Produced by Julia Miller, Paula Franzini and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) 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 × 7200 days = 93,600 days or 260 periods of 360 days; while the grand cycle according to Goodman's method is 13 × 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.