Mexican archæology : $b an introduction to the archæology of the Mexican and Mayan civilizations of pre-Spanish AmericaJoyce, Thomas Athol
History
Mexican archæology : $b an introduction to the archæology of the Mexican and Mayan civilizations of pre-Spanish America
Joyce, Thomas Athol
Mayas -- Antiquities; Mexico -- Antiquities
There is however some variation in the assignment the week-gods, e.g.
Sahagun gives 1. miquiztli to Tezcatlipoca, 1. acatl to Quetzalcoatl,
1. tecpatl to Uitzilopochtli, etc. Within the weeks, many individual
days were associated with certain deities, such as 4. olin and
12. itzcuintli with the sun, 5. itzcuintli and 6. quetzpalin with
Mictlantecutli, but for a list of these the reader may be referred to
Sahagun. Apart from the signs of the days themselves, the presiding
deities of the weeks, and the gods of the individual dates, the
numerical signs also possessed a lucky or unlucky connotation. Three
and four were good numbers, five and six generally bad, seven always
good, eight and nine bad, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen good.
Consequently the diviner was obliged to take into account all these
possible influences, which in many cases might be contradictory, in
considering the fortune attached to a particular day. In some MSS.
the tonalamatl is arranged on a different system, viz. in five long
horizontal rows of fifty-two days each. Each row, and each vertical
column of five days, is provided with a presiding deity or symbol,
the influence of which must be assessed. Nor have we yet come to an
end of the factors which must be taken into consideration, but before
proceeding it will be necessary to explain the solar calendar.
The Mexicans reckoned 365 days to the solar year, which they divided
into eighteen months of twenty days each, and a nineteenth period of
five days, considered extremely unlucky, at the end of the year. As
the days were known by their tonalamatl names, it is obvious that the
first 115 days of the year recurred at the end. But it was possible
to distinguish between two days of the same name which fell in the
same year, owing to the fact that each day was associated with one
of a series of nine deities, called “lords of the night,” a series
also repeated _ad infinitum_, save that no “lord” was assigned
to any of the five unlucky days at the end of the year, which were
called _nemontemi_ or “useless days.” Thus, since the number 260
is not divisible by 9, it was possible to differentiate between two
days of the same name falling in one year; and since 9 goes into 360
without remainder, the commencement of the year coincided with the
commencement of the series of “lords of the night.” These lords of the
night are indicated by the heads or symbols of the following gods: 1.
Xiuhtecutli, 2. Itztli, 3. Tonatiuh, 4. Cinteotl, 5. Mictlantecutli,
6. Chalchiuhtlicue, 7. Tlazolteotl, 8. Tepeyollotl and 9. Tlaloc. Nor
is this all, a corresponding series of thirteen “lords of day,” which
however is not similarly composed in all MSS., accompanied the days
(omitting the nemontemi), and the influences of the day- and night-lord
assigned to each day respectively constituted two additional features
for the consideration of the would-be interpreter of the tonalamatl. It
is perhaps hardly necessary to state that the reading of the book of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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