| the computations of the years, months, and days, the festivals and | | ceremonies, the administration of their sacraments, the days and | | times that were fatal, the manner of divinations and prophecies | | and coming events, the remedies for sickness and things concerning | | antiquities, and to read and write with their books, and | | characters with which they wrote and with figures which explained | | the writings.” | | | | In Yucatan, as in Mexico, the calendar was carefully constructed. | | The year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days and six | | hours. Landa observes that the months were of two kinds. One was | | lunar and was regulated by the movements of the moon. The other | | method of computation was formed by dividing the year into | | eighteen divisions or months, each consisting of twenty days and | | there were five days and six hours over. Of these six hours one | | day was made every four years. For these three hundred and | | sixty-six days they had twenty letters or characters by which they | | were named. (Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, pp. 42; 202). | | | | Las Casas observes in his Apologética Historia, chapter cxxi, that | | “the year of the Mexican people consisted of three hundred and | | sixty-five days divided into eighteen months and five days. Each | | month was twenty days, and the week was thirteen days of which | | they had constituted a calendar, and for each day of the week, of | | the month and of the year they had its idol with its own name, and | | these names were of men, or of women which they held or had held | | as gods; and thus all the days were filled up with these idols | | and names and figures in the same manner as our breviaries and | | calendars have for each day its saint.” | | | | The illustration of the calendar stone is from a photograph | | taken from the original stone in the city of Mexico. This great | | astronomical record was discovered in the year 1790, buried | | several feet below the surface, in the spot where stood the chief | | pyramid and temple of the Aztecs. It is made from a large mass of | | basalt, and the circular part has a circumference of more than | | thirty-eight feet. It is probably one of the earliest and one of | | the most elaborate of the sculptured works of the Toltecs. It will | | be observed that the points have a singular resemblance to those | | of the mariner’s compass. The head placed in the centre has been | | supposed to represent the Mexican god of the sun. It is possible |