PAL EN QUE 



UXMAL YUCATAN CALENDAR. 



173 



perhaps, the most wonderful of all that have been explored hitherto 

 in this lonely region; and, while we regret that our duty to the 

 living present will not permit us to dwell longer on the curious past, 

 we shall, nevertheless pause, occasionally, as we pass through the 

 Mexican States, to notice those remains which have either been 

 visited by us personally, or are not described in books as accessible 

 to all classes of enquirers and students as those of Messrs. Stephens, 

 Catherwood and Norman. Mr. Stephens believes, after full inves- 

 tigation, that these towns and cities were occupied by the original 

 builders and their descendants at the period of the Spanish con- 

 quest, and our own opinion entirely coincides with his reasoning 

 * and judgment. Those who desire a complete and conclusive illus- 

 tration of this branch of the subject will find an excellent argument 

 thereon in both of his publications. 1 



In the first volume of this work we have given an account of the 

 Mexican or Aztec Calendar ; and the proximate identity of the Yu- 

 catese or Mayan and Aztec Calendar led Mr. Stephens to the con- 

 clusion that both nations had a common origin. This argument is 

 also important in considering the period of the occupation of the 

 Chiapan and Yucatese edifices, inasmuch as we know that the Az- 

 tecs of Montezuma's period used the Calendar which we have 

 already illustrated and described. 



Yucatan Calendar. 



"Our knowledge of the Yucatan Calendar," says Mr. Gallatin, 2 

 "is derived exclusively from the communications made by Don J. P. 

 Perez to Mr. John L. Stephens, and inserted in the appendix to the 

 f first volume of this gentleman's Travels in Yucatan. It is substan- 

 tially the same with that of the Mexicans, though differing in some 

 important particulars. 



"The inhabitants of Yucatan had, like the Mexicans, the two 

 distinct modes of computing time, by months of twenty days, and 

 by periods of thirteen days. They also distinguished the days of 

 the year by a combination of those two series, precisely similar to 

 that of the Mexicans. And their year likewise consisted of 365 

 days, viz., of eighteen months of twenty days each, to which they 

 added five supplementary days ; and also of a corresponding series 

 of twenty-eight periods of thirteen days each, and one day over. 



1 See Stephens's Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, 

 vol. 2, chapter xxvi ; and his Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, vol. 2, page 444. 



2 Transactions American Ethnological Society, vol. 1, page 104, and Stephens's 

 Yucatan, vol. 1, page 434. 



