SKLEK] MAYA CALENDAR IN HISTORIC CHRONOLOGY 333 



the course of the katuu 13 Ahau ", instead of "" six years before the 

 close of 13 Ahau ", we then have the yeiiv 1520 or 1522. But setting 

 aside these accordances with Christian chronology, Avliich may all 

 be merely marginal notes, added later by ignorant persons, we have 

 a still more serious contradiction in the dates ffiven accordino; to 

 the Indian chronology itself: 9 Imix was indeed the 18th day of the 

 month Zip in a year whose first month began with a day 4 Kan; 

 but such a j-ear was oidy the year 1493, and after that the year 1545, 

 according to the unanimous statements contained in the books of Chi- 

 1am Balani and other sources of information in regard to the Chris- 

 tian years that correspond to the Indian years. The year 1493 can not 

 possibly have belonged to the katun 13 Ahau, unless we are to 

 regard as false all the other accounts, which agree in stating that 

 the Spanish permanently settled at Merida in 11 Ahau, that Chris- 

 tianity was introduced in 9 Ahau, that Bishop Landa died in 7 Ahau. 

 and that 5 Ahau began in the year 1593. 



The solution of this contradiction Avill become possible, if ever, 

 only when a critical recension of the text has been made by a compar- 

 ison of the various copies of the books of Chilam Balam, and the 

 original parts have been separated from later additions and marginal 

 notes. 



The third event recorded with comparative accuracy is the first ap- 

 pearance of the Spanish on the Yucatan peninsula. Here a discrep- 

 ancy of statement would seem comprehensible. For, in the first 

 place, we may doubt what is meant by the first appearance of the 

 Spaniards, whether it be the year wdien the Mayas for the first time 

 beheld a Spaniard, or that of the appearance of the first armed troops 

 on the coast of Yucatan, or the year when the Spaniards first pene- 

 trated into the interior of the country and strove to conquer it. The 

 statements in the native records all seem to refer to the first of these 

 three events, which occurred in the year 1511, when the caravels of 

 Valdivia, on the return voyage from the isthmus of Darien to His- 

 paniola, foundered on the shoals near Jamaica, and the survivors of 

 the crew were driven in a wretched boat upon the coast near the 

 island of Cozumel, among them the deacon Geronimo de Aguilar, 

 who was afterward liberated by Cortes. This event is set down by 

 both the book of Chilam Balam of Mani and that of Tzimin against 

 katun 2 Ahau, that is, the period preceding katun 13 Ahau, when 

 Ahpula Napotxiu is said to have died. 



" Mayapan was destroyed in 8 x\hau. Then followed the katuns 6 

 Ahau, 4 Ahau, and 2 Ahau. In the progress of the years of this 

 katun the Spanish appeared for the first time; they came for the first 

 time to this land, to the province of Yucatan, sixty years after the 

 destruction of the citadel ". So we read in the Chilam Balam of 

 Mani. 



