The new-year ceremonies were especially important, since the fortune to be experienced during the year depended to a very large extent upon their proper performance. They commenced in the Uayeb days of the dying year, that is to say in the second week of July, according to Landa. In preparation for a year beginning on the day-sign kan, an image of the Bacab Hobnil was taken to the pile of stones at the southern entrance to the town (the south being the point associated with the dying year), and a figure of Ah Bolon Tzacab was carried in procession and set up opposite it. Various offerings were made, including the worshippers’ own blood, and Hobnil was then carried to the east entrance (the point associated with the commencing year) and left there to watch over the town, while Ah Bolon Tzacab was taken to the temple. Good luck and fertility were expected during the kan years, and if misfortune supervened, a special image of Itzamna-canil was made and sacrifices, including a man, were offered to it. At the end of this year, and in preparation for the next, a muluc-year, the ceremonies commenced at the pile of stones where Hobnil had been left, and a figure of Kanzicnal was substituted for it. The figure of Ah Bolon Tzacab was replaced by one of Kinich Ahau, which was confronted with the new Bacab and then borne to the temple, Kanzicnal being taken to the north entrance, the quarter associated with muluc-years. This year was again supposed to be good, and in the event of misfortune special ceremonies were performed to Yaxkokahmut, another name of Itzamna, including a dance on stilts and the sacrifice of dogs bearing offerings of bread. It may be remarked in passing that both the Dresden and Troano-Cortesianus codices illustrate these ceremonies (Figs. 58 and 59), though there is reason to believe that the lower portion of two pages of the former manuscript have been transposed by the carelessness of the scribe. In this MS. (Fig. 58) the upper scene shows the emblem of the presiding god being carried in by a priest in an animal mask, the central picture shows him installed and receiving offerings, the lower (when properly arranged) illustrates the god of the next year confronted with a pillar representing the Bacab on the Uayeb days at the end of the year. Arranged in a column down one side of the page are the signs of the last day of the old year and the first of the new. As stated above the Dresden codex gives the days commencing the year as ben, eznab, akbal and lamat, as do the monuments. The ben-years here seem to correspond to the kan-years of later times, and so on. The Tro.-Cor. (Fig. 59) seems to picture, in the upper register, the ceremonies (including the dance on stilts in the muluc-year) which were corrective of ill-luck, while the lower register shows the year-god and the maize-god, the latter either flourishing, or the prey of birds and beasts, according to the fortune predicted for the year. For the