SELEK] MAYA CAI>ENDAR IN HISTORIC CHRONOLOGY 337 



the first founding: of Chichen Itza. Here the principal events are all 

 set eacli a full period of 13 katuns before the succeeding one; that is, 

 all either in S Ahau or all in 1 Ahau, the computation including in all 

 four full periods of 25(3 yea rs-|- 146 days. A peculiar feature is found 

 in a third list contained in the Chilam Balani of Chumayel, which is 

 printed in Brinton's Maya Chronicles, pages 178 and 179, and which 

 for various reasons claims our especial interest. Katun 4 Ahau is 

 mentioned here before the historic events occurring in 8 Ahau, on 

 the one hand, as the period in which the mythic kingdom of Chichen 

 Itza came to an end, and therefore as the period in which the human 

 race took its origin; that is, when the great and small descent (great 

 and small immigration) occurred and men met together in Chichen 

 Itza from the four cardinal points. This is the only passage known 

 to me in the books of Chilam Balam which seems to contain any refer- 

 ence to the normal and initial date of the Dresden manuscript — 4 

 Ahau, 8 Cumku. 



Although the books of Chilam Balam do not yield very much for 

 chronology, they are all the more fruitful in intelligence regard- 

 ing that side of the Maya calendar which was incontestably the 

 most assiduously cultivated and which undoubtedly occupies a large 

 space in the Maya manuscripts, composing the chief, perhaps the 

 only, contents thereof; that is, the augural side, the consideration of 

 the divinatory power which belongs to the signs and numerals of 

 days and the other greater and lesser divisions of time. But I must 

 reserve the explanation of these matters for a future communication. 



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