﻿Gama on Calendar Stone. 



23 



civil to the solar years, since the small excess of 4 hours, 38 min- 

 utes and 40 seconds that there is over the 25 days, in a period of 

 104 years, will not amount to one entire day until the completion 

 of more than five of these great periods, or 538 years, in which 

 time the civil year will recede only one day from the solar year. 

 Some historians, convinced by the close approximation which the 

 days of the Mexicans had with ours in the later years of the con- 

 quest, concluded that one day was added in each quadrennial, like 

 our bissextile, founded on a particular festival which they celebrated 

 every four years ; but this was a manifest error, for this feast was 

 celebrated in honor of rekindling the fire every year, and to it they 

 gave especial veneration under the title of " Xiuhteucth," the lord 

 of the year. The)- celebrated it with the greatest solemnity when 

 the same symbol returned with which they commenced the first 

 "tricena" (tricene) of their cycle, which was, as we have seen, 

 every four years. They had, notwithstanding, perfect knowledge 

 that in each one of these intervals they were losing a day, which 

 is evident from this same stone that we are going to describe ; but 

 the correction was not made until the end of the cycle (of 52 

 years), when they intercalated in one group the 13 days which 

 they spent in festivals in honor of their secular gods, one of whom 

 was this same li Xiuhteuctli T/etl." 



10. Each one of the 18 months that composed the year was 

 made up of 20 days, which they reckoned consecutively from 1 to 

 20 ; and, in order to refer to any date, they spoke of the day, of 

 such a number, of such a month, just as we say, the 13th day of 

 May, without stating the day of the week corresponding, for each 

 one of those 20 days had its symbol and particular name, in- 

 cluding among them the same four symbols with which they desig 

 nated their years. Of their 20 symbols, they formed another species 

 of calendar, which was used by the priests and principal people. 



The first calendar contained 18 months that were called "Ton- 

 alpohualli;" that is, "reckoning of the sun," or days, or "Cem- 

 pohualilhuitl, " feasts of 20 days; when they celebrated one 

 especial festival at the end of each of these months, it was purely 

 solar. But the second, in which figured the symbols of the day, 

 corresponded to the apparent movements of the moon, and they 



