CENTRAL AMERICAN TONALAMATL^ 



By E. Forstemann 



One of the most important devices common to both the Aztecs and 

 the Mayas, thus doubtless a connnon possession of all Central America, 

 is unquestionably the tonalamatl, that 2G0-day period in Avhich the 

 13 week days are repeated twenty times; but these two peoples differ 

 widely in the manner of representing this period of time. The Aztecs 

 mechanically copied the pictures of the 20 days in the order of their 

 succession in constant repetition, designating the position of every 

 day in the 1 -'5-day week by a number, and finally adding the represen- 

 tations of the deities dominating the days and the weeks. To cite 

 only one example, it is thus we see it in the Tonalamatl of Aubin, on 

 which Doctor Seler has contributed an unusiuilly full report in the 

 Compte rendu of the Berlin Americanist Congress of 1888. 



The Mayas, to whom I shall confine myself here, proceeded very 

 differently. They first divided the tonalamatl into quarters, fifths, 

 or tenths; that is, into periods of five, four, or two weeks each, or 

 65, 52, or 26 days. They represented the first day only in every divi- 

 sion with its sign, and these stand oft', one below the other, thus 

 requiring for the whole tonalamatl oidy four, five, or ten signs. 

 Above these a number sign indicates once for all the place in the 

 week occupied by these days. P'urthermore, not the Avhole tonala- 

 matl, but only the first of its divisions of 65, 52, or 26 days, was divided 

 into a number of equal or unequal parts, which were separated from 

 each other by days on which apparently some particular business Avas 

 performed or particular feasts were celebrated. These events are 

 explained by pictures and glyphs. We are justified in supposing 

 that the other parts of the tonalamatl were regarded as divided in 

 exactly the same way as the manuscripts show the first part to be 

 divided. 



It might not seem necessary to express myself otherwise than briefly 

 here, as I have already treated the subject in my Erliiuterungen 

 treating of the Dresden manuscript in 1886, and Mr Cyrus Thomas 

 has discussed it still more thoroughly in his Aids to the Study of the 

 Maya Codices in 1888, but the accunndation of material since that 



« Das mittelamerikaniscbe Tonalamatl, Globus, 1895, v. 67, n. 18, pp. 283-285. 



527 



