The original tonalamatl was probably a day-count based on a lunar reckoning. The symbols appear to have been those of the gods or other mythological figures. Thus cipactli was merely the earth-monster, quauhtli the eagle, a surrogate for the Sun-god, and so on. Later the tonalamatl lost its significance as a time-count when it was superseded as such by the solar calendar. It then took on the complexion of a book of augury, so that the temporal connection it had with the gods was altered to a purely augural one. The various days thus became significant for good or evil according to the nature of the gods who presided over them, or over the precise hour in which a subject was born or any act done. As in astrology, a kind of balance was held between good and evil, so that if the god presiding over the day was inauspicious, his influence might, in some measure, be counteracted by that of the deity who presided over the hour in which a child first saw the light or an event occurred. DAY-SIGNS The tonalamatl was composed of 20 day-signs or hieroglyphs repeated 13 times, or 260 day-signs in all. The origin of these has already been treated of by Seler in Bulletin 28 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 38 ff. These 260 days were usually divided into 20 groups of 13 days each, sometimes called “weeks.” To effect this division the numbers 1 to 13 were added to the 20 day-signs in continuous series as follow: no. name. sign. 1 cipactli crocodile 2 eecatl wind 3 calli house 4 cuetzpallin lizard 5 coatl serpent 6 miquiztli death’s-head 7 mazatl deer 8 tochtli rabbit 9 atl water 10 itzcuintli dog 11 ozomatli monkey 12 malinalli grass 13 acatl reed 1 ocelotl ocelot 2 quauhtli eagle 3 cozcaquauhtli vulture 4 ollin motion 5 tecpatl flint knife 6 quiauitl rain 7 xochitl flower and so on. It will be seen from this list that the fourteenth day-sign takes the number 1 again. Each of the day-signs under this arrangement has a number that does not recur in connection with that sign for a space of 260 days, as is proved by the circumstance that the numbers [337] of the day-signs and figures (20 to 13), if multiplied together, give as a product 260, the exact number of days in the tonalamatl.