1. B is rowing a boat, as we have already seen him several times (36b, 40a,
_c_, and 43c). To the left of his head there is a bird's head and in the
left, bottom, corner, a pot in which apparently a soup of fowl is cooking,
emitting bubbles. The Cib sign on the pot refers to the cooking or
bubbling.
2. B, with his head surrounded by the familiar stars, is seated in water,
in which are represented the iguana over a Kan sign, and the familiar
spiral probably denoting a serpent. He is painted black (perhaps
corresponding to the west?) and holds in his hand an implement not yet
determined. Perhaps it may be intended for a tree, _past_ which the water
is flowing.
3. The god is seated, holding in one hand the spiral with a Kin sign over
it and a Yax on top of that, and in the other hand something which looks
like a bird's feather or a fish's fin. Above him is a fish with a Kan sign,
as on page 27, where the fish and Kan are also combined.
4. Holding a hunting-spear, he is sitting on an animal slain in the chase,
as on page 45c.
Finally, I have remarked that pages 42c-45c, the last part of the first
division of the Manuscript, look like an enlargement or amendment of the
section just considered.
Pages 30c--33c.
To begin with, the day signs are set down in the following order:--
XI XI XI XI
Ahau Chicchan Oc Men
Caban Ik Manik Eb
Ix Cauac Kan Muluc
Chuen Cib Imix Cimi
Lamat Ben Ezanab Akbal.
Here then, as is frequently the case in this Manuscript, all the twenty
days are specified. But in order to obtain equal periods of time, the left
column should first be read from top to bottom and the following ones
should be treated in the same way. Then each succeeding day is 17 days
distant from the preceding, but in reality the interval is 117 days, since
the same week-day is always implied. The hieroglyphs seem to indicate that
these 117 days are divided into three distinct parts, 52, 39 and 26.
117 days, however, are equal to 9 × 13 and hence in what follows we find a
black 13 set down 9 times as the interval between the days, and a red XI
being the number of the week-day an equal number of times. Now, since the
whole series extends over 20 such sections of 117 days, the duration of
this calendar is 2340 days or 9 Tonalamatl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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