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                     MEMORANDA ON THE MAYA CALENDARS
                           USED IN THE BOOKS OF
                               CHILAN BALAM

                                    BY
                           CHARLES P. BOWDITCH

 (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 following
passages from the Book of Chilan Balam of Mani:

   ... in the thirteenth Ahau Ahpula died; for six years the count of
    the thirteenth Ahau will not be ended; the count of the year was
    toward the East, the month Pop began with (the day) fourth Kan; the
    eighteenth day of the month Zip (that is) 9 Ymix, was the day on
    which Ahpula died; and that the count may be known in numbers and
    years, 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 the
    sixth year when ended the count of the thirteenth Ahau,--the count
    of the year was from the east (the month) Pop passed on the fourth
    Kan; on the eighteenth of (the month) Zip, 9 Imix was the day
    Ahpulha 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 great
    cycles were counted, and parts of two others, so that the native at
    the time of the Conquest would have had eight great cycles to
    distinguish 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] nor
    whether the calendar was sufficiently perfected to prevent
    confusion in dates in the remote past.

  [1] It should be noted that the grand cycle, which Dr Brinton refers
  to, is the period of 13 x 7200 days = 93,600 days or 260 periods of
  360 days; while the grand cycle according to Goodman's method is 13
  x 144,000 days or 5200 periods of 360 days.

It would seem, however, as if the reckoning of time as given in these
books is very accurate, fixing a date which would not be duplicated
within a limit of thirty-five hundred or four thousand years.

The Books of Chilan Balam number the katuns on a different principle
from that used on the inscriptions or in the Dresden Codex, but the two
methods can be readily and usefully brought together, as the katun
itself remains the same in both methods. In the inscriptions the katuns
are numbered from 0 to 19, using Goodman's method though not his exact
nomenclature, and twenty of them equal one cycle. In the Chilan Balam
books, the katuns are named as Katun 13 Ahau, Katun 11 Ahau, etc., these
being the days with which they begin or with which the previous katun
ended; and as after thirteen katuns the same name is again given, this
nomenclature fixes a date within a period which equals 13 multiplied by
the number of days in a katun. There has been a difference of opinion as
to this number of days in a katun, but it is clear from the Books of
Chilan Balam that their reckoning was by terms of 20 x 360 days. The
followers of Perez, however, insist that the length of the katun was 24
x 365 days. Sr Perez has indeed made this assertion,[2] but he rests his
opinion to a great degree on the fact that the naming of the katuns
proceeded in the following order, taking their names from the day Ahau
with which they began, viz.:

    Katun 13 Ahau,
    Katun 11 Ahau,
    Katun  9 Ahau,
    Katun  7 Ahau, etc.,

and that by starting with a katun which begins with 13 Ahau and counting
forward a period of 24 x 365 days, we should reach another katun
beginning with 11 Ahau. But the same result is brought about by
considering the katun as a period of 20 x 360 days, as has been shown by
Dr Seler, among others; and since the Books of Chilan Balam state
distinctly that they reckon by so many scores of so-called years, and
as the initial dates of the inscriptions all reckon in the same way, it
is now generally considered that the katun consisted of 20 x 360 or 7200
days.