. 



250 MAYAN C'ALENDAR SYSTEMS [eth. ann. 2a 



the iiionth, ami not the luiuiberiiig (in the 13 series) of the daj' Ahau 

 as mentioned above. I quote again from his work (pages 12 and 13): 



Poor Don Pio! To have the pearl hi his grasii and be unaware of its prieeless- 

 ness — like so many others! But I must not exult too much yet. The succession 

 of the katuns, reckoned according to this principle, is yet to be ascertained before 

 my fancied discovery can be established by a crucial test. I score the ahaus off 

 in the foregoing order, and, sure enough, the twentieths give the desired result: 

 11. 9, 7. 5, 3. 1, 12, 10, 8. 6, 4, 3. 13. Eureka! The perturbed spirit of the Maya 

 calendar, which has endeavoured so long to imparc its message to the world, may 

 I'est at last. 



But, though confident I had discovered the secret of the ahau and katun count, 

 when I tried the plan on the dates and reckonings (jf the inscriptions it proved 

 totally inapplicable. There were periods into whose nature I had no insight, and 

 if those I sumiised to be ahaus and katuns were really so the former would not 

 come in the right order, while the latter were excessive and numerated in a way 

 quite unintelligible. It was discouraging, but 1 did not lose faith in my discov- 

 ery. The inapplicability of the Yueatec scheme to the reckonings of the inscrip- 

 tions, jn-oljatily, was simijly owing to different methods of computing the ahaus 

 and katuns. There was no alternative but a patient and exhaustive analysis of 

 the Archaic dates and time reckonings. 



It would be tedious as useless to recount trials — failure outranking success a 

 thousand fold — the results of which constitute the bulk of this book. I will only 

 state, in brief, that I determined the character of the chuen and great cycle 

 periods; that I discovered the first chuen was numerated 18, the first ahau, katun, 

 day and day of the mouth, 20. and that the first cycle of the great cycle was num- 

 bered 13 — the iinit attaching to the second jieriod in all instances: that 1 ascer- 

 tained the cycle was i-oniposed of twenty katuns, numerated 2((, 1, 2, 3, etc., uji to 

 19. instead of according to the Yueatec order: that I finally deduced a chronolog- 

 ical calendar whose perfect accord with the x'l'iiicipal dates and reckonings 

 throughout the inscriptions is proof of its correctness, and by reversing the process 

 succeeded in reconstructing the outlines of the entire Archaic chronological 

 scheme. I expect my calendar to be challenged. It would be without precedent 

 in the history of discovery if it were not. But I leave it to defend itself, con- 

 scious that it is as infallible as the multiplication table, and knowing that all 

 antagonists must finally go down before it. 



By reading between the lines of this quotation, and noting the dif- 

 ficulties he encountered, we readily see that his theory was outlined 

 before the difficulties ^jresented themselves. Why should he iind it 

 necessary to number the first chuen 18, the first ahau 20, and the first 

 cycle 13 were this not so? Take the short series 13-9-0 from 12 

 Caban 5 Kayab to Cimi 4 Tzec, which he mentions, and says works 

 out all right. There is no difficulty if we count it 13 ahaus plus 9 

 chuens plus 9 days, just as we might say 13 hundreds 9 tens and 9. 

 If we read it as it really is, 13 units of the 3rd order (3tj0 each) plus 

 9 units of the 2nd order (20 each) and 9 units of the 1st order (1 each), 

 there is no difficulty in showing that it i.s an exact measure of the 

 lapse of time between the given dates. 



The tlifficultj', as we may safely assume, arose from the fact that 

 the count would not fit in with the theory he had formulated l)ut had 



