the deities which governed them. These lists were used in
fortune telling.

We must now inquire as to how they kept track of the years. The Mayas
named their next longer period of time an ahau. There is some dispute as
to what number of years it meant. Most of the early writers decide that
it was twenty years;<74> but Perez, whose work we have already referred
to, contends that it was twenty-four years. And this conclusion seems
to be confirmed by a careful study of some of their old manuscripts.<75>
Thirteen of these ahaus embraced their longest period of time, known as
an ahau-katun. It had a length of either two hundred and sixty or
three hundred and twelve years, according as we reckon either twenty
or twenty-four years to an ahau. It may be that the length of an ahau
varied among the different tribes of the Mayas.

The Mexicans also had this week of thirteen days. Twenty of these weeks,
or two hundred and sixty days, formed that part of the year they called
the moon-reckoning; the remainder of the year was the sun-reckoning.
Their longer period of time was also based on this number. A period of
thirteen years they called a tlapilli; four of these constituted a cycle
equal to fifty-two years. The end of this cycle was anxiously awaited
by the Mexicans. They supposed the world was to come to an end on one
of these occasions. As the time drew near, the furniture was broken, the
household gods were thrown into the water, the houses were cleaned, and
finally, all the fires were extinguished. As the last day of the cycle
drew to a close, the priests formed a procession, and set out for a
mountain about six miles from Mexico. There an altar was built. At
midnight a captive, the bravest and finest of their prisoners, was laid
on it. A piece of wood was laid on his breast, and on this fire was
built by twirling a stick. As soon as fire was produced, the prisoner
was killed as a sacrifice. The production of new fire was proof that the
gods had granted them a new period of fifty-two years.

To understand how the years in this cycle were arranged and numbered, we
must refer once more to the Mayas, for though they did not use the
cycle themselves, yet they give us a hint as to how it was obtained,
and afford one more reason why we should think the Mayas were the
originators of this calendar system. We give a table showing the
arrangement of the days of the year among the Mayas. We will take the
year Kan--that is, we remember,