285 
eight hoiirs^ forty-eight minutes. To correct 
the lunar year, and make it coincide with the 
solar year, eleven days, according to ancient 
custom, were added ; which, by the edict of the 
Inca, were divided among the twelve moons. 
According to this arrangement, it was scarcely 
possible, that; four equal periods, into which the 
lunar months should be divided, could be seven 
days each, and correspond to the phases of the 
Moon. The same historian, whose testimony 
is cited by M. Bailly in favor of the opinion, that 
the week of the Hindoos was known to the Ame- 
ricans, affirms, that, according to an ancient 
law of the Inca Pachacutec, there ought to be in 
each lunar month three days for festivals and for 
markets (catu); and that the people were to- 
work, not seven, but eight consecutive days, and 
rest the ninth This is undoubtedly a divi- 
sion of a lunar month, or a sideral revolution 
of the Moon, into three small periods of nine 
days. 
We shall observe, on this occasion, that the 
Japanese a nation of the Tartar race, are 
equally unacquainted with the small period of 
seven days ; while it is in use among the Chinese, 
who seem also aborigines of the elevated plain of 
^ Garcilasso, Lik (5, C. 35, tom. 1, p. 216. 
t Voyage de Thunberg au Japon, p. 317. 
