492 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
Event G: 
The last event in our list is by no means the least important, since it emanates 
from a branch of the Maya, the Itza, who had moved out of Yucatan nearly two 
centuries before it took place, but who had maintained, apparently unimpaired as 
we shall see, the chronological system in vogue in Yucatan at the time of their de- 
parture. The fact that the date of this closing event agrees with the dates of the 
other events, which had taken place from 39 to 107 years earlier in another region, 
is of itself excellent authentication of the uniformity and accuracy of the native 
chronology, even after the Spanish Conquest. 
Villagutierre Sotomayor, whose History of the Conquest of the Province of the 
Itza is the leading authority for its field (the conquest of the last independent group 
of the Maya), in the two following passages fixes the date of Father Fuensalida’s 
visit to Layasal, the capital of the Itza on Lake Peten Itza, in both Christian and 
Maya chronology, as follows: 
“Three or. four years later, while the year 1618 was already running its course, on the 
2sth of March, while Francisco Ramirez Briceho was governing in those provinces, a Pro- 
vincial Chapter of the Order of San Francisce was celebrated in the City of Merida, and in it, 
full of the Love of God, and of Charity in view of the Spiritual necessity of those Neighbors 
(although Pagans) [7. e., the Itza], offer was made to go and preach the Holy Evangel to the 
Itzaex by the Fathers Fray Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Fray Juan de Orbita, both Men 
of Learning and of consummate Virtue, Priests, and very intelligent Interpreters of that 
Maya language, natural to the Itzaex, as to all Yucatecans, which they (the Itza) had for- 
merly been.” 
And: 
“To this Canek replied: That the Time had not arrived, which his Ancient Priests had 
foretold unto him in which they were to put aside the adoration of the Gods; because the 
Age in which they were at this time was that which they called Oxahau, which means Third 
Age: (These Barbarians most assuredly count their Ages backwards or towards a determined 
number, which having been reached, they forget and return to the beginning of the count;? 
because when they withdrew from Yucatan, which was now going on for three hundred 
years, they said that it was the Eighth Age’ and that the time foretold unto them was not 
due to arrive so soon; and now they said that it was the Third Age, and that the time had 
not arrived.) And so they [the Itza] asked them [Padres Fuensalida and Orbita] to treat 
no more upon that matter for the time being, and that they withdraw to the Village of 
Tipu, and that on some other occasion they should go to that Isle to see them [the Itza].’”4 
'Villagutierre Sotomayor, 1701, pp. 83, 84. 
2This is a clumsy reference to the wus katun or doubling of the katuns, in which the 13 differently named 
katuns, i.e., 13 Ahau, 11 Ahau, 9 Ahau, etc., having finished a complete round, began another round. The katun 
with which the round of the 13 katuns closed was Katun 10 Ahau, and the new round began with 8 Ahau. 
The only reason the writer can suggest why this latter katun should have been chosen for this purpose is because 
the u kahlay katunob in the Mani and Tizimin manuscripts, which go back farther than the three from the Chu- 
mayel manuscript, both began with a Katun 8 Ahau, and further, as will appear later, in the correlation of the 
two chronologies suggested here, this katun is probably none other than g.0.0.0.0 8 Ahau 13 Ceh, or the beginning 
of the cycle during which the Maya attained their first great cultural florescence. 
Brinton (1882, p. 85) gives two passages from the Codice Pérez which bear upon this matter, as follows: 
“At the last of Katun 10 Ahau is ended one doubling of the katun, and the return a second time of thirteen 
katuns is written on the face of the katun circle; one doubling of the katuns as it is called will then finish its course 
to begin again; and when it begins, it is written that another katun commences: when Katun 8 Ahau ends it has 
begun again [1.¢., the doubling begins with Katun 8 Ahau]” (Codice Pérez, p. 90). And again: “At the last of 
Katun 10 Ahau is ended the joining together of the 13 katuns, written on the face of the katun circle; one doub- 
ling of the katuns, as it is called, will then finish its course, and another katun will begin and will end as Katun 
8 Ahau; this begins a second time as it began and was then written” (Codice Pérez, p. 168). 
Curiously enough, after having made these clear translations, Brinton failed to apply them in his transla- 
tions of the chronicles themselves, for wherever the expression oxlahun uus u katunil (1. e., thirteen doubling back, 
the katun) occurs in the chronicles he invariably renders it as “the thirteen divisions of warriors,” thereby entirely 
changing the meaning of the original. 
8This is in most satisfactory agreement with the chronicles from the Books of Chilan Balam, four out of the 
five of which also state that the fall of Mayapan took place in a Katun 8 Ahau, 7. ¢., Villagutierre Sotomayor’s 
“Eighth Age.” 
*Villagutierre Sotomayor, op. cit., pp. 105, 106. 

