BY
CHARLES P. BOWDITCH
Privately Printed
CAMBRIDGE
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1906
It has long been well known that the Mexican numeration is vigesimal,and, as far as I know, there is no proof that it was ever used in thecalculation of long reaches of time. The Cakchiquel numeration is alsovigesimal, and Brinton states (Maya Chronicles, p. 44) that the Mayanumeration is also vigesimal, giving
| 20 units | = | one kal | = | 20 |
| 20 kal | = | one bak | = | 400 |
| 20 bak | = | one pic | = | 8000 |
| 20 pic | = | one calab | = | 160000, etc. |
But this Maya system is never used in connection with days. Wherever along number of days is referred to, we find invariably the followingsystem in use:
| 20 units | = | one of the second term |
| 18 of the second term | = | one of the third term |
| 20 of the third term | = | one of the fourth term |
| 20 of the fourth term | = | one of the fifth term. |
And this system is, as far as we know, used for nothing else but forreckoning days. The only difference between the first system and thesecond is that in the first system twenty of the second term equal oneof the third, while in the second system eighteen of the second equalone of the third. This difference is, of course, essential, and itseems most probable that the change was introduced in order to bringthe third term as near the length of the year as possible, and toconform the day numeration to the number of days and months in the year.
Professor Cyrus Thomas is unwilling to see in this anything more thanthe counters by which to count the days, and denies to it the name ofa calendar; but as the system of day numeration is[Pg 2] different fromthe usual system, and is used only for counting days, and as thissystem counts forward in almost every case in the inscriptions, and ina majority of cases in the Dresden Codex, from a fixed date, 4 Ahau8 Cumhu, it seems impossible to see any difference between it and acalendar system.
It was certainly to be hoped that the designations which Dr. Selergave to these Maya periods of time in his “Die Monumente von Copan,etc.,”[1] would have been accepted by Americanists, especially sincevery good reasons were given by Seler for their adoption. But thisview does not meet the approval of Dr. Förstemann or Dr. Thomas. Thelatter in his “Maya Calendar, Part II.,” published in the “Report ofthe Bureau of American Ethnology,” still calls the period of 20 daysa chuen and that of 360 days an ahau, while the former in his articleon “Die Lage der Ahaus bei den Mayas,” published in Part I. of the1904 issue of the “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,” makes the followingstatement: “The katun has also been supposed to be 24 × 365 = 8760 dayslong (and I held this view for a long time), indeed the long periodof 52 × 365 = 18,980 days is also occasionally designated with theword, while the sixth multiple of this member or 113,800 is calledan ahaukatun.” He uses the terms “day,” “uinal,” and “ahau” for theperiods of 1, 20, and 7200 days respectively.
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