It will be seen, by glancing at the list of days, that this arrangement brought at the beginning of each year, the days Kan, Muluc, Ix and Cauac in turn, and that no other days could begin the year. These days were therefore called _cuch haab_, "the bearers of the years" (_cuch_, to bear, carry, _haab_, year), and years were distinguished as "a year Kan," "a year Muluc," etc., as they began with one or another of these "year bearers." But the calendar was not so simple as this. The days were not counted from one to twenty, and then beginning at one again, and so on, but by periods of 13 days each. Thus, in the first month, beginning with 1 Kan, the 14th day of that month begins a new "week," as it has been called, and is named 1 Caban. Twenty-eight of these weeks make 364 days, thus leaving one day to complete the year. When the number of these odd days amounted to 13, in other words when thirteen years had elapsed, this formed a period which was called "the _katun_ of days," _kin katun_, and by Spanish writers an "indiction." It will be readily observed by an inspection of the following table, that four of these indictions, in other words 52 years, will elapse before a "year bearer" of the same name and number recommences a year. ___________________________________________________________ _1st year._ | _14th year._ | _27th year._ | _40th year_[TN-5] ----------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac 2 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan 3 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc 4 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix 5 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac 6 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan 7 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc 8 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix 9 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac 10 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan 11 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc 12 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix 13 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac. ----------------------------------------------------------- A cycle of 52 years was thus obtained in a manner almost identical with that of the Aztecs, Tarascos and other nations. But the Mayas took an important step in advance of all their contemporaries in arranging a much longer cycle. This long cycle was an application of the vigesimal system to their reckoning of time. Twenty days were a month, _u_ or _uinal_; twenty years was a cycle, _katun_. To ask one's age the question was put _haypel u katunil_? How many katuns have you? And the answer was, _hunpel katun_, one katun (twenty years), or, _hopel in katunil_, I am five katuns, or a hundred years old, as the case might be. The division of the katuns was on the principle of the Beltran system of numeration (see page 40), as,