s
cultum, omnibus paene antiquis Europae Asiaeque nationibus communem, per
symbola nota olim viguisse. Quam autem cognationem hic Phalloram cultus
his populis cum Americae aboriginibus indicare videatur, non nostrum
est, qui visa tantum vel audita litteris mandamus, his paginis
exponere.

* * * * *

ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY OF YUCATAN; OR, A TRUE EXPOSITION OF THE METHOD
USED BY THE INDIANS FOR COMPUTING TIME.--_Translated from the
Manuscript of Dan Juan Pio Perez, Gefe Politico of Peto, Yucatan._

1 deg.. _Origin of the Period of_ 13 _Days_ (_triadecateridas_).

The inhabitants of this peninsula, which, at the time of the arrival of
the Spaniards, was called _Mayapan_, and by its first inhabitants or
settlers _Chacnouitan_, divided time by calculating it almost in the
same manner as their ancestors the Tulteques, differing only in the
particular arrangement of their great ages (siglos).

The period of 13 days, resulting from their first chronological
combinations, afterward became their sacred number, to which,
introducing it ingeniously in their reckonings, they made all those
divisions subordinate which they devised to adjust their calendar to
the solar course; so that the days, years, and ages were counted by
periods of thirteen numbers.

It is very probable that the Indians, before they had corrected their
computation, used the lunations (neomenias) to regulate the annual
course of the sun, counting (senalando) 26 days for each lunation;
which is a little more or less than the time during which the moon is
seen above the horizon in each of its revolutions; dividing this period
into two of 13 days, which served them as weeks, giving to the first
the first 13 days during which the new moon is seen till it is full;
and to the second, the other thirteen, during which the moon is
decreasing until it cannot be seen by the naked eye.

In the lapse of time, and by constant observations, they obtained a
better knowledge of the solar course, perceiving that the 26 days, or
two periods of 13 days, did not give a complete lunation, and that the
year could not be regulated exactly by lunations, inasmuch as the solar
revolutions do not coincide with those of the moon, except at long
intervals. Adding this knowledge to more correct principles and data,
they finally constructed their calendar in accordance with the course
of the principal luminary, preserving always their perio