Chapter III. HOW THE MAYA RECKONED TBiE 



Among all peoples and in all ages the most obvious miit for the 

 measurement of time has been the day; and the never-failing reap- 

 pearance of light after each interval of darkness has been the most 

 constant natural phenomenon with which the mind of man has had 

 to deal. From the earliest times successive returns of the sun have 

 regulated the whole scheme of human existence. When it was light, 

 man worked; when it was dark, he rested. Conformity to the opera- 

 tion of this natural law has been practically universal. 



Indeed, as primitive man saw nature, day was the only division of 

 time upon which he could absolutely rely. The waxing and wanmg 

 of the moon, with its everchangmg shape and occasional obscuration 

 by clouds, as well as its periodic disappearances from the heavens 

 all combined to render that lummary of little account in measuring 

 the passage of time. The round of the seasons was even more unsat- 

 isfactory. A late spring or an early winter by hastenmg or retarding 

 the return of a season caused the apparent lengths of succeedmg 

 years to vary greatly. Even where a 365-day year had been deter- 

 mined, the fractional loss, amounting to a day every four years, soon 

 brought about a discrepancy between the calendar and the true year. 

 The day, therefore, as the most obvious period in nature, as well as 

 the most reliable, has been used the world over as the fundamental 

 unit for the measurement of longer stretches of time. 



Table I. THE TWENTY MAYA DAY NAMES 



In conformity with the universal practice just mentioned the Maya 

 made the day, which they called Tiin, the primary unit of then- calen- 

 dar. There were twenty such units, named as in Table I; these 

 followed each other in the order there shown. When Ahau, the last 

 day in the list, had been reached, the count began anew with Imix, 

 and thus repeated itself again and again without interruption, 

 throughout tune. It is unportant that the student should fLx this 



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