446 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



various unequal parts, as I have proved in the treatise " Zur Maya- 

 Chronologie " in the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, volume 23, page 144. 



It now appears that in the passage before us the 364 days are also 

 divided into four parts of 91 days each; for groups 4, 11, 18, and 

 25 have each the same hieroglyphs, and the interval between 4 and 11, 

 between 11 and 18, betAveen 18 and 25, and between 25 and 4 is always 

 equal to 7X13 — that is, 91, except that we find a 4 prefixed in group 

 4b ( I will designate the three hieroglyphs of each group from top to 

 bottom as a, &, c). This number I will try to explain later. 



We come to the important question whether we are to recognize 

 the beginning of that 3^ear in this passage. It should be observed 

 here that Spanish authors give us widely dift'ering dates for the begin- 

 rdng of the Central American year, part of them relating to very late 

 times, and hence of little value in examining ancient native literature. 

 The date of these statements and the region to which they refer 

 should be critically examined. It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 different beginnings of the year may have been in use at the same time 

 and in the same region, just as with us the civil year begins wnth the 

 1st of January, the ecclesiastic year with the first Sunday in Advent, 

 the school year usually at Easter, and the fiscal year at various other 

 times. 



According to the statement of Diego de Landa, which dates from a 

 period long preceding the end of the sixteenth century, July 16 was 

 accepted as the beginning of the Maya year. No doubt their civil 

 year began then. 



I have tried, on the other hand, to show in Globus, number 15, vol- 

 ume 65 (1894), that according to the accounts given by Peter Martyr, 

 dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century and referring, 

 it is true, only to Mexico, the Maya, like the Chiapanecs in Chiapas, 

 had a year preceded by one which closed in May during the con- 

 junction of the sun with the Pleiades, one which began with the 

 conjunction of the sun and Orion's belt. I do not believe that 

 these peoples regarded the whole of what we call Orion as a constel- 

 lation, but only the three bright stars in the belt, the most striking 

 feature of the celestial equator. The name mehen ek ("-the sons") 

 points to this, and this, too, may be the solution of the three dots 

 under the hieroglyph for "• year ". Thus we have here an astronomic 

 year. 



Mrs Zelia Nuttall, whose labors in the Aztec field have been so suc- 

 cessful, presented a " Note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System " 

 to the Congress of Americanists at Stockholm in 1894 in which she 

 ingeniously points out a year which began with the spring equinox 

 and included in its middle the sacred tonalamatl; that is^ 260 days 

 preceded by 52 days and followed by the same number. As the real 



