478 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
Event C. 
This event, the death of Napot Xiu in 1536, is perhaps the most important of 
all those here under investigation, and as will appear in the following quotations, 
special effort seems to have been made in most of the native sources to fix it with 
greater precision than any of the others. For this reason it has been made the 
basis of several correlations (Bowditch and Goodman), that unfortunately differ 
widely in their results, and the writer believes the safest course to follow here is to 
utilize only the more general statements, concerning which there is almost complete 
unanimity of record. 
All of our twelve sources describe this event except I, VIII, and XI; although 
it is difficult to explain why there should be no reference to it in the first, which was 
written by a native, who must have been a friend, and was a contemporary of the 
murdered Napot Xiu, although he relates a subsequent event, possibly of about 
the year 1542, or possibly as late as 1545, that seems to refer to another incident with 
which Cogolludo may have confused Event C.1 
The earliest account of this event is given in II, which was written between 25 
and 30 years after it happened: 
“The Spaniards having gone forth from Yucatan [1535], there was a scarcity of water 
in the land, and as they had used their maize recklessly in the wars with the Spaniards, 
there came upon them a great hunger, so great that they were even brought to eat the 
bark of trees, especially one which they called cumche, which is soft and tender inside. On 
account of this famine the Xiu who are the Lords of Mani resolved to make a solemn sacrifice 
to the idols, bearing certain slaves, both men and maidens, to be thrown into the well of 
Chichenitza, and to reach which they have to pass by the town of the Lords Cocomes, their 
principal enemies, and so thinking that in such a time ancient passions would not be 
renewed in this land, they [the Xiu] sent to them [the Cocom] asking them to let them [the 
Xiu] pass through their land. And the Cocomes deceived them with a fair reply, and giving 
them shelter all together in one great house they set fire to it and slew those who escaped, and 
for this reason there were great wars.’”? 
The next account in III is not so circumstantial as the preceding, but it gives 
more chronological data, and, moreover, is the earliest source to associate the date 
1536 with this event: 
“Tn [Katun] 13 Ahau the water-bringer’ died; for six years the count of [Katun] 13 Ahau 
will not be ended; the count of the year was toward the East, the month Pop began with 
[the day] 4 Kan; 184 Zip, 9 Imix was the day on which the water-bringer died, and that the 
count may be known in numbers and years, it was the year 1536, sixty years after the fortress 
was destroyed.’ 

1This was the blinding of three envoys, Ikeb, Caixicum, and Chuc, who were sent by Tutul Xiu at Francisco 
Montejo’s request to Nachi Cocom to urge upon the latter his submission to the Spanish authority. A minor 
Cocom chieftain, Ah Cuat Cocom, seems to have put out the eyes of these envoys and sent them back to Mani 
without the knowledge of Nachi Cocom (Brinton, 1882, pp. 237, 238). See page 481. 
2Landa, 1881, p. 77. 
3The word ahpula, ahpulha, plural ahpulhaob, is not translated by Brinton, who treats it as a proper noun. 
It means, however, a bringer of water, ah being the masculine prefix, pul to bring, and ha water. The title doubt- 
less refers to the object of the pilgrimage upon which the western Maya chieftains under Ah Napot Xiu were engaged, 
namely, to sacrifice at the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza in order to bring water, 7.¢., rain. (See note to Gates 
translation on p. 509.) 
4For some unknown reason, possibly connected with the year-bearers, the positions of the days in the months 
underwent a shift of one position forward, probably after 1201 A. p. Thus, for example, during the Old Empire the 
month coefficients always accompanying any day Ahau are either 3, 8, 13, or 18, but at the close of the New Empire 
they are always 2, 7, 12, or 17. Again, in the Old Empire Imix is always accompanied by a month-coefficient of 4, 
9, 14, or 19, but at the close of the New Empire by either 3, 8, 13, or 18, as here. This shift in all probability was 
accompanied by no actual gain or loss of time, because the Maya chronological system was such that the loss or 
gain of but a single day would have thrown their whole calendar into confusion. In the writer’s correlation, as well 
as in that proposed by Bowditch, and in fact in all of the attempts to correlate Christian chronology with the Maya 
Long Count, it is necessary to postulate that this change had no corresponding effect upon the continuity of the 
day series, or, indeed, upon the sequence of any of the time periods, which the exigencies of the system demanded 
should follow each other without lacune. 
5Brinton, 1882, pp. 103, 104. 
