dar, in which the months were designated with reference to
farming and household incidents. Thus, the "winged ants" referred to,
are a species that appear in March and April, shortly before the first
of the rainy season; the fourth month is cloudy or misty, from the
frequent rains; the first and second grandsons refer probably to the
"suckers," which must be plucked from the growing corn; in the eighth
month the earth is moist, and must be kept, by tillage, "soft to the
hand;" the others have obvious rural allusions, down to the last, when
the natives went "in the woods" to gather fuel. The names appear to be
all in the Cakchiquel dialect, except the first, _Tacaxepual_, the
resemblance of which to the name of the second Mexican month,
_Tlacaxipehualiztli_, is too striking to be a coincidence, and perhaps
the seventeenth, _Itzcal_, which is very like the eighteenth of the
Mexican calendar, _Izcalli_; but if borrowed from the latter, two
Cakchiquel words, of similar sound but different meaning, have been
substituted for the original by the familiar linguistic principle of
_otosis_ or paronomasia.

_Names of the Cakchiquel Days._

_Name._ _Name._
1. Imox, 11. Batz,
2. I[t], 12. Ee,
3. A[t]bal, 13. Ah,
4. Kat, 14. Yiz,
5. Can, 15. Tziquin,
6. Camey, 16. Ahmac,
7. Queh, 17. Noh,
8. Kanel, 18. Tihax,
9. Toh, 19. Caok,
10. Tzii, 20. Hunahpu,[TN-2]

The calendars in use were of two different kinds, the one called _[c]hol
[t]ih_, literally "the valuer or appraiser of days," which was employed
exclusively for astrological and divining purposes, to decide on which
were lucky and unlucky days; and _may [t]ih_, "the revolution or
recurrence of days," which was for chronological purposes.[31-1]

It will be noticed that in Xahila's _Annals_, every year ends on a day
_Ah_, and that each such closing day is numerically three less than the
day _Ah_ terminating the preceding year. There are also obvious
inconsistencies in his identification of native dates with the Christian
calendar; but these, and the numerous difficult questions they suggest,
would take me too far afield to enter upon in the present introductory
paragraphs. The object of this volume is rather to furnish material for
study than to undertake the study it