476 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
Valdivia, who went in a caravel to Santo Domingo to give account to the admiral and 
governor of what was happening, and to carry 20,000 ducats of the king. As this caravel 
was approaching Jamaica, it sunk into the depths which they call Viboras, where it was 
lost, so that there did not escape more than 20 men, who with Valdivia entered a small boat 
without sails, and only supplied with some bad oars. And without food of any kind, they 
went for 13 days on the sea; after deaths by hunger, almost half arrived on the coast of 
Yucatan at a province which they call Maya, which in the language of Yucatan is called 
Mayathan, that is to say, the language of the Maya.” (II.) 
Event A is fixed in the u kahlay katunob by III as follows: 
“(Katun] 2 Ahau: during this year the Spaniards first passed, and first came to this 
land, the province of Yucatan.’’? (III.) 
And if we could be sure that Valdivia and his companions introduced the 
small-pox into Yucatan when they came in 1511, which is not at all unlikely, IV 
and IX could be counted upon as additional sources of corroboration: 
“(Katun] 2 Ahau; the small-pox took place.’ (IV.) 
“(Katun] 2 Ahau; the small-pox broke out.’* (IX.) 
Even without IV and LX, however, I, II, and III, fix Event A in both chronolo- 
gies, and it may be accepted without reservation that the year 1511 fell in a Katun 
2 Ahau. 
Event B. 
The next event, or more properly speaking two events, is mentioned only by 
one source (I), but in two different and mutually corroboratory passages, one at the 
beginning of the chronicle and the other about halfway through. In the first pass- 
age it is stated that an unnamed katun came to an end in 1517: 
“Thus the land was discovered by Aguilar, who was eaten by Ah Naum Ah Pat at 
Cuzamil’ in the year 1517. In this year the katun ended, and then ended the putting in 
place of the town stone, for at each twentieth tun they came to place the town stones, for- 
merly, when the Spaniards had not yet come to Cuzamil, to this land; since the Spaniards 
came it has ceased to be done.’”® 
Although the particular katun which came to an end in 1517 is not specified 
above, this information is given, at least inferentially, in the opening line of this 
chronicle: 
“The fifth division [marker] of Katun 11 Ahau was placed when the Spaniards arrived 
and settled the city of Merida.’” 
And in still a third passage the correct date for this event is given in Christian 
chronology: 
Ler A & the third time they arrived they settled permanently, in the year 1542 they 
settled permanently in the territory of Merida, 13 Kan being the year-bearer according to 
the Maya reckoning.’” 
In the first quotation we are told directly that a katun ended in 1517, and in 
the second, information is given which indicates that this could only have been a 
Katun 2 Ahau. Let us examine the second passage more closely. 
This states that the fifth division, or five divisions, of Katun 11 Ahau had been 
placed, that is, completed according to the Maya conception of time, when Merida 
was founded, which event a third passage then fixes as having occurred in 1542. 
Now, no matter whether ho be rendered by the ordinal fifth or the cardinal five, the 
1Landa, 1881, p. 72. 2Brinton, 1882, p. 103. 3Tbid., p. 148. 4Tbid., p. 161. 
’This is one of Nakuk Pech’s very rare errors. Aguilar was not eaten at Cozumel in 1517, but was rescued by 
Cortés in 1519. Some of his companions, however, met this fate in 1511 or 1512. 
6Brinton, op. cit., pp. 226, 227. TIbid., p. 216. 8Jbid., p. 228. 
