﻿Gama on Calendar Stone. 



27 



14. As the first twenty trecenas i. e. y 20x13=260, do not contain 

 more than thirteen months of the "first calendar," or 260 days, in 

 order to complete the year of 365 days one must commence the 

 reckoning of the (14th) fourteenth month with the same symbol 

 and number, "Ce Cipactli, " and run over the other five months 

 and five days (20X5 + 5), or io 5 remaining days, repeating the 

 same symbols and numbers of the first eight trecenas, the last of 

 the five Nemontemi agreeing with the symbol "Ce Cohuatl, " the 

 first of the ninth trecena. But as the repetition of the same 

 symbols and numbers would lead to confusion, as one could not 

 tell whether you referred to the first thirteen months of the solar 

 year, or to the last five, when you began to repeat the same sym- 

 bol and numbers as in the first eight trecenas, they distingushed 

 the last 100 "useful days" by using additional symbols, which 

 they called ' 'companions, " and which they named jointly with 

 those of the days already elapsed. So by this method one could 

 not mistake, or doubt, as to the time of the year, on account 

 of confusing them with the symbols and similar numbers of the 

 days referred to in the arrangement of the "Second Calendar," 

 or lunar cycle. 



15. In order to fully understand this subject, one must take note 

 that to each one of the symbols of the days the Indians imagined 

 a special power over the day to which it belonged, and they 

 made a special festival, and attributed to it a peculiar influence 

 over sublunary affairs, just as signs and planets are supposed to 

 possess in systems of astrology. But it was not only to the sym- 

 bols of the day that they attributed this domination. They divided 

 these influences also among the nocturnal signs, some of which 

 had the same names and the same figures as the days, but they 

 distinguished them by a certain device, which denoted that they 

 were elevated to a higher dignity. Imagining to the first the rule 

 from midday until midnight, and to the second, from midnight to 

 the following midday ; and to the figures that represented the sec- 

 ond, they gave the title of "Companions," or "Lords of the 

 night." There were nine, and they were distributed consecutively 

 according to the order, which will be described, through the whole 

 of the series of 260 days, or the twenty "trecenas." To these they 



