436 



APPENDIX. 



As those names corresponded in number with the days of the month, it fol- 

 lowed that, the name of the first day of the year being known, the names 

 of the first days of all the successive months were equally known; and 

 they were distinguished from each other only by adding the number of the 

 week to which they respectively belonged. But the week consisting of 

 thirteen days, the month necessarily consisted of a week and seven days ; 

 so that if the month began with the first number of a week, it ended with 

 the seventh number of the week ensuing. 



[In order to know the number of the week corresponding with the first 

 day of each month respectively, it is necessary only to know the number 

 of the week with which the year begins, and to add successively seven, but 

 subtracting thirteen whenever the sum of this addition exceeds thirteen, 

 which gives the following series for the first days of the eighteen months : 

 1, 8, 2 (15-13), 9, 3 (16-13), 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13, 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, supposing 

 the first day of the year to be the first day of the week, and generally taking 

 for the first number of the series the number of the week by which the year 

 begins.] 



4°. The Year. 



To this day the Indians call the year Jaab or Haab, and, while heathens, 

 they commenced it on the 16th of July. It is worthy of notice that their 

 progenitors, having sought to make it begin from the precise day on which 

 the sun returns to the zenith of this peninsula on his way to the southern 

 regions, but being destitute of instruments for their astronomical observa- 

 tions, and guided only by the naked eye, erred only forty-eight hours in ad- 

 vance. That small difference proves that they endeavoured to determine, 

 with the utmost attainable correctness, the day on which the luminary passed 

 the most culminating point of our sphere, and that they were not ignorant 

 of the use of the gnomon in the most tempestuous days of the rainy season. 

 They divided the year into 18 months, as follows : 



1st, Pop, beginning on the 16th of July. 



2d, U66, beginning on the 5th of August. 



3d, Zip, beginning on the 25th of August. 



4th, Zodz, beginning on the 14th of September. 



5th, Zeec, beginning on the 4th of October. 



6th, Xul, beginning on the 24th of October. 



7th, Dze-yaxkin, beginning on the 13th of November. 



8th, Mol, beginning on the 3d of December. 



9th, Dchen, beginning on the 23d of December, 



10th, Yaax, beginning on the 12th of January, 



11th, Zac, beginning on the 1st of February. 



12th, Gtuej, beginning on the 21st of February. 



13th, Mac, beginning on the 13th of March. 



14th, Kankin, beginning on the 2d of April, 



