A great Maya event, which Goodman cites, was “the observance of the 280,800th year of their era.... Nearly all the other dates in the inscriptions of Copan and Quirigua either lead up to or recede from it. It was the beginning of the last quarter of their grand era, the completion of which, it is perhaps needless to say, they did not, as a nation, live to see.”[279] But when we touch this subject of chronology it at once opens up a vast and complicated field of investigation. Goodman goes on to say: “How account then for such an immense period?... The most reasonable answer that suggests itself is that they had a juster appreciation of the antiquity of the earth than most nations have had, and that they began their chronology with the supposed date of its creation.... I look upon the Maya chronological scheme as ranking among the most marvellous creations of the human intellect.”[279] [Illustration: SILVER PLATE WITH SPANISH COAT OF ARMS, from a mound in Mississippi ] [Illustration: MOKI RATTLE OF ANIMAL HOOFS.] CHAPTER XI MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, MUSIC, AMUSEMENTS, AND GAMES The popular conception that there is no fun in red men is erroneous. All of them, far from being taciturn, silent, morose, and lacking desire for amusement other than scalping or torturing captives, are full of humour and are fond of fun. To strangers, however, they are often silent. In every village there is a great deal of amusement, and while the race is deficient in musical instruments, and the music they produce, if it can be designated by that term, is usually apart of some ceremonial, they do sing and the singing is accompanied by rattles and drums. These instruments, with a sort of flute or flageolet and bells and whistles, make the sum-total of their musical apparatus. No stringed instrument, it was believed, was known on the North American continent before the Discovery, though recently Lumholtz has found a primitive musical bow among the Huichols in Mexico that seems to show no outside influence. Their drums were usually made out of a hollow log and were of various sizes, though some tribes also used a sort of tambourine-drum formed by stretching a piece of hide over a hoop. In the case of the Mokis, the large drum was made by stretching hide over the ends of a hollow log by means of strings on the outside running from the edge of one skin to that of the other, zig-zag. These drums are about twenty inches in diameter by some three feet long, and the ones I have seen had an appearance of age that seemed to indicate a remote origin. Rattles are frequently made from deer hoofs, or from hoofs of similar animals, and also from turtle shells, and garments are trimmed with hoofs so that the movements of the wearer cause them to strike together with a musical sound. Sometimes the hoofs are attached in groups of three or more to the ends of a short stick which is shaken to produce the desired sound.