10 



THE ARCHAIC CALENDARS. 



A statement of how I came to hit upon the secret of the ahau and katun count and 

 subsequently succeeded in reconstructing the outlines of the entire Archaic system, is 

 not only due to fellow-students, but may not be without interest to the general reader ; 

 and at no point could it be more pertinently given than as an introductory clause to 

 this section. 



The construction of an Archaic annual calendar was not a very difficult work. 

 Landa had given an example of a Yucatec one, and it only remained to make a change 

 in the arrangement of the days to achieve its Archaic counterpart. But, simple as 

 this task seemed, I was for a long time baffled in its accomplishment. The month 

 numbers of the days appeared to indicate that the dominicals were Akbal, Lamat, Ben, 

 and Ezenab ; but trial of a calendar constructed upon that theory proved it to be 

 wrong. It was not until I discovered that the first day of the month was numerated 

 20 in the Archaic system, and that consequently the dominicals were Ik, Manik, Eb, 

 and Caban, that I succeeded in constructing an annual calendar which met all the 

 requirements of the dates. I made Ik the initial day for no other reason than that it 

 is nearest to Kan, the Yucatec initial; but, from the prominence given to Caban in 

 the inscriptions and the frequency with which it occurs, I have grave doubts if that 

 day should not occupy the place of pride. The question is of little moment, however, 

 as the annual calendar is simply an endless rotation of days in regular order, and for 

 all practical purposes it does not matter where it begins. 



The building of the chronological calendar was a quite different and far more difficult 

 affair. I labored at it for seven years without discovering anything except that I was 

 wrong. But that was a great deal. Others who have been working at it for a much 

 longer period have not yet made even that discovery. 



The man who led everybody astray — misguiding enough of effort to have solved the 

 problem twenty times over had it been properly directed — was Don Pio Perez. He 

 undoubtedly knew much about the Maya methods of reckoning time, but he assumed 

 to know more than he really did. In the absence of any regularly ordained authority, 

 he was at once accepted, on his own bare assumption, as a leader and lawgiver; and 



