_ February 2, 1894. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
¥* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
in all cases required as a proof of good faith. 
On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number containing his communi- 
cation will be furnished free to any correspondent. 
; pipe tiduer will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the 
journal, 
The writer’s name is 
Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico. 
In his recent work on this calendar, Dr. Brinton, re- 
ferring to the mathematical basis on which it is founded, 
makes the following statement : 
“An ingenious theory of the mathematical develop- 
ment of this calendar has been offered by Mrs. Zelia 
Nuttall. It assumes that at the close of each period of 
20 X 13=260 days, 5 intercalary days were inserted 
before the next 260-day period was technically com- 
menced. ‘This naturally brought its commencement on 
the next subsequent Dominical day, and also caused the 
whole period, 265 days, to equal, very nearly, nine luna- 
tions. If it can be shown that the intercalation actually 
took place, Mrs. Nuttall’s suggestion will have cleared up 
one of the most obscure problems in American archeology.” 
If I rightly understand the author, there appears to be 
in this a misconception of the relation of the 260-day 
period to the solar or ordinary year. If these periods 
followed one another with intervals of only five days, they 
could not possibly bear any fixed or determinate relation 
to the ordinary years. Now I have always supposed, and, 
from all the evidence I have been able to obtain upon the 
subject, still believe, that each ordinary year zwcluded one 
sacred period, or ‘‘ vague solar year,” as Dr. Brinton 
terms it. Mr. Cushing informs us that this is beyond 
question the idea entertained by the Zuifis in reference to 
their time systems, or, as he expresses it, the sacred period, 
embracing some eight or nine months of each year, ‘‘is 
the kernel of the ordinary year,” being governed, how- 
ever, as to its commencement and ending by the phases 
of the moon. 
It will also be observed that the same idea appears to 
be indicated by the time series of the Mexican Codices (as, 
for example, that on plates 31-38 Borgian Codex). These, 
we see, are bordered above and below bya line of symbolic 
figures which we may justly assume—as there are 52 in 
each line (ro4 in all)—represent the remaining days of 
the year—lacking one. As they exactly fill the divisions 
of the space, we may suppose this was the reason one, was 
omitted, or there may be some other explanation. In 
other words, I believe the scheme of the plates indicates 
that the sacred period was zuc/udedin the secular year; or, 
to reverse it, that each ordinary year included one sacred 
period of 260 days. It Mrs. Nuttall had said ‘‘1o5 days 
were added,” there would be complete agreement. This 
sacred period, being, in all probability, regulated to some 
extent by the moon, would shift somewhat its time of 
beginning and ending. 
Imay add here (but expect to present the reasons there- 
for more fully in a future paper) that there are substantial 
reasons for believing that we must look beyond the 
boundaries of our continent for the origin of this calendar. 
The flower, when we first find it here, is too fully blown to 
suppose it thus came into existence; there must have been 
a bud and germsomewhere. These have not as yet been 
found in other American tribes. 
I think we may assume that the natural basis was the 
revolution and phases of the moon; the mathematical 
basis the count of the fingers and toes, beginning with five; 
and that the mystical reference to the cardinal points also 
entered into its formation. As indicating the line of re- 
search most likely to lead to satisfactory results, I refer 
to the following facts : 
According to Mr. Cushing, a particular color was assigned 
by the Zunis (as by many other peoples) to the cardinal 
SCIENCE. 6s 
points, but to the focus or centre a mixture of colors, or, in 
other words, it was said to be ‘‘speckled.” It isasingular 
fact that in the old ‘‘native”’ Javanese calendar the week 
cousisted of five days, each having a particular name. 
These were supposed to have a mystical relation to certaim 
colors and to the cardinal points. ‘‘ According to this 
whimsical interpretation,” remarks Crawfurd (‘‘ Indiam 
Archipelago ”’), ‘‘the first means white, and the east ; the 
second red, and the south ; the third yellow, and the west ; 
the fourth black, and the north; and the fifth mzxed color, 
and the focus or centre.” Let us suppose this, as it is so 
far away, to be accidental. 
According to Judge Fornander (‘‘ Polynesian Race’”’), 
the Hawaiians formerly counted twelve months, of thirty 
days each, to the year, and added five days at the end of 
the last month—/Ve/ehu—to make up the 365, these being 
‘““tabu-days.”’ Each month and each of the thirty days 
of the month had a particular name. He also adds that 
they had two modes of reckoning time, one by lunar 
cycles, whereby the monthly feasts were regulated; and 
the other the sidereal year, which appears to have been 
regulated by the rising of the Pleiades. He also adds the 
further important information that the feasts, or Kapu- 
days, were observed only during eight months of the year. 
This period corresponds somewhat closely with the sacred 
period of the Central American and Mexican calendar, 
and also with the sacred period of the Zufis. 
Mr. Dibble, in his ‘‘ History of the Sandwich Islands” 
(Edn. 1843), gives some additional particulars, which, 
though somewhat confused from want of a thorough 
knowledge of the system, have a strong bearing on the 
question of the origin of the Mexican calendar. He says 
the Hawaiians divide the year into two seasons of six 
months each; that the year consisted of twelve months. He 
adds further that ‘‘In one year there were zine times forty 
nights.” Were we find the nine-day series introduced 
corresponding with the puzzling nine ‘‘ Lords of the 
Night” of the Mexican calendar. ‘This coincidence is 
remarkable. As the change from nine to eighteen and 
from forty to twenty was simple, we may find herein an 
explanation of the eighteen months and twenty days of 
the calendar. ‘‘ These nights,’ says Mr. Dibble, ‘‘ were 
counted by the moon. ‘There were thirty nights in each 
month, seventeen of which were not very light and thirteen 
were.” These numbers are very significant in this con- 
nection. Yet it is apparent that the author, not under- 
standing the system, gives but fragments. In his attempt 
further on to explain the revolution of the count by the 
moon and the sidereal year, this confusion becomes more 
evident and is partially, though not fully, corrected by 
Judge Fornander. But enough is given to show that the 
two periods, the sacred and the secular, were in use, and 
that the system was very similar in its unusual features to 
that in use among the Mexicans and Central Americans. 
Cyrus THOMAS. 
Washington, D. C. 
Raining Worms and Frogs. 
WHILE reading the letter of a correspondent in the 
issue of January 7, on ‘‘ Does It Rain Worms?” I was 
reminded of Thomas Cooper’s statement in his autobi- 
ography that he saz’ it rain frogs when he was a boy. 
A waterspout on the Yellow River in China will some- 
times pour down till it makes the river seem to boil in 
fury, and then all is reversed, the water in immense 
quantity is drawn up with the fish, sticks, straws—and 
even the loose stones from ‘the river bed—and carried 
along the sky until the wind drops, and then the fish, 
frogs, etc., fall down, and people are astonished at the 
marvel. Probably the frogs seen by Mr. Cooper may be 
accounted for in this way. FRANCIS HUBERTY JAMEs. 
Boston, January 18, 1894. 
