BY
(From the American Anthropologist (N. S.), Vol. 3, January-March, 1901)
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1901
MEMORANDA ON THE MAYA CALENDARS USED IN THE BOOKS OF CHILAN BALAM
By CHARLES P. BOWDITCH
Dr Brinton, in his Maya Chronicles, has translated the followingpassages from the Book of Chilan Balam of Mani:
... in the thirteenth Ahau Ahpula died; for six years the count ofthe thirteenth Ahau will not be ended; the count of the year wastoward the East, the month Pop began with (the day) fourth Kan; theeighteenth day of the month Zip (that is) 9 Ymix, was the day onwhich Ahpula died; and that the count may be known in numbers andyears, it was the year 1536.
And again from the Book of Chilan Balam of Tizimin:
The thirteenth Ahau; the death of Ahpulha took place; it was thesixth year when ended the count of the thirteenth Ahau,—the countof the year was from the east (the month) Pop passed on the fourthKan; on the eighteenth of (the month) Zip, 9 Imix was the dayAhpulha died; it was the year 1536.
In his remarks on these books Dr Brinton says:
According to the reckoning as it now stands, six complete greatcycles were counted, and parts of two others, so that the native atthe time of the Conquest would have had eight great cycles todistinguish apart.
I have not found any clear explanation how this was accomplished.We do not even know what name was given to this great cycle,[1] norwhether the calendar was sufficiently perfected to preventconfusion in dates in the remote past.
It would seem, however, as if the reckoning of time as given in thesebooks is very accurate, fixing a date which would not b[130]e duplicatedwithin a limit of thirty-five hundred or four thousand years.
The Books of Chilan Balam number the katuns on a different principlefrom that used on the inscriptions or in the Dresden Codex, but the twomethods can be readily and usefully brought together, as the katunitself remains the same in both methods. In the inscriptions the katunsare numbered from 0 to 19, using Goodman's method though not his exactnomenclature, and twenty of them equal one cycle. In the Chilan Balambooks, the katuns are named as Katun 13 Ahau, Katun 11 Ahau, etc., thesebeing the days with which they begin or with which the previous katunended; and as after thirteen katuns the same name is again given, thisnomenclature fixes a date within a period which equals 13 multiplied bythe number of days in a katun. There has been a difference of opinion asto this number of days in a katun, but it is clear from the Books ofChilan Balam that their reckoning was by terms of 20 × 360 days. Thefollowers of Perez, however, insist that the length of the katun was 24× 365 days. Sr Perez has indeed made this assertion,[2] but he rests hisopinion to a great degree on the fact that the naming of the katunsproceeded in the following order, taking their names from the day Ahauwith which they began, viz.: