against us 90 days, we at last surrendered in Tlaxochi- 

 maco (?)"). 



It is obvious that this can not be reconciled with the statements 

 mentioned above. As, however, those other statements are to a 

 certain extent controlled by European computation, it is very pos- 

 sible that there is an error here, the more so because, b}^ our calcu- 

 lation, the day of Quauhtemoc's capture was comparatively close to 

 the feast Tlaxochimaco, being on the third day following it. The 

 beginning of the battle and the appearance of the Spanish caravels 

 at Nonoucalco, which^ according to Chimalpahin's repeated assertion, 

 occurred 90 days before, are placed by Chimalpahin in the month 

 Toxcatl. This coincides with our reckoning. But when he says 

 in the passage in question <' that it was on the day ce Cozcaquauhtli, 

 " 1 king vulture ", it is incorrect. It is undoubtedly a slip of the pen 

 or, perhaps, an error in reading. It should rather be ei Cozcaquauhtli, 



" The letter of Cortes states that the army reached Tlaxcala on the 8th of .Tuly, and 

 from the general's accurate account of their progress each day it appears that they left 

 the capital on the last night of .Tune, or rather the morning of July 1 (Prescott, Hist. 

 Conquest Mexico) 



'' Dos I'iedras, 2d ed., p. 7'.), nole, and p. SO. 



" Page 193 of the R6mi Simeon edition. 



