127 



Twenty moons, or sunas, forming the vulgar 

 year of the Muyscas, called zocam, we conceive, 

 that the zocam was only a small lunar cycle, and 

 not a year in the real sense of the words annus, 

 annulus, iviavroc,, which suppose the return of a 

 star to the point from which it departed. The 

 zocam and the great cycle of twenty intercalary 

 years probably owe their origin only to a pre- 

 ference given to the number twenty, gueta. Be- 

 side the zocam, the Muyscas had an astronomi- 

 cal cycle, a year of the priests, appointed for 

 religious festivals, and containing thirty-seven 

 moons ; as well as a rural year, which was rec- 

 koned from one season of rains to another. 



The sunas had no peculiar denomination, as 

 we find among the Egyptians, the Persians, the 

 Hindoos, and the Mexicans ; they were dis- 

 tinguished only by their number. This custom 

 appears to me the oldest in eastern Asia ; it is 

 preserved even in our days among the Chinese, 

 and was followed by the Jews till the period of 

 the Babylonian captivity. But the inhabitants 

 of Cundinamurca did not reckon in their three 

 calendars, rural, civil and religious, as far as 

 twelve, twenty, or thirty-seven ; they employed 

 for the sunas, as well as for the days of the same 

 moon, only the first ten numbers and their hiero- 

 glyphics. The first month of the second agri- 

 cultural year was governed by the sign mica, 

 three ; the third month of the third year, by the 



