480 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
day 10 Zip could and did occur in a current year 8 Cauac, named for its beginning 
day, but in an elapsing tun, 12 Ahau 2 Yaxkin, named for its closing day, which 
was still 72 days in the future when ro Zip was the current day. This change, the 
writer believes, was a very late one, certainly subsequent to the fall of Chichen Itza 
about 1200 A. D., and, as will appear later, was probably due to the introduction 
of Nahuan customs and practices to which that event gave rise. 
Our next account, that in VI, the version related by Bishop Cogolludo, is con- 
fused as to the date of this event, which he places in 1541 instead of 1536, although 
in order to do so he is obliged to change the correct date in his original source from 
1536 to 1541 (VII on page 472) and to ascribe a different object for the Xiu 
embassy to Nachi Cocom than that given in II. 
He makes this correction, he says, because he believes the death of Napot Xiu 
took place in 1541 as a result of an embassy sent by the Lord of Mani at Francisco 
Montejo’s request, for the purpose of urging Nachi Cocom, the Lord of Sotuta, 
to submit to the Spanish rule without further struggle, although in the same passage 
he is forced to admit a still earlier killing of a Lord of Mani by the Cocom as the 
cause of the long-standing hatred between these two great families: 
“Tn some ancient papers it is said that Tutul Xiu went personally to see the Cocomes, 
and [was] one of the beheaded men. These writings, which as I say are in extraordinary 
confusion and do not appear to merit credit, I mention in case somebody has credit for them, 
because there seems to have been a Tutul Xiu, whom the Cocomes killed in former times 
(from which circumstance arose the enmities between these families), and those of Mani 
did not conceal the death of their Principal Lord. They have the event painted as printed 
here [see figure 73], although the Indian who painted it erred in the Castillian numbers, 
putting down the year as [15] 36, which it could not be, as may be seen from what has been 
said, but that of [15] 41 which 1s now being related.”! (VI.) 
In a previous account, however, he gives the correct version with greater detail 
than any other source, although he makes the same fundamental mistake as above, 
in believing that this event took place in March or April, 1541, after the Lord of 
Mani visited Francisco Montejo at Merida on January 23, 1541,” to offer his sub- 
mission, instead of in 1536, and further, that it was a Xiu embassy to Nachi Cocom 
for the purpose of urging the latter to submit to the Spaniards that met this tragic 
ending, and not that it was the Xiu embassy which had been on its way to Chichen 
Itza, 5 years earlier, to offer sacrifices at the Sacred Cenote: 
“The ambassadors [of the Xiu] left for the Seigniory of Zotuta, and arriving at the 
capital, thus named, where resided the Cocomes, they [came] in to the presence of Nachi 
Cocom, Principal Lord of that territory; and they made known to him their embassy. Nachi 
Cocom replied that they should await his reply which he would give within four or five 
days. Meanwhile he commanded to assemble all the Lords (caziques) subject to him 
and consulted with them as to their views on what Tutul Xiu had sent the envoy to say; 
they determined upon an unworthy solution of the matter against all reason and justice, and 
an act of hatred (which has become) notoriously infamous. 
“They agreed to have a great hunt as if for a festival for the ambassadors, and their 
entertainment, and having withdrawn them upon this pretext from the populated district 
to the thick bush, they brought them to a place called Otzmal and there they feasted them 
for three days. For the end of the feast on the fourth day they gathered to eat under a 
great and beautiful tree, which in their language is called Yaa, and in Castillian sapote. 
Having continued there the dances and pleasures of the preceding days, the last act of the 
meal was to behead the ambassadors, violating the sacred security which was due to them 
as such. One of them, Ah Kin Chi, as a personage of superior intelligence, they saved that 
he might take the news to Tutul Xiu of what they had done to the others, and that this had 
been the reception of his embassy, abusing him as a great coward. 
1See Cogolludo, 1688, pp. 132, 133. 
*Cogolludo says (1688, p. 131) that the Lord of Mani stayed with Montejo at Merida for 60 days, i.¢., until 
March 23. 
