1(5 A STUDY OF THE MANUSCEIPT TEOANO. 



the following days: Kan, Oc, Cib, Ahau, and Ik. From Kan to Oc is an 

 interval of six days; from Oc to Cib six; from Cib to Aliau four; from 

 Ahau to Ik two 



Here we may be allowed to digress for a moment from the direct line 

 of our argument in order to show how the discovery of this fact may enable 

 us to determine an uncertain or obliterated character.^ The right-hand 

 colunm of the middle division of this plate (XIII) contains an unusual 

 character bearing little if any resemblance to any of Landa's day characters. 

 The days of this column, in the order they stand, are as follows: Oc, Ik, 



Ix, I o\£|) ^^^^ Ezanab. From Oc to Ik is an interval of twelve days; from 



Ik to Ix twelve daj's; from Ix to ?(Cimi) twelve days, and from Cimi to 

 Ezanab twelve days. We may therefore feel pretty well assured that this 

 unusual character is a variant of Cimi^ and not of Ahau, as Brasseur 

 supposed.^ 



The right-hand column of the lower division of the same plate contains 

 the same unusual character which, if counted as Cimi, gives an interval of 

 six days between each two. 



This regularity in the order of the days is sufficient to prove, beA'ond 

 any reasonable doubt, that they were not used on account of the significa- 

 tion of the words. In some cases the combination, if interpreted according 

 to the usual meaning of the woi'ds, ma)^, by a somewhat strained interpre- 

 tation, be formed into a sentence, but such cases are exceedingly rare, only 

 one having, so far, been observed, and here it is purely accidental. 



The agreement between the characters found in the Manuscript and 

 the order of the days as found in the Maya calendar is also a strong proof 

 that Landa was correct in the characters assigned and in the order of the 

 days as he has given them. It would be impossible to find such a large 

 number of agreements — more than 200 columns and over 1,000 days — if 

 Landa were wrong in either respect, or if we were wrong in our interpre- 



1 This was written before I had seen Charency's papers on this subject. 



2 In a plate of the "Book of Chilan Balam of Kaua," copied by Dr. Brinton in his article on the 

 Books of Chilan Balam, presented to the Nura:s. and Antiq. Soc. of Phila., Jan., 1882, p. 16, one character 

 for Lamat differs from this only in the middle stroke sloping to the left instead of to the right as this 

 does. Leon de Rosny (Essay Dcchiff. Ecrit. Hierat., 1st Livr., 17) interprets it as I do. 



'Nor of Caban as interpreted by Charency (Dechif. des Ecrit.-Calcnl, Mayas, &c., 1879, p. 20). 



