e
subject; but if they had counted the years which compose a period, and
noted the positive declarations of the manuscripts that the _Ajaues_
consisted of 24 years divided as above stated, they would not have
misled their readers on this point.

It is incontrovertible that those periods, epochs, or ages, took the
name of _Ajau Katun_, because they began to be counted from the day
_Ajau_, which was the second day of those years that began in Cauac;
but as these days and numbers were taken from years which had run their
course, the periods of 24 years could never have an arithmetical order,
but succeeded each other according to the numbers 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3,
1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. As the Indians established the number 13 as the
first, it is probable that some remarkable event had happened in that
year, because, when the Spaniards came to this peninsula, the Indians
reckoned then the 8th as the 1st, that being the date at which their
ancestors came to settle it; and an Indian writer proposed that they
should abandon that order also, and begin counting from the 11th,
solely because the conquest had happened in that. Now if the 13 _Ajau
Katun_ began on a second day of the year, it must be that year which
began on 12 _Cauac_, and the 12th of the indiction. The 11 _Ajau_ would
commence in the year of 10 _Cauac_, which happens after a period of 24
years, and so on with the rest; taking notice that after that lapse of
years we come to the respective number marked in the course of the
Ajaues, which is placed first; proving that they consist of 24, and
not, as some have believed, of 20 years.

_Series of the years completed in two Ajau Katunes, having their
beginning in the year of our Lord_ 1488, _in which the 13th Ajau
commences on the 2d day of the year 12 Cauac, being the 12th of
the first indiction._
------|-----------------|------|--------------------|
| 13th | | 13th |
A.D. | Ajau. | A.D. | Ajau. |
------|-----------|-----|------|-----------|--------|
1488 | 12. Cauac | L | 1500 | 11. Cauac | L |
1489 | 13. Kan | a | 1501 | 12. Kan | a |
1490 | 1. Muluc | m | 1502 | 13. Muluc | m |
1491 | 2. Gix | a | 1503 | 1. Gix | a |
1492 | 3. Cauac | y | 1504 | 2. Cauac | y |
1493 | 4. Kan | t | 1505 | 3. Kan | t |
1494 | 5. Muluc | u | 1506 | 4. Muluc | u |
1495 | 6. Gix