Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts: Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-82, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 3-66Thomas, Cyrus
History
Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts: Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-82, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 3-66
Thomas, Cyrus
Calendar -- Mexico; Maya calendar
If we turn, now, to the Manuscript Troano, and examine the day columns,
comparing them with these four groups as I have corrected them by this
single transposition, I think we shall find one clue at least to the
object of the arrangement we observe on this plate. As but few are
likely to have the Manuscript at hand, I will refer to Chapter VII of my
work (_A Study of the Manuscript Troano_), where a large number of these
day columns are given. In making the comparison I ask the reader to use
my scheme (Fig. 2). Commencing with the first column on page 165, we
find it to be Manik, Cauac, Chuen, Akbal, Men, precisely the same days
as in the bottom line. The next two on the same page are first Akbal,
Muluc, Men, Ymix, Manik, and second, Ben, Cauac, Chicchan, Chuen, Caban,
taken alternately from the bottom and top lines of the quadrilateral.
On the lower part of the same page (165) is another column with the
following days, Ahau, Oc, Eb, Ik, Kan, Ix, Cib, Cimi, Lamat, taken
alternately from the right and left sides of the plate as given in our
scheme. But there are only nine names in the column, when the order in
which they are taken would seem to require ten. By examining the plate
(IV) in the Manuscript the reader will see that there are indications
that one at the top has been obliterated. By examining the right and
left columns of our scheme we see that the omitted one is Ezanab. By
counting the intervals between the days, as explained in my work, we
find them to be alternately two and ten, and that by this rule the
missing day is Ezanab. The reader will notice in these examples that Eb
and Caban belong to the positions I have given them in my scheme (Fig.
2).
Turning to page 166 we find the first column (from "second division,"
Plate IV) to be Kan, Cib, Lamat, Ahau, Eb, the same days as in the right
column of our scheme. The second column, Cauac, Chuen, Akbal, Men,
Manik, the same as the lower line of the scheme. The first column on
page 167 has the same days as the right column of the plate, as
corrected in my scheme and our Plate II. The second column of this page
presents a new combination. We have so far found the names of a day
column all in a single group or line of our plate, or taken alternately
from opposite sides; here we find them taken alternately from each of
the four sides of the quadrilateral moving around to the left in the
order I have heretofore explained. The days in this column are Caban,
Ik, Manik, Eb, Caban. One is taken from the upper line (as corrected),
then one from the left side, next from the bottom line, then from the
right side (as corrected), and then the same from the top line.
It is unnecessary for me to give more examples, as the reader can make
the comparison for himself; and he will, as I believe, find my theory
sustained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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