be pete day (17 220 12) The ds a at ajunton and Fst stationary of 6 gi or tcwcenscondoranyandcounton) 3s 385.2 da hn ble (Willon 192823-25), fe athermore the long round 9.19,8.15.0, mentioned rhea dn ales 10 1435980 da inthe peiinatent to 1881 Maran revolutions of *Fg0 days (Willson 1924:24), Similarly, the long * Found 9.9.16.0.0 in the preface tothe Venus table rep. a eamulatve tol of 1.266:60 days, which Sr jad synodi revolutions of Vents oF Sb days anyon 197262), is there posible tha (ene before 00.00. 4 Aha & Cum reached a bases fr eneuting ely dts tothe at somal ables han he ra ase se. Sapen numbers conras withthe ringsumber- camlongrund station in four respect is, they 1 fave very different format fom bth ring numbers td tong fonds, as tei ae implies. They ae Salle vrpent numbers Beaute hey Were repent edinthe Dresden Codex as bar and-dt muir en an) Second, they are very Yong rounds tit were teleuated fom a base ying more than 3000 yeas before 0.0.0.0.0 4 Anu S Cuma (Beyer 19408) Third, they have a single base (ened bythe ea Zenda ound eration 9 Kan 12 Kayab), nl va able buses. An fourth, they have six positions five Thon way hat he en berelted to he tht ‘yes of notation ito expand the fame of erence Hermann Beyer (194303) hs show eee base date asthe flowing positon iam on er time frame based on the pictwn, composed of twenty bakin - Fe eae tote Ne 91712, st : (1.11.19,10.0.00. 4 Ahaw 8 Cum In this scheme, the © base represented the comple tion of nineteen pcrinrs, The two higher positions to the left of the piciur position represented 1 fabrun (tycenty pictus) and the kinchifta Uw calabruns) Beyer (1945404) determined that the serpent base antedated the era hase by almost five pictus [yTRopucTiON 45 HLS) 316 HALA 9 Kan He also proved that the long-ount positions of ser pent numbers could be calculated by adding them to this base The Mayia interest in calendrical ayaniputation was rot limited (o the past. The west pane! of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque links the date of ac cession ofa ruler named Pacal to the eightieth eaten: dar-round anniversary of this event, which will fall cight days after the end of the first picuur following 0,0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku (Schele 1997.95). The date of this anniversary. (1.12.0.) 0.0.0.0.8. corte sponds 10 21 October A.D. 4772, about 4,000 years, after Pacal’s accession and almost 3,000 years after the completion of the current Maya era in a.0. 2012, Ikis clear that the precolumbian Maya were ca ble of working with very large numbers and that they used several notational systems for reckoning time. calendrical virwosity is one that carried over into the Colonial period and influenced their re sponse to the very different set of calendrical tradi- tions introduced by the Spaniards. Agricultural Activities The Yucatin Peninsula. lying about 2 degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer. has a tropical climate with marked dry and rainy seasons, The typical pat tem of cultivation in that region involves the cutting and burning of forest during the dry season, followed by planting at the beginning of the rainy season There is considerable year-to-year \ariation in the timing of the first heavy rains that are necessary for ‘a successful maize crop. In most years, they startin the first or second week of May in the northern part ‘of the peninsula, but they may be delayed by several weeks or evena month, The later the rains begin. the shorter the growing season. The Maya of the present day eope with these vagaries by planting several va rieties of maize that are adapted to growing seasons of different lengths. A quick-growing variety takes less ime to mature but produces smaller cars having fewer kernels, Its phinted ifthe rains come late. or if the fist planting lails because the subsequent rains are light or infiequent. A slower growing variety re quires more time: to matur bout the ears are larger and more productive. It is planted when the rauns are fon time (Press 1975/45; Reulield and Vill Rojas I9Ab4L-AS: Sullivan 1983-42-43, R._Thompyon 1974:55-56: Villa Ruts 1945°79),6 AN ENCOUNTER OF T¥G WORLDS: [HIE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KALA, FicuRI 18 THE Ft and Villacorta (197%6:278, 280) The waditional method of planting is to poke a hole in the earth with a diguing stick, into which mixture of maize, bean, and squash sceds is dropped. The farmer wies 10 finish planting a given field dur ing a period of about three days so that all the plants in that field will be of approximately the same size Some of the seeds may be eaten by birds or rodents. so it is usually necessary to resced the field about a week or ten days afier the imitial seeding, If the rains are adequate, no further planting is necessary. The fields are weeded in late June and July. When the ears ‘of corn are mature in October. they are bent over, or doubled.” on the stalk and left to dry. Harvesting is carried out during the dry season, fiom November t through March (Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934:45) ‘The agricultural eycle we hav e described is the of followed today. Although we do not know what d climate of Yueatan was like in precolumbian times, there is evidence in the Madvid Coden that the sched: uling of planting was similar to wht itis today. For - example, the almanac in the second register on pages 27 and 28 contains four planting scenes (Figure 18}, ‘ ‘The first portrays the rain god Chac holding a digging stick over two sveds, The second depicts Chae with a digging stick again: a black bird perches on his felt foot. pecking at a maize seed. Chae sits in front oF a maize sprout in the third picture. still holding his dig ging stick. This time ing the plant. In the last pieture, Chae is planting seeds next to a maize plant In Ii pieted in th spotted mammal is shown eat of the events de BEeeo ty (tcc) dl ANTING ALMANAC ON PAGES 2°B AND 2B 01 THE MADRID CODEX. After Villacorta C able to infer that he is reseeding a field because some (of the original seeds were eaten by animals, The precolumbian Maya had very few domesti cated animals: the dog, the bee. and the turkey. The native stingless bees (Melipona bves cit) were sufi ciently important to merit an entire section of the Madrid Cadex devoted to the details of their care Among the apicultural activities that can be ident fied in this section are the extraction of honey and the moving and cleaning of the hives (Vail 1994). Theal: manac in Figure 19 contains scenes of one god and fone goddess, or impersonators of these deities. re moving honey from hives while bevs buzz around their heads, The Gods. Precolumbian Mays religion was poly theistic. The pantheon contained a suite of approx mately twenty-five gods that populate the pictues associated with almanacs in the codices. The hier alyphic names of few gods can be read phonetical | ly, and several of them are also mentioned by the sume or similar names in golonal sources (e cha the rain zod: what Ain or kinich alu. the Sun 82% and chae che! oF xoddess of medicine ‘Te gods in the codices whose names have not beet deciphered are usually referred to by Schellhs's (1904) lettering scheme. for example, God A (BU , i), the deatl: god. God E (Figure 20c). the msi j i. and s0 on (see Figwve 20 for examples of | nthe Madrid Codex), Occasional | hel. the xls that appeathe 5 god deseribed by Land (in Tozzer 1941) can be oe arid with goin the cues on the pesto amex iss alone ese post ese god that Landa called Bolon Dzacab, which must Henao Scheias's God K Beene he Hues ee cerminently in the Uayeb rites that are dete in a ene pelacin (Tozzer 1941: 136-149) and isalso 5 ofthe Dresden Codex (see res 21), The elyph for this god kas can be no doubt * ge pitured on Pa Salis and bin Figs “ot been read phonetically, but ther “Epfyat God K and Bolon Dzacab are one ad the same foe gods seem to have been felony speci Eized, For example, here were separa Simaize, and death and aso of four gods called bacabs Svho supported the four comers ofthe sky so that it ‘would not fall (Tozzer 1941:135). The skybearers tad color associations cortesponding to the four di J feetions. The skyb inthe north was white; the one in the west was black; and the one in the’ south was yellow (Tozzer 1941:137), There we tothe four directions and eolors, whose names were hac xibchac ‘red rain god,” sae xi chac “white rain god. ek xib chae ‘black rain god,’ and kan sib chac yellow rain god,” and four wind gods known as ‘pauahtuns with the same color and directional asso ciations (Tozzer 1941:137-138). And there is some evidence of a ereator god who ruled over the others, whose name was hunab kv ‘only god" (Tozzer 1941:1461707), and ofa “evil” who lived in the un- derworld, whose name was cisin (Fox and Ju 1984:37-38, It was customary for priests to impersonate the gods during ceremonies, a tradition hat has contin: ted into cecent times in some parts of the Maya area (V. Bricker 1981-128-150). Landa. (in Tozzer 1941:111-112) mentions priestly assistants called Chaes,a name they shared with the rain pod, who of ficiated at ma + of the east was red; the one ¢ also four rain gods assigned Wy of the rituals performed during the 365-day year. The rain god Chae, or, perhaps, an im. petsonator of this yod, isthe protagonist in a number of contexts in the Dresden Codex (e.g.. Figure 15: ©). He is replaced by a generic god culled huh “god in cognate almanacs in the Madi Codex (Ringle 198856. Figure 156) The Yearbearers, The principal stations of the +haub in preeolumbian times were the New Year, the INTRODUCTION, a7 Hall Veur,and the five days of the last" month’ of the year known as Uayeb. AI three stations are docu: ‘mented in the codices, and the ceremonies for New ‘Year and Uayeb are deseribed in Landa’s Relacii (Tozzer 1941:136-149, 150-153). ILis possible that the ecremony Landa ealled oc na *house enter which involved the renewal of clay idols and their braziers, honored the Half Year, because renewal was also a theme of New Year (Tozzer [941:151, 161). We cannot be sure, because Landa says that this cer ‘emony could be performed in the months of Chen or Yax, and the Half Year would have Fallen on I Yax in colonial times, ‘The Aaah ceremonies thal received the most atten tion, in the precolumbian as well as the colonial sources, were the ones that took place during the five “nameless” days of Uayeb. Their purpose seems to have been to bring the old year toa close and to usher inthe now one. The four yearbearer days atthe time of the conquest—Kan, Mulue, Ix, and Cauac—had both directional and color associations, Kan years were identified with the east and red, Mulue years, with the north and white, Ix years with the west and black, and Cauac years with the south and yellow The gods for each year were also diferent. One set of gods was associated with the four entra town; the others with a temple in the center of town, stern side of town had a stone 28 10 the The entrance at the Pik: IXTHE BEE ALMANAC ON PAGES LOSC AND 100¢ OF THE MADRID CODEN. tier V C and Villacorta 1976. 490, 422.Day Direction Color Kan east ral Mulue north white Ix west, lack Cause 30 “Segioning of Uayeb, and an image of Sac u Uayeyabs yas setup of the stone altar a ance to the S forther side of town co rule during Mulue years he entrance gods for Tx and Cauae years were Ek w “Wyeyab and Kan u Uayeyab, and they presided over stone altars atthe western and southern entrances of town, respectively. The other four gous took tums ruling from the center of town. In Kan years, fore ample, the reigning god of the temple was Bolon Daacab. The gods for the other years were, in order, Kinch Ahau (the Sun god), Iizamna, and Uae Mitun hau (See Table 16). The middle ryister of pages 25-28 of the Dresden Codex depts these gods sit ting in thatched structures that probably represented the temple; the altars on the outskirts of town are shown in hieroglyphie form, with the sign far wood over the sign for ston, inthe bortom register of these pages (Figures 21-24) The footprint motif that we have identified with the Half Yearalso shows up inthe bottom register of these pages of the Drosden Codex. Here, however, the footprints are heading from lft co right (e the e register in Figure 23) rather than from ¢ lef as in the examples of Half Year iconography in Figure 1S. We infer from this imagery that the year was conceived of asa road hea tivn on New Year, doubling oft'in one direc: on itselfat the Half Year, and returning to its point of origin during Uayeb, The omens for the years in question are shown on the backs of the yearbearers in the upper register of those pages (Figures 21-24. ‘The empha. ofthe New Year rituals was renew al: the replacement of utensils, old clothes, and fur lure. and the wrappings of ills, the sweep houses, and the kindling of new fi called Chaes (Tozer l941:181. 1 version of these ceremonies took plice about nine tuinals later, coinciding, perhaps. with the Hall Yea Mozzer 1941-161), of by the assistants 5). A more limited PRS ESN Iytropuction 49 TABLE 16 SSYMOLIC ASSOCIATIONS OF COLONIAL YEARBEAKER DAYS Chae u Uayeyab Bolon Dave: Suc u Lay Ek Uayeyab — Itzamna b Kinch Alaw Uae Mitun Ahaw The fifty-two years of the calendar round were divided into quarters composed of thirteen haubs. On the eve of the Spanish conquest, 1 Kan served as the senior yearbearer, presiding over the first quad: rant of the calendar round, The other three quadrants, were headed by | Muluc, 1 Ix, and 1 Cauae, The yyoars in the quadrant led by 1 Kan were associated ‘with the east and red, The directions and colors vor responding to the years in the other three groups were north and white, west and black, and south and. yellow, respective We see here a symbolic pattern relating colors, ge= ography, deities, and time. This is a hallmark of Maya religion that pervades domains well beyond the varbearers and the stations of the fa ndar round. It is documente band the the Classie pe riod in the $19-day count that sometimes accompa nied the initial series (Berlin and Kelley 1970; Thompson 1943) and in the designation of certain sites and their rulers as representatives of the four rections (c.g., Marcus 1973, 1976:Fig. 19a-f), The ‘Venus table in the Dresden Codex has similar set of symbolic associations (1. Thompson 1972:62-71), and the Burner and rainmaking almanses in that eo. dex echo the same The last wo domains are explivitly recognized in the Kana and therefore merit, the detailed deseription that we provide below The Barners, For ritual purposes, the Mays divi: ed the fzofkin into four “burner” periods of sixty-five days, which were further subdivided inte three inter vals of twenty days each and one of ive days, Both the larger and the smaller periods could begin wn one of only our days: Chiechan, Oe, Men, and Ahau (Ldmonson 1982189: Long 1923). As might be ex pected, these days had both direetional and color as- sociations. Chicehsan was identified with the east and red, Oe with the north and white, Men with the west an black, nd! Aha with the south and yellowane 2 Bie a a Bio = : = a: s £ 3 , | Voce = = Qe 6 VAQRAVD QVBSOVSsS Q j « 2 ° ga2 gaeaea (GE 26 OF THE DRESDEN CODEN, After Villgeorts Cand Vallacorst KL 398St 99s Q@vaw vINBBQVSRO —QHGVASasggad LO RQQSES GSS ‘I ye am PRE anos o | & %aaa a arr sa AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA, Meee arenes EN eieeaas pase DBO BE SEB BSUS PEMD —~@—o— @-—G@ Ficuar 25 THE BURNER ALMANAC ON PAGES 308, AND 318 OF THE DRESDEN CODEX. After Villacors and Villas (1976:70, 72), Not all days named Chivehan, Oc, Men, and Ahau could be Burners (wh rocob) at any one time. For &x ample, in 1553-1554. Landa’s typical year, he Bum cers were limited to days having 3, 10, 4, and 11 as coefficients, The ceremonies for those Burner days are mentioned ina calendar for 365 days that appears on pages 2-24 of the Cédice Péres. We have extract- ed the relevant lines from thal text and have transiat- ed them into English, as follows ‘On 3 Chiechan the Bummer ges fire; ‘On 10 Chiechan the Burner's fire is lighted; (On 4 Chhcchan the Burner runs, Qn 11 Chicchan the Busner quernches Fire. [0n 3 Oc the Burner gos fires) On 10 Oe the Burnes fire is lighted On 4 Oc the Burner runs On 17 Oc the Bumer quenehes fire (On 3 Men the Burner gets fire; (On 10 Men the Burner's fire is lighted: (On 4 Men the Burner rans; (On 11 Men the Burner guenches fire (On 3 Ahau the Burner gets fire (On 10 Ahau the Bumer's fire is lighted; (On Ahau the Burner runs: (On 1) Ahau the Bumer quenches fie The Burner days in each group are separated from ‘one another by intervals of twenty days. The three in tervals that separate the four Burner days in each zroup sum to sixty days (= 3 x 20), The distance be- tween the last Burner day in one group and the first Buruer day in the next group is five days. Therefore, the total number of days vovered by each group is sinty-tive days (= 60 + 5). Four groups of sixty-five days equal one tzolkin period. (Our reconstructed text implies thatthe ceremonies «dwith 3 Chicchan, 3 Oc, $ Men, and 3 Abaw “getting” a fire, The fire “was lighted” twenty days later. on 10 Chiechan, 10 Oc, 10 Men, and 10 Ahav, On 4 Chiechan, 4 Oc, 4 Men, and 4 Ahau the Burner was said 10 “run.” Finally, on 1 Chicchan, 11 Oc, 11 Men, and 11 Abu, the Burner juenched” the fire, We assume that the first ceremo: ny in the sequence involved building, but not light- fire. The lighting of the fire took place twenty days later. and it was quenched on the last Burner day of the group, five days before the fitst Burner of the next group initiated the sequence again, ‘Only the last ofthese ceremonies, he one involving the quenching of fire, is deseribed by Landa in his Relucién de las cosas de Yueatan and a day or two before they performed the following ceremony, which they called ip their language Tupp Kak [quench fre}. They hunted forall the animals and creatures fof the field, which were tobe hud and which there were in the country, and they came together wit them inthe cour, ‘of the temple in which the Chaes an the priest took their places seated inthe comers, as they were wont to do nor der to drive away the evil spirit, each having a pitcher of water, which they brought there for each of them. They placed in the middle a great Faggot of dy sticks ted togeth- ter and sot upright, and first burning some oftheir incense in the brazier they se fire tothe sticks, and while they were burning, they took outa great many of the hearts ofthe an- Jmals and birds and threw them into the fie to burn. And if they were unable to get Large animals lke tigers (age uss), ons (pumas) or crocodiles, they made their hearts ‘out of their incense; but if they had killed them, they Drought their hearts for tht fire. Wher all the heans were consumed, the Chas extinguished the fie with the piteh- cers of water [Tozzer 1941:162-163} Landa attributes the sypp kak (‘quench fire’) rite ©. the month of Mac, and itis true that a fire-quenching Fite would have taken place on 1! Oc 7 Mae in th year A.D. 1554, Landa also mentions that the same ceremony was performed again later the same year the month of Pax (Tozzer 1941:165). The date it question was 1 Men 12 Pax. Long (1923:175) aS 8g pointed out that there would have been three otbet ‘occasions during that Maya year, covering pats of 1553. and 1554, when fire-quenching ceremonies ‘would have been appropriate, on 1] Men 12 Zip. 1tael-ah hesidled ext ob es akan hae ? TER PS Boey aBey . BRS EBay INTRODUCTION 38 cent wah hac 7 wean will turkey b red his offering wah bead black-?-candle offering Big wales cayeci wah yax wah ucan Tish-food_ bread First bread his offer FiguRE 26—A TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION OF THE BURNER ALMANAC ON PAGES 308 AND 31B, OF THE DRESDEN COI Alter V, Bricker (1991:Fig, Abau 17 Xul, and 11 Chiechan 2 Yax, but they a not explicitly mentioned by Landa References tothe Burner ceremtoniesalso appr: 30 and 3 of the Dresden Codex (Figure 25). The almanac is di vided into four parts, separated by intervals of sixty five days. The first part beyins on a day 8 Chieehan the second! on a day 8 Oe, the third on a day 8 Mea, and the fourth ona day 8 Ahau, The hieroglyphic text associates cach Bummer station with one othe four di- rections, color, and one or two offerings, Most ofthe text has been deciphered (V. Bricker 1991; see F 26), and we have translated it as follows: an almanac in the mislle register on ps vas three months and five days until § Chicelan ‘When the rod Chae sided east Deerslayer beeal and? we Fewas three months ad five days unl 8 0, When dhe white Che se Tuthey bread and ra his offerings 7) and Villacorta C, and Villacorts 11976-70, 72) 1 as three months and five days unit 8 Men, When the black Chae sled west, Iara broad and black ? wax were his offerings Itowas thice months and five days until § Aha ‘When the yellow Chae sided south, Fisk lesh bread and fest bread were his offerings. The officiating priests at these ceremonies were called ¢ s,s were the priests in the fire-quench- ing ceremony deseribed by Landa (Tozzer 1941 163). The priest associated with 8 Chicchan is de- seribed as a red Chae who moves to the cast, The priest for 8 Oc is called a white Chae; he moves to the north, The priest for 8 Men moves to the west; he is deserihed asa black Chac, And the priest for 8 Aha, ‘who moves to the south, is ealled a yellow Chac. Each ceremony has its own special faunal offer ing: deerslayer bread on 8 Chicehan, turkey bread on, ¥ Qe, iguana bread! on ¥ Men, and fish bread on 8 Ahavl, The moder ethnographic survivals of these56 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WoRLDS: THE TABLE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA i: BURNER DATES IN THE ALMANAC ON PAGES 33 39C OF THE DRESDEN CoDeEX 1 Mulue Ahww fy Chico Cause Oc Kan Me offerings consist of @ porrie prepared from maize lees, which sink t0 the bottom after ground cor: has been soaked in water. The porridge is cooked with the heart and other internal organs of the question. The head and the feet of the animal are cooked separately and then placed on top of the porridge (V. Bricker 1991), In hieroglyphic texts in the Dresden Codes, these offerings are ofien represented by the heads and/or Feet of animals shown emerging from a glyph read as wal (translated as “bread, tortilla {maize cake)’ inco- lonial times [Michelon 1976:376}: e.g. the lst glyph in Figure 29a and d), or the entire animal is portrayed lying on top of the same glyph (e.g, the last glyph in Figure 29c). For example. deerslayer bread (af-chif wat), the offering for 8 Chicchan, is referred to by a collocation composed of a deer head embeckled in the glyph for bread or tortilla (wal). In other con: texts the same offering is spelled phonetically as alt chil wah, On the other hand, iguana bread (ha wah, the offering for § Men, is implied by a eolloca- tion depicting an iguana draped over the glyph for bread. A phonetic spelling of this offering as hu wah appears on another page of the Dresden Codex. The word for “turkey” (cus) in turkey bread (cuz wah). the offering associated with 8 Oc, is spelled phoneti cally with the syllables ew and tzu (see Figure 26) This offering i represented elsewhere in the Dresden Codex by the head ofa turkey emerging froma glyph for bread (see Figure 254) The only serious diserepaney between the Dresden Bumer almanac and the colonial sources isa difler- tence in the coefficients of the Bummer days: 8 Chic- chan, 8 Oc, 8 Men, and 8 Ahau were not Bummer days, in colonial times. His commonly believed thatthe set ‘of Burner coefficients mentioned in the Cédice Pére leat quoted above was the only set ever used by the Maya (ef. Long 1923), but the sources themselves do not make that elaim, and there is, in fact, evidence in (in Boldface Type) ' Abau Oc n Chicshan Men G¢ Men Chiewhan the Kaus of the use of atleast three other sets of Bumor coefficients after the eonguest. In addition, Victoria Bricker’s (1992) rescarch on the prcolum- biam codices has suggested that different sts of coef: ficients were employed at different times The almanae under consideration states that the dates 8 Chiechan. 8 Oc, $ Men, and 8 Ahau were oc casions when the Chacs moved from one world di rection to another. Because each group of Bummer days is associated witha single drcotion, itis hikely thatthe movement to a new station took place on the day of the frst station and not on the day of a later station, In that ease, the coefficients for the four st tions, when the Burner “gets” the Fite. “lights” the fine, runs," and “quenches" the fre, would be 8.2 9, and 3, respectively (V. Bricker 1992) Another Bumer almanae appears inthe lower reg ister on pages 33-39 ofthe Dresden Codex (Figure 27), Her, too, the 260-day period is divided int Four Sections of sixty-live days, each of which begins dlays named Chiechan, Oc, Men, or Aha. Pisalma nac, however, dlfers from the previous one in three ssays: (1 it contains pictures as well asa hieroglyph ie text: (2) the quarers are further subsivied into smaller periods; and (3) the coefficients of the days beginning each quate are 13." rathor than “8” Each quarter is divided into five smalcr periods, four of which ae associated with days named Chie- chan, Oe, Men, and Au (Table 17)."The first atin each sinty-fve-day row of the almanne (13 Aha 13 Chiechan, 13 Oc, and 13 Men) must correspond to the station when the Burner “yet fire. The seeand date im each row, 9 Mulue, 9x, 9 Cause, and 9 Kat is not # Bumer date. The pictures to which these dates refer are concerned with the stations of the tropical year, two solstices and two equinoxes ( Bricker and H Bricker 1992). The hid date rovw,7 Ahau, 7 Chicchan, 7 0¢,and 7 Men, sa 24% er date, falling exactly twenty days afer the fist aoe Q 3 BRE 2 O88 : 858 a Bo Bai N80) NAGSAUA IHL IO.I6E OL IES: $e °9L:9461) HOOP BIea eer 3s AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: Tht; BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUa, Fuk 28—THE RAINMAKING ALMANAC ON PAGES 298 AND 30B OF THE DRESDEN CODEX. Aer Villacura C. and Villacorts (1976268, 70) in the rows. As such, these dates must correspond to the Burner station when the fire is “lighted.” The fourth date in each ow, 1 Abau, 1 Chiechan, 1 Oc and 1 Men, occurs twenty days after the third; it must represent the station when the Burner is said t0 "ru Although the fifth date in each row, 11 Oc, 11 Men, 11 Ahau, and 11 Chiechan, technically belongs o the Bummer set, it does not refer to one of the traditional Burner stations because it occurs only 1en days later than the Bumer date immediately preceding it. How ever, the fourth Burner station, 8 Ahau, 8 Chicchan 8 Oc, and 8 Men, falls within the fifteen-day interval that links the fifth date with the beginning of the next row (and quarter), Three of the four pictures associ ated with that interval depict Chae either standing or sitting in a cenote (a collapsed sinkhole filled with water), and the caption over the cenote picture in the fourth row of the almanac states explicitly that Chae is in the cenote, The only picture in that column that does not contain cenote imagery shows Chae stand: ing in the rai, The association of Chae with water, either in a cenote of under raindrops, calls to mind the fact that the fourth Bummer station is concerned with the quenching of fire, It therefore seems likely to us that the pictures and captions in the last column of the al- jed to refer to the fourth Burner station, which fills within the stated interval, ‘The almanaes illustrated in Figures 25 an 27 sug gest that the precolumbian Maya employed at least two different sets of Burner coefficients, neither of which corresponded to the set in use during Landa's \ypieal year. They represent only part of a growing, body of evidence that Bumer coefficients could and id change over time (V. Bricker 1992). Therefore, the different sets of Burner coefficients that are men= tioned on pages 11, 12, 14, 20, 21, and 276-278 of the Kaue are not necessarily examples of the break= down of traditional Maya pr pressure. It is possible that they are simply the post- ‘conquest manifestations of an ancient eyeling mech- anism that continued, without interruption, during the Colonial period. tices under Spanish Agricultural Rituals. The Four world directions also structure the hieroglyphic text inthe rainmaking almanac that appears in the middle register on pages 29 and 20 of the Dresden Codex (Figures 28 and 29), The first wo pictures in the almanac, representing the summer solstice and the Half Year, and its calen- drical structure imply that it referred to ceremonies that were performed during June and July of 4.0. 899 {V. Bricker and H. Bricker 1992). The imeervals be- twveen the totkin dates in the almanac. thirteen days, which are shown by the solid black bar-and-dot num bers directly above the pictures (two bars and three dots), correspond closely to the fortnightly intervals that today separate performances of rainmaking cer- temonies in the westem part of the Yucatan Peninsula, ‘There are four such ceremonies each year. They be gin on the eastern outskirts of town, They are moved, tivo weeks later. toa site near the northern boundary of town. The third ceremony is performed on the western outskirts of town, and the fourth takes place atthe southem edge of town (V. Bricker 1991). The text of the Dresden almanac refers to similar shift in location for the four ceremonies (Figure 29). The modem rainmaking ceremonies also share with their precolumbian precursors offerings of an- mals in a maize porridge. Today. however, only on€ type of animal is offered during all four ceremonies either chickens or deer, but not both. A more varied set of faunal offerings is mentioned in the coda! text: onoise bread, fish, iguana bread, and wild key bread (Figure 29). References tothe last three of ferings ean also be found in the deseription of Bumet ceremonies that immediately follows this text FB: ures 25 and 26) Beckecping represented another set of season 33 tivities with ritual responsibilities in precolumbian times. An entire section of the Madrid Codexcath aac CESS INTRODUCTION 38 smac-wah tomaise bread ats Oj Bo eg Ge By ‘60 2 we = © Figune 29—A TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION OF 30B OF THE DRESDEN CODEX. After V. Bricker (1991:Fig Sevoted to beekeeping procedures, including the proper treatment of the zods on whom bountiful har- vests of honey depended. Landa mentions ceremony in the month of Zee that was intended to make honey abundant by providing flowers for the bees (Tozzer 1941:156-157), Gabrielle Vail (1994) has identified an almanac in the bi tion of the Madrid Codex. the one in the middle register of pages 106. 108, that closely parallels Landa’s deseription of this ‘ceremony (Figure 30). The hieroglyphic text in that ‘almanac contains references to offerings of deer, gua nabread. and wild turkey b have i similar to the ones we Burner and raivimakin, ‘manaes in the Dresden Codex, In the pictures below the text, gods are shown seated before vensers oFburn ing rubber and pots of honey. Other almanacs depiet offerings laid out on the ground in the thatched struc: tures where the hives were The almanac illustrated in Figur day dy seen in the 30 begins on a ‘aban, The glyph for Caban also has another ‘THE RAINMAKING ALMANAC ON PAGES 298 AND 16) and Villacorta Cand Villacaraa (1976:68, 79) phonetic value. cab, which means ‘bee, honey, hive. and it frequently appeats with this reading and one of these meanings in the hieroglyphic texts of the alma: rcs in this section of the Madrid Codex. Moreover many of the bee almanacs begin on the day Caban, implying, perhaps, a special relationship between Caban and bees. We have described only two of what were probably ‘once numerous ceremonies associated with the cultural eycle. We chose them aver others because they had the mast clearly recognizable ante precolumbian sources. Other rituals that today may also have roots in the pro-Hispanic past, ‘but withouta clear counterpart in preconquest Mayan ‘written documents, i is impossible to determine the extent to which they have been Europeanized nisin practiced Bloodterinng and Ritual Enemas. inthe Maya as in other parts of Mesoam ‘one of the ofierings made to the gods. On some60 [AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA ‘occasions, the heart was removed from a sacrificial victim and presented, dripping with blood, toa deity Such a heart sacrifice may be pietured in an alm fon the third page of the Dresden Codes. ‘ound captive is stretched across the trunk of a cviba tuee with a cleft in his chest (Figure 32). Landa de« scribes the Chacs performing a heart sacrifice in the following terms the beart of the vitim was to be taken out, they’ led hin ‘with 9 great shove and company of people into the court of the temple, and having smeared him with blue and put on 2 oro-a [a conical hood}, they brought him upto the round alta, which wa and his offcinls had nointed the stone with a blue color, and by purifying the temple drove out the evil spirit, the ‘Chacs seized the poor victim, and placed him very quickly fn bis back upon that stone, ad all four held him by the vided him in the middle. At this eame the executioner, the Nacom, with a knife of stone, and struck him with great skill and cructy a blow betwen the ribs of his left sce under the nipple, and be st ‘once plunged his hand in there and seized the heart ike 2 raging tiger and snatched it out alive and, having placed it ‘upon a plate, he gave it othe priest, who went very quickly snd anointed the faces ofthe idols with that fresh blood (Fozzer 1941:118-119} place of sacrifice, and alter the priest Jegs and arms, so that they An examination by Robiesek and Hales (1984) of surgical techniques and implements that were used in the sacrificial removal of the heart suggests that the technigue described by Landa (left anterior thoracotomy) was not the technique (Iransverse bi lateral thoracotomy) whose results are depicted in preconquest iconography—for example, on the third page of the Dresden Codex (Figure 32). With rans- verse biliteral thoracotomy. the cracking open of the thoracic cavity while the body was stretched over a convex. altar would have produced the gaping wound so graphically shown in the precolumbian Not all ceremonies required blood to be collected at the expense of the donor’s fife, In many cases, the gods could be satisfied with blood drawn from the tongue, the ears, or the penis (Joralemion 1974), tn ure 23, the smaller figure on the right, who is the wife of the ruler on the lef, is running 2 rope contain- ing thorns through her tongue, while her blood drips onto pieces of paper. Figure 34 illustrates men and women drawing blood from their earlobes. And the Tour figures surrounding the house in Figure 35 are joined by ropes strung through their penises. Landa Ueseribes a similar ceremony Atother times they performed an obscene and painful sac rifle, those who were to make it yathered in the temple whereafier they were placed in a row. Holes were made in the virile member of each one obliquely from side to side and through the holes which they had thus made, they passed the greatest quantity of thread tht they could. an all of them being thus fastened and strung together, they anointed the idol with the blood which flowed from all these parts [Tozzer 1941: 114) Fiovar: 30—THE BEE ALMANAC ON PAGES 1068 TO 10SB OF THE MADRID CODEX. Afr Villacon C. 308 | Villacorts (1976436, 438, 440),‘igure 31—THE BEE ALMANAC ON PAGE 1068 OF ‘THE MADRID CODLX. After Villacorta C--nd Villacor 12 (1976-436). ‘These examples imply that blood was extracted only to be used as offerings to the gods, not for medical purposes. In another place, however, Landa (Tozzer 1941:112) mentions that “sorcerers and physicians performed their cures by bleedings ofthe parts which gave pain to the sick man.” ‘The scenes on several Classic Maya vases suggest that enemas, a procedure that we associate with pur- gation, may have had a ritual function in precolumbi: an times, Furst and Coe (1977). citing data from other parts of Mesoamerica and South America, have ar fgued that enemas were used for icing halluci nogens into the body (see also Stross and Kerr 1990). Unfortunately, the Yucstecan etlnohistorical sources contain no descriptions or interpretations of enemas that are comparable tothe ones for bloodletting quot- ed above. Therefore, we eannot be sure why enemas were administered, although the contexts in which they are depicted were undoubtedly ritual in nature, ites of Passage. The births and deaths of rulers ae well documented in the precolumbian sources, ‘but not the ceremonies that must have marked these important events. The archacologival record provides some information onthe ritual eatinent of the ded, but not of the newly born, It implies that the demise of the ruler of a Classie-period Maya city was fol lowed by great pomp and circumstance. Rulers were often buried in stone tombs hidden in the bowels of Pyramids, surrounsted by offerings of jade, funerary ots, obsidian ecventres, and other sumptuous ob. Jee. In some eases, sheir faces were covered with elaborate mosaic death masks of jade, and their [sTRODUCTION 6 bodies were liberally sprinkled with hematite, There are, however, no recognizable iconographic repre- sentations of funerary rites in Maya art, not even on, the painted vases that accompanied the remains of the dead. The hieroglyphic texts on these vessels some: times mention the substances they once contained (c.g..chocolate (Stuart [988]) but do not deseribe the ceremonies of which they were once part The possible evidence for a precolumbian version of baptism is limited to one almanac in the Madrid Codes, which vontains four scenes of'a woman toss- ing water on a child (Figure 36). The hieroglyphic text above the pictures refers explicitly fo bathing with the Mayan word ich (Fox and Justeson 1984 35-36), stating that it should take place at thirteen: dday intervals, frst in the east, next in the north. then in the west. and finally in the south. It seems to be very different trom the ceremony that Landa de cribed as the Maya equivalent of baptism in the mid dle ofthe sixteenth ventury (Tozzer 1941:102-106), The stiputation thatthe child be bathed on four sepa rate occasions and in four different locations corre sponding to the four world directions suggests to us that it refers to a set of rituals and not to ordinary FuURE?2 HEART SACRIFICE ON PAGE 3A OF THIE DRESDEN CODEN. Alter Villacorts C. ana ¥illacorta (96:10)9). Le So : SS TONGUE SACRIFICE ON LINTEL 24 AT YANCHILAN. Af 3 Frouuepie spathing. This i the only almanae in dhe Madrid rt codex that depicts eile Medicine “The precolumbian sources have, “ute on the subject of medicine. 1 is possible thax until now, been ae x had healing as their Fane 3 Bins ond inthe co SrrrrC—~—S—SOC—sSC [en psa ght ve ben used fr treaig i acer becn Seine, and, ioe xh r—~—_C=CizsXSs#SC®isCN va peso ny had medical pactioners vo sed babs medicine bas, divining somes At incanatons to hel the sick Tozzer T9419, TI-TIa Is), He menons Bleeding ava veatent for pain but Re ays nothing about te kinds of dis —|”D—rti—“—O_—OCri trove diagnosed andthe speeches and ncn tons by means of which they could be cred Inter manuscript the Ritual ofthe Bacas, which is prbebly ofighicenth-century dae (Reys 1968: a ees. —LDLDrLr—~—~——C | (Areapalo 1987-848, 475, 488. 501) On the other ssi seem o have ha no O18 Werld precedents Thay include a varity of Sites named ar ani mals and plans forex angipani seizure, and tarantula se the fourfole structure that per vades Maya symbolism is often manifested in the incantations. For example, in one of them, four lords who are addressed by the person delivering the in- Cantations are named aller the colors associated with the four cardinal directions: schucal ahaw Red lon sacal ahau White lord, ckel ahau Black led, kanal shaw Ye jow lod The same colors are used for discriminating four gumbo-limbo trees, four woodpeckers, four hutter= Mies, four shls, four Nlinls, four wind yous. IxrRopuctiON 6 FIGURE 34 - EARLOBE SACRIFICE ON PAGE 9SA OF THE MADRID CODEN. After VillacortaC. and Villacorts s7641y, (pauahtuns), and a number of other sets of four objects that are mentioned in the incantations (Roys, 1965:72-113 passim). The four skybearers (bacwés) after whom the manuscript is named are addressed forty-three times, usually as.a set. without different ation among them in terms of their colors or the cor nets of heaven that they are supporting (Arzapalo 1987:715-716), Their prominence as the gods to whom many of the incantations are addressed sug. gests that they were responsible for maintaining and. in eases of illness, restoring the health of the Maya. in addition to their well-known function of holding up the sky, Numbers and Numerology Numbers. For numbers below 20, the precolumbi- ‘an Maya used a quinary notation based on three sym bols: a shell for zero, a dot for 1, and a bar for S. The numbers 2, 3, and 4 were represented by two dots Uhiee dois, and four dots, respectively, Numbers from 6 through 19 were formed by combining dots and bars, fer example, one dot plus one bar for 6, wo dots phis one bar for 7, two bars for 10. two bars plus, three dots tor 13 (ef. the solid black bar-and-dot ne 18), three bars for 15 (ef. the solid black bars above the first picture in Figure 19), and thrce bars plus four dats for 19. There was a special slyph for 20. resembling a necklace, which could be combined! with bars and dots to represent the num: bers from 21 through 39. Fer most purposes, howev ef, the Maya used a positional notation for numbers above 19 that was essentially vigesimal All the positions inthis notation exeept the second increased in value by a taetor of from bottom to top. The second from the bottom vorre sponded fo the nail position in the Mays loSE 64 AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHIL AM BALAM OF KAUA and had a maximum value of 18. Thus 20 was represented by a shell (for zero) in the units position and one dot (for 20) in the twenties position. Two dots in the twenties position and a shell in the units position signified 40. One bar in the units position and three dots in the twenties position equaled 6S (= 3 K 20~ 5) (cf. the four sels of solid black bar-and: dot numbers in Figure 25), The largest number that could be expressed with only two positions, 389, was composed of three bars and four dots in the units po- sition and three bars and two dots in the twenties po sition (17 x 20 + 19), The addition of 1 t0 that ‘number, equaling 360, placed one dot in the third po sition (rom the bottom and shells in the two positions below it. The next highest position had a value of 7.200 (= 20 x 360) and the one above it 144,000 (= 20 x 7.200). The system could be continued indefi- nitely, but it usually stopped with the fifth position Ficune 38—PENIS SACRIFICE ON PAGE 198 OF THE MADRID CODEX. After Villagorts C- and Villacorta (1976.26), because five pl Jong-count da Our description of Maya positional notation is based on its application to the calendar because there are no examples of its use in other contexts. It is, of ‘course, possible that they employed a fully vigesimal notational system, with 400 as the factor in the third position, for counting chocolate beans, feathers, anu ther objects. Unfortunately, the only records we have of the enumeration of noncalendrical items in- volve numbers below 40, which do not help to re= solve the question of whether the factor in the third position was 360 or 400. The Mayan names for the numbers were also vige- simal, except for he ones below 20. The first eleven numbers were represented by single morphemes: fun, €4, 0%, can, ho, uac, wwe, uaxae, bolon, lalun, and buluc. The numbers from 12 through 19 were composed of the words for 10 (lai or lahun) and 2 through 9: faliea for 12. oxlalwn for 13, cantahun for 14, holaluun for 15, uaclanen for 16, waclahun Yor 17, asaclahwn for 18, and holonlahun for 19. The term for 20-was hun kal. The names for the higher vig inal units were formed by prefixing the names for the numbers from 2 through 19 to the word for 20: ca kal (2x 20 = 40), ox kal (3 20 = 60), can kal (4 x 20 (0), and so on. For numbers between vigesimal units, the Yueatecan Maya seem to have used a min- ture of overcounting and anticipatory counting. For example, 21 was hur tu/c) kal (1 + 20), but 30 was lahun ca kal (10 (toward) 40), not fahuon tu kal (10+ 20). Evidence of overcounting appears inthe bottom register of pages 26-28 af the Dresden Codex. where 29 is represented as 9 1 20 (9 + 20), 36 as 16 4 20 (16 + 20), and 35 as 15 1w 20 (15 + 20) (Figures 22- 24), so it must be of precolumbian origin. The other system of counting, with numbers anticipating the next score, characterizes most of the other Mayan Tan (Colville 1985), ‘The mathematical heritage of the Maya included addition and subtraction, both of which are well doc- tumented by the use of distance numbers in monu: mental inscriptions. The astronomical tables in the Dresden Codex record not only the intervals thats¢P- arate pairs of dates, but also the cumulative tots~% reached by adding one interval after another toa bise date. The posterior and anterior date indicate served as plus and minus signs. respectivel tes were sufficient for representing ayes for which such information is available 5. iy, on the aa asound the lowest term ofa ring nuber for subtrae distinguished from it, Itean, however, be inferred = ‘from the existence of # positional notation, in which 2 each place has a different factor associated with it f-thiat serves as a multiplier for the bars and/or dots that FG it. The evidence for a knowledge of division is nize inthe precolumbian sour Numerology. Four numbers, 4 5, 13. and 20 seem to have had significant symbolic associations INTRODUCTION 68 in precolumbian times, The first space, marking off the Four cardinal directions of the earth, in terms of which some of the gods in the Maya pantheon. as well as many rituals and ineanta tions, were structured. The others defined the basic ccalendrical eyeles that made up the ‘zofkin, the hawh, {the long count There we gods with directional and color associations. In leg: endl. the number 4 had the same significance for the Maya as the number 3 did for Europeans, So the pro: agonist would make four attempts, not overcoming an obstacle. Important time periods were quartered: The 260-day tcolkin was divided nto four periods of 65 days, exch identified with a direction and a color. The thirteen years in each quadrant of the calendar round were assigned toa di color. The number 4 always had dirce: tional and color associations, whether they were mentioned explicitly oF not The numbers 13 and 20 referred to the two smaller eycles of which the tzolkin was vomposed, the thir teen numbers and twenty named days. They were also important in the long count, the first defining the maximum number of baktwns in an eraand the second representing the number of kins in a uinal, the number (of ans in a Rav, and the number of Karuns in a bak ‘tut. In Yucatan, 13 symbolized another calendrical Tour rain gods, skybearers, and wind betare rection and Flotae 36 BA and Ville 1976408, 410), PTISM () ON PAGES 92C AND 93C OF THE MADRID CODEX. Alter Villasona €Ficvre 37—-TZUL U MUT TEXT ON PAGE 178 OF THE DRESDEN CODEN. After V, Bricker (1986:Fig, 215) and Villacona C. and Villacors (1976:44). cycle, the one composed of thirteen kavas that was used for dating historical events. The same number ‘was implicit in the quartering of the calendar round which resulted in groups of thirteen habs. Finally, the number 20 also symbolized the twenty-day winals that made up the hab, ‘The number 5 had two ealendrical associations. It represented the five “nameless” or unlucky days of ayeb that brought the /iaab to a elose. It was also frequently referred to in long-count contexts because of the custom of grouping the twenty tums of a hatwr into four honuns, each containing five ns (Pros kouriakoff 1960). The endinys of hotuns were re corded systematically in monumental inscriptions at many Classie-period sites, Its clear that Maya numerology was inspired by the Maya's eoncepis of space and time, which were, to some extent, interdependent, The calendar round ‘unit of time, was divided into quadrants ruled over by the four directions, The Burner periods of the icolkin were also grouped into quarters whose direc tional associations dictated where the appropriate ceremonies could take place, Every eyele hased on the tcolkin or the fiaah that was divisible by four AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM O» KAUA automatically had a spatial compontent that linked it \with symbolic elements in many other domains The Sava Sources In very general terms, the Maya texts in the Kaus without obvious European antecedents have more in commun with the precolumbian codices than they do with the inscriptions on the monuments. This is be cause the monumental texts are largely concerned ‘with dynastic history, a subject that is completely ig: nored by the Kawa, whereas the codices are primarily ccalendrieal and ritual in focus, as are the Maya fexts vo the Kava ‘The closest parallels are between payes 166-171 cof the Kana and pages 2-11 of the Paris Codex, both of which eover events dated toa sequence of thirteen zaruns. Unfortunately. the pages of the Paris Codex are heavily damaged, and much of the text has flaked off, What remains of the text on those pages never- theless permits chem t0 be identified as part of 9 Aatunby-katun account of Maya history that is anal- ‘ogous to the chronicle on pages 166-171 ofthe Kau (Love 1994; Treiber 1987) Itis, however. not likely thatthe Ration ebroniele in the Kawa as copied directly from the Paris Codex or from any other hieroglyphic book, There are ver) sions ofthe same chronicle in three other Books of Chitam Balara, the ones from Chumayel and Tizimin and the Cédice Pérec, which have much fuller treat ments of the same sequence of katuns and are less influenced by European calendrieal ideas. fis there- fore more likely that the Kawa version ofthat chron- icle was copied, with modifications, from the related text in one of the other surviving Books of Chil Balam, or from another Book of Chilam Balam that has disappeared without a trace The Kau contains a few almanaes that predict the fate of people who are born on each day ofthe winal For example, the one on pages 1! and 12 is ct ceemed with prognostiations fora sequence of ter ty days beginning on | Kan. The prognostication for S$ Lamat, the ifr day in the series, ise w mt “0 is his tidings." An simost identical prognostication, 2g ‘cul w mu. which also means “dog is his tidings.” # pears in the almanae beginning on page 17B in Hs Dresden Codex (Figure 37), associated with 498 named Oe. Tk, Ix, Cimig and Edznab (bat not Lams) The two almanacs are very different in struct the one in the Kaur is Limited toa perivd of 17%+ days xin the Dresden covers 260 ya, whereas the 08 days nd they do not assign the prognostication to ‘th, although the phrasing of the BronnesKa camo have Been copied relly Or nein the Dresden, Here, agin, he source the same day foe almanac in the Kawa i Tikely w be another ee ot Chilam Balan rather than 9 hieroglyphic peek Other versions ofthis text appear on page I of the ook of Cham Blam of Chan K ote Che Pr Besa sy a nor mentary than the onc inthe Kaa, the ultimate source at ftom must be some cer Book of Chia Balam that no longer exists. “Thus. hough there are tantalizing bits of evi dence in the Maya txts inthe Kaa linking them 10 the precolumbian od not similar enough for direct copying to have taken place. There must have booa other manuscripts Exoglyphic as well as alphabetic, along the route omecting the Kau with the pre-ispanic Maya ‘writen wadtion ind on page es, the two types of texts are ‘THE INTELLECTUAL ENCOUNTER The Universe rhe Heavens. The European model of the uni- verse, with its maximum of eleven spheres or heav. ens, was modified in several ways after the conquest. First of all, he Maya used words meaning “layer” or “level” (tas and yal) to refer tothe spheres, and they increased the number of heavens from eleven to thit= teen, probably bet use the number 13 was of greater symbolic significarce to them than 11 (see page 43 of the Chumayel, page 22 of the Ticimin [= folio Lv in Bricker 1950b and Edmonson 1982], sind page 117 of the Cadice Pérv=). Another multilayered model of the universe is documented ethnographically amon; the Yueatecan Maya, 1 is described as containing fi teen layers, “of which seven are above the earth, the eighth is the earth, and seven are below the earth (Villa Rojas 1945:154), The emphasis here is on the umber 7: it must refer 10 the first seven spheres of the Ptolemaic universe, the home of tl “planets,” which are the subject of many texts in the Kaua (eg.. pages 35, 38, 118, 119, 121-122, and 124-126}. The seven spheres could have he verted into fourte seven known ayers (consisting of seven over Worlds and seven underworlds) by first cutting each Inrropuction 6 fone in bal and then Matter arth at the center, Mattened but not cut i ball would represent the fifteenth layer ‘A third, very different model consists ofa flat Earth and the sky. which is described as lying above the Earth like an inverted bowl, in which the stars are Fixed (Redield.and Villa Rojas 1934:205; Villa Rojas, 1945:154). This is the model that bas b ‘most frequently in ethnographic contexts. B the two halves. The elicited rns more elosely than the others to the model that is implied by the precolumbian sources, it prob: ably lisa Maya. not a Spanish. origin. The Constellations. The volonial Maya must have been greatly puzzled by the European zodiac for two reasons: (1) It focused on a constellation’s period of invisibility, whereas the Maya regarded heliacal ris- ing after invisibility as the sigmficant station of a sign. (2) Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the canonical dates for the invisibility of the wvelve zodiacal constellations no longer corresponded to what could actually be seen (or not seen) in the sky For example. the Kaua gives | May through 1 June as the period when the Sun was supposed to be in the sign of Gemini (Table 6}. However, Gemini was vis ible throughout that period during the sixt tury It was Orion, one of the constellations in the Maya zodiae, not Gemini, that underwent its period of invisibility between those dates. Castor and Pol lux, the bright stars in Gemini, did not cease to be Xisible until 21 and 26 June, respectively, reappear ing again on 18 and 19 July (Aveni 1980:116). Thus, the canonical dates for Gemuini’s disappearance inter val missed the true dates for its period of invisibility by about five weeks Aneentry in the Motul dictionary claims that ac ek (literally, “turtle star") refers to “the stars that are in the sign of Gemini, which, together with others, form a turtle” (Martinez Hernandez 1929:60), In fact. the Maya turtle constellation has as its nucleus the three bright stars in Orion’s belt, not the oxo bright stars in Gemini known as Castor and Pollux (11. Bricker and V. Bricker 1992: Lounsbury 1982:166-167). The diserepaney between the eanonieal and real rising and setiing dates of the constellations is probably responsible for the confusion between Orion and Gernini alter the eonguest ‘A similar confusion probably lies behind the de pietion of the European constellation Cancer as aos AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA bird on page 3 of the Agua, The precolumbian May zodiac contained at least 1wo and possibly three bird constellations, one of which corresponded to the as terism dhat Europeans called Gemini (F Bricker and V, Bricker 1992), ‘The Sun was actually in the sign of Gemini during the period when it was supposed to be in Cancer. The discrepancy is of the same kind and in the same direetion as in the ease of Orion and Gemini Thus it must have been very difficult for the Maya to make sense of the European zodiac. The five-week olfset between the ennonical and real dates for the Sun to.enter ind leave the sighs meant that, in some eases, the names were assigned 10 the wrong constellations, Planets. The colonial Maya had no difficulty ae cepting the European geocentric model of the uni verse, in which all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth, because it agreed with their own concep. sion of the Earth as lying between the sky’ and the un derworld, The Spanish pructice of classifying the ‘Sun as one of the seven planets probably did not faze them either; they were already accustomed to group: ing the Sun and the Moon with Venus inthe band that they used for representing the sky. Another European custom that probably did not take them by surprise was the convention of depicting the Sun ané the Moon with human faces. Their own writing system. had included personified variants of the glyphs for the Sun and the Moon (as well as Venus) with anthro- pomorphie faces. ‘Venus played a much more important role in Maya writing in precolumbian times than after the con- quest. The Spaniards did not produce tables for pre- dieting the movements of Venus comparable to the ‘Venus tables in the Dresden and Grolier codices, and, perhaps for that reason, Venus received much less at tention in the Books of Chilam Balam. The phases of the Moon mattered to the Spaniards as much as they did to the Maya, and Spanish texts on this subject ‘were translated into Maya and incorporated into thei Books. Eclipses. The Dresden Colex and the Kana both contain tables for predicting solar and lunar eclipses The ane in the codex lists all possible solar that might occur during a period of thirty-three years (ap. 755-783). The one in the Kaua (on pages 119 and 120) is derived from a Spanish reportorio that ‘was published in 1585 (Zamorano 1585:233v-240v, It covers a seven-year period trom 1599 t0 1606 but lists only those solar snd lunar eclipses that would have been visible in Seville The text im the Kua is parily in Spanish and party in Maya. The Mayan translation retains the tradition: al view of eclipses, which is that the face of the Sun ‘or the Moon is “bitten” during occultation. It is inter cesting that the metaphor of “biting” is used even for a text of obvious European origin, Calencirical Cyctes The Correlation of the Maya and Christian Cater ddars. 8 major problem for scholars interested in pre columbian and colonial Maya eultre has been how to correlate the Uaditional Maya calendar with the calendar introduced by the Spaniards. The question can be phrased as follows: to what day, month, and year in the Julian or Gregorian calendar did « long. count date such as 11.16.13.164 correspond? The answer lies ina set of correlational statements made by both Maya and Spanish writers during the period following the conquest of Yucatan and other pans of the Maya area. Unfortunately, all these statements are incomplete in one sense or another, anal some of them are contradictory. In many cases, we are told only that an event such asthe shipwreck of Gerénimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero on the east coast of the peninsula in 1511 or the arvival of Bishop Fran- cisco Toral in Yucatin in 1562 occurred during a ka: ‘um ending on a certain day Ahau (2 Ahau in the first cease and 9 Ahaw in the second). In others, the Maya yyearbearer corresponding to a European year may be ‘mentioned, as, for example, in a statement in the Chronicle of Chac Xulub Chen (1511-1562) that the founding of Mérida in the year 1542 took place dur- ing a Maya year beginning on 13 Kan () Pop). But there are no examples of dates employing the five- place notation of the Maya long count explicitly aligned with a European date. Therefore, the task of correlating the two calendars has necessarily been fone of attempting to relate the always incomplete statements ofthis kind to one another and, whenever ‘ovo or more statements were in eonilet, ef deciding which one was more likely to be correct, either be i came from a more reliable and internally consistent source or because it agreed better with 3 group of other statements already demonstrated (0 have greater coherence than its competitors (see Morley 1920:Appendi 11 for a superb example ofIvTropuc TABLE ‘CORRELATION OF MAY AND IN THE CHRONICLE 01 the type of reasoning required for evaluating all the correlational statements known during his time) ‘The best single piece of evidence bearing on the ‘correlation question is the sequence of Aaab begin: rings and cunt endings that appears on page 66 of the Chronicle of Oxkutzcab. This Mayan text fragment, written in the colonial alphabet used for all Mayan documents afler the conquest, contains two kinds of statements. First it correlates a sequence of tun end: ings with the Maya years (haabs) in which they 0c: curred. And second, it specifies during which Maya years the eleven Christian years from 1534 through 1545 began. Both the sah bi endings are expressed in the form of ealendar-round Permutations, The former employ the Mayapan ye bearers, Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Caw r time. For example, the first day of 1534 fell in a Maya year beginning about five months earlier on $ | Pop (see Table 18). The latter use a mixture of ‘Notations and elapsed time, The fu ending correlat- ed with 5 Kan | Pop is I! Ahau 18 Yaxkin, whieh is, Tikal date (the Mayapan equivalent would be 11 Ahau 17 Yaxkin {sce Table 19)), There are also four ‘Mayapan dates: 3 Ahau 7 Yaxkin, 12 Abau 2 Yaakin, 13 Ahau 7 Xul,and9 Alay 2 Nul. But more than half ‘of the ta endings in the list are given ina third nota tion that we have calle! the Oxkuizeab calendar after this document. The differences between the three no Jnings and the un | | lations fie in the coefficients of the months. A late such as § Ahau 16 Xul in the Oxkutzeab ealendar Falling inthe Maya Year THON Co) 18 CuRISTIAN New YEAR W ONKUTZCAB Julian Date of Christian Year(aiok (hawb) Beginning er: Maya New Year 334 3 Kan | Pop 20 Jul 1335 71=6) Mulue ! Pop 20 Jul 1334 536 7x 1 Pop 20 Jul 1335 1537 8 Cause | Pop 19 1 1836 1538 9 Kan | Pop 19 ul 1537 539 10 Mulue 1 Pop 19 Jul 1538 1540 Hx | Pop 19 Jul 1539 sai 12.Cauae ! Pop 18 Jul 1540 1sa2 13 Kan | Pop 18 Jul 1541 15 UMulue | Pop 18 Jul 1542 isa 2x 1 Pop 18 Jul 1583 135 I3{E3] Cauac | Pop 17 Jul 1548 would be 8 Ahau 18 Xul in the Tikal calendar and 8 Ahau 17 Xul in the Mayapan calendar Some scholars regard the Oxkutzeab notation as aberrant and have argued that the use of it inthis doc tument is a good reason for questioning the docu- rment’s authenticity and for denying its utility for establishing a correlation between the Maya and Christian calendars (e.g., Kelley 1983), There are however, multiple examples in the precolumbian Mayan inscriptions of the use of more than one nota- tion (Proskouriakoff and J. Thompson 1947). some: times in the same text (c.g.. Stela 8 at Dos Pitas. the Temple of the Cross at Palenque, and the baileourt rings at Uxmal discussed by Kelley {1982:15). and ‘we believe that the existence of several notations in the Chronicle of Oxkutzeab is entirely consistent with teaditional Maya. pr Furthermore, have discovered additional evidence of the use of the ‘Oxkutzcab notation in the table of tw endings on page [71 of the Kawa. which, we believe. is powertul support for the authenticity of the Chronicle of Oxkutzeab. Twenty-two of the twenty-seven fam end: ings in this table are in the Oxkutzcab notation, sug esting calendars oyed by the Maya during colonial times, The rest follow the Mayapan convention, a characteristic hat it represented one of that the Kawa table shares with the Chronicle of Oxkutzeab For two reasons. the information in the of Oxkutzeab is not suffivient for establishin7% AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF KAUA, correlation between the two calendars: (1) There are are identified only by their ealendar-round perm tions, which limi them 10 a eycle of 949 nus. We are not told what position they had in a kate, nor in which bakiwn they fell. ‘The same is true of the habs: they are identified only by their calendar round permutations, which limit them to 2 cycle of fifty-two years. (2) The Christian dates are also in: ‘complete, Only the years are given, not the days and the months to whieh the haa’ beginninys and the tun endings corresponded. Therefore, the statements in the Chronicle of Oxkutzeab must be supplemented by statements in other colonial sources that give nore specific information about the relationship be- tween the Maya yearbearers and dates in the corre- sponding Christian years, on the one hand, and Karun endings and Christian years, on the other One such statement appears on page 37 (= folio 19} of the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin, clan ing that the year 1536 fell in a karun ending on the day 13 Ahau. The Chronicle of Oxkutzcab places a ‘un ending on 13 Ahau 7 Xul (Mayapan) (= 13 Ahsu & Xul [Tikal]) in a Maya year beginning in 1539, three years after 1536. This is a candidate for the end ofa Katun 13 Ahau, but so also is a tun ending thic- teen years later in 1552, on 13 Ahaw 3 Zip. The year 1536 would fall within the limits of kacuns defined in terms of either tu ending. To determine which of these two possibilities is the correct one, we need an ‘other statement correlating a Christian year after 1536 with the next kutun, a Katun IT Ahau, Page 85 of the Book of Chilam Balam of Cbumaye! contains such a sentence claiming thatthe ety of Mérida was founded in 1542 in a kaw ending on a day 11 Ahauw ‘The date of that event was 6 January 1542 in the Christian calendar (Chamberlain 1948:213). The statements in the Tizintin and the Chumayel together imply that the Katun 13 Ahau in question must have ended during a year falling between 1536 and 1542. The tun ending in 1539 mentioned in the Chronicle of Oxkutzenb fits that description, The one in 1582 does not Just as 13 Ahau 7 Xul can occur only once as aca cendar-round permutation every 18,980 days (= $2 Faas), it can serve as a katun ending only once vv cry 6,832,800 days (= 18,720 faa). This restriction makes the determination of the long-count position for 13 Abau 7 Xul very easy. In the curnent May to long-count dates as such, The fans only 11,16.0.0.0 can be correlated with it and it will rot occur again until 8 June in the year A.D. 20,2471 We have now established thit the 365-day year 1539 began somewhere within the hist 360-day’ an of 11.16.6.0., which ended on 13 Ahau ? Xul. How- ever, we do not yet know the exact day in 1529 10 ‘hich this long-count date and calendar-round per mutation corresponded. For that, we need another statement correlating a specific day in the Maya tu ‘or haab with a specific day in the Christian year. That clue lies in a Spanish source, Diego de Landa’s Re- lacién de tas cosas de Yucatan, For the year he used as an example, now known to be 1553, Landa (in Tozzer 1941:150-151) said that Maya New Year on 1 Pop was correlated with 16 July. The bearer for that Maya year can be extrapolated forward from the in- formation given in the Chronicle of Oxkutzcab (Ta. ble 18) to have been 12 Kan (3 Cauae in 1544 plus ihine years equals 12 Kan in 1553). In other words, the Maya counterpart of the Christian date 16 July 1553 (Julian) was 12 Kan | Pop. The distance be- ;een 13 Ahau 7 Xul in 1539 and 12 Kan 1 Pop in 1553 is 5,004 days, Adding this number to 11,16.0.000 yields 11.16.13.16.4, the long-count po- sition of 16 uly 1553, Alternatively, the same num ber of days can be subtracted from 16 July 1533, resulting in a Christian date of 3 November 1539 lian} (= 13 November Gregorian), the equivalent of 11.16.0.00 13 Ahou ? Xul This correlation works very well for the Maya sources we have considered, but it produces a one day discrepancy between the Maya fzofkin andits Az- tec counterpart, the conalpohuall, which should have been in step with each other atthe time of the eon- quest. The problem is discussed by J.E.S. Thompson (1950:303-304) in connection with some corre: tional statements from central Mexico citing 1 Couatl (= 1 Chicchan) asthe Aztec date for the surtender of Cuauhtemoc on 23 August 1521 (Julian), The differ ence between this dateand 16 July 1553, Landa’s date for Maya New Year, is 1.660 days. Irthey are added 10 1 Chicehan, the Maya equivalent of | Cou the result is 13 Chicchan, which is not a yearbearer, but” 3 ‘one day after 12 Kan I Pop. This suggests that 15, not 16, July was the true date of Maya New Year in 1353 and that 11.16.0.0.0 13 Ahau 7 Xul should be moved back one day in the Christian calendar to 2 November 1539 Julian) (= 12 November 1539 Gregorian). AP" parenly, Landa elicited the statement equating ! POP EE ‘ t11151400 1 Ahau £8 Yaxkin ~Wiayapan Ca Aahaw (7 Vaskin 1 Ahau 16 Yaskin INTRODUCTION 7 TABLE 19 TUN ENDINGS IN THE CHRONICLE OF OXKUTZCAB, (Dates aetally mentioned inthe Chronicle appeae in boldtaee itis.) rr Oxkutreab Calnlar Talian Date 3 Doe 1533 : 1hIS150.0 haw 13 Yaskin 7 Ahaw 12 Yaxkin 7 Ahau I Yavkin 28 Nov (534 * 11151600 3Ahav8 Yaskin thaw 7 Yaxkin 3 Abau6Yaxkin 23 Nov 15. 11151700 12Ahou3 Yaxkin 12thaw 2 Yaskin 2 Ahaw | Yaxkin TP Now 15. {1131809 SAkauISNel—-SAbauI?Nul Saha 16Xwl——12Now 1537 11131900 4AhaW 13 Xul Aha? Nol dothate 17 Nul 7 Now 1538 : 111000 ISAbWWSXul—13-thau 7 Nut —13-Ahau 6 2 Nov 1539 1116100 9Abww3Xol —— Ythau 2Xwt 9 Aba 1 Nul 27 0«t 1540 si 1116200 SAhw IS Zoe SARQWIT Zoe ———SAhaw 16 Zee 2 Oct S41 1116300 nt 13 Zee Ahau 12 Zee FAhaue 11 Zee Hows 1116400 WAhaw? Zee 10 Ahan 6 Zee 120215483 1116500 with 16 July several years after the Maya hud frozen their calendar tothe Christian one, and this statement did not account for the leap year of 1552. The same frozen date for Maya New Year appears in several texts in the Kawa (e-g., pages 13, 63, and 72), as well as in other Books of Chilam Balam In summary, then, historical information from both the Maya area and central Mexico has eslab- lished the correlation of the Maya and the Christian calendars such that 2 November 1539 in the Julian, calendar was equivalent 10 11.16.0.0.0 13 Ahau 7 Xul in the Mayapaan calendar. Ifwe use this corel tion. the era base. 0.0.0.0.0 4 Ahaw 8 Cuku, fell on Julian day number $84,283 of Western astronomy, This constant, which is known as the Modified Thompson-2 correlation, must be added to the sum of the days recorded in the baka, Aan, een, vinal, and in positions in ato ‘count date in order to active at its Julian day number equivalent. The second modi: fication of that constant refers tothe one-day chang necessary to correlate the Maya ézofkia with the cen tral Mexican ronalpoluall Calendrical Adjustments. The 35-day year was the one calendrical unit shared by the May ‘and the Spaniards, und it served as th all calenidrical texts in the Kana, The Spaniards, like paid special attention to the first day oF the Year: at the time of the conquest, Maya New Year (1 Pop) fell about five and a half months earlier than Spanish New Year (1 January), Therefore, from the Mays point of view, the first day of 1550 fell in a Maya year beginning on | Pop, or 16 July, inthe pre- Christian year. 1549. Any date between 1 Jan- uuary and 16 July in that year was assigned to the Maya year beginning in 1549. For this reason, there is some: times a one-year offset in correlational statements in- volving the two calendars (V. Bricker 1988) The two year calendars differed in terms of their relationship to the tropical year of 365.2422 days The Spaniards adjusted their year calendar once ev ery four years, adding an extra day to compensate for the recession through the tropical year. Although the prevolumbian Maya were also aware that their year \was slightly shorter than the tropical year. they made no effort to correct it; instead, they simply recorded the diserepancy between the New Year or the Half ‘Year and the solstices or equinoxes from time to time (eg. Figure 15) During the sixteenth century. before the Gregorian calendar reform, Maya New Year in July was closing in on the summer solstice in June, and the Half Year in January was approaching the winter solstice in De ember, There was a similar diserepaney between Spanish New Year on | January and the winter sol stice on 11 December and between the midpoint of the Christian year on Sly solstice ‘on II June, which was exacerbated by the Fuet that the Julian calendar was not perfectly synchronized with the tropical year, so that the diserepaney was ten days essary. This relationship between the tivo year calendars and the solstices was of sufficient ithe surn AN ENCOUNTER OF TWO WORLDS: Tih BOOK OF CHILAM BaLaM OF KAUA interest to the colonial Mays to merit a correlational statement on page 15 of the Book of Chilam Balan of Chumayet: Ui hab de mil quinientos quareata uno, ISH oul 915 Dik:9 2n hele In the yeur 1541, The ISIfst day of the) fo Was like December 9 of the four changes. In the Maya calendar, the 18st day represented the ‘midpoint of the year (ignoring the five “narncless days of Unyeb atthe end of the hab), The midpoint ofthe May iginning on 18 July in 1541 would have fallen on 18 January in 1542. The 18 1st day of the “foreign” year was | July in 1541, about six and a half months before the same position in the Maya year. There were also 181 clays beween the summer solstice on 11 June and 9 December. We follow Ed ‘monson (1976:714) in interpreting the "S” in a Sas a rebus for ho “Mérida” (the word for "S” is hooh in Maya} and the "2" in 2n hele as a rebus for ca, the Mayan word for ‘iwo." ca plus. yields can, the May- aan ward for “four.” We believe, however, that the ex pression ca fle refers to the four stations of the year (ie. the solstices and equinoxes), not the four yearbearers of the Maya haab, which were called u cuch aabob. The winter solstice represent cd the fourth change of seasons in the year 1541; it fell on 11 December. two days after the date men: tioned in this passage. This passage implies thatthe relationship between the midpoint of the Christian year (aio) on 1 July and the summer solstice on 11 June was analogous tothe relationship between the midpoint of the Maya year (hab) on 18 January and the winter solstice on9 (a tually 11) December. Its interesting that these rela tionships are expressed in terms of the middle, not the beginning, of the Maya and Christian years. It would have been just as easy to relate Maya New ‘Year lo the summer solstice sind Christian New Year to the winter solstice. But the precolumbian Maya books focus on the relationship between the Half ‘Year and one of the solslices, and that perspective seems fo have influenced the choice of vas explaining the relationship between the Spanish «ito and the wopical year Another point of similarity between the Mays and the Spanish ealendars is that they: both divided the year b ‘year into months, although the number of months and the number of days in each month were quite different in the wo calendars: twelve months of varying length inthe Christian year versus eighteen months of twen: ty days each plus a Five-day intrealary period inthe Maya year. In both calendars, the position of day in the ninth was givea by & numerical coetTicient: for example, | Uo, 2 Uo, 3 Uo,... 20 Uo (Maya) and 1 March, ? Marc, 3 March,... 31 March (Spanish. The Christian year was further divided into fity wo weeks, each containing seven nanned days, with tone day left over in common years and two days in leap years, There was no eyele exaetly like the week in the Maya calendar, nor was there anything exaetly Like the 260-day s2olkin inthe Spanish calendar. The colonial Maya experimented wit three ways ofrlat- ing the Spanish week to their own calendar. One was to equate it with the twenty named days of the inal, which was one of the eycles of the zzhin. Another was to divide the inal into four sets of five days, ih Sct beginning with one of the four yearbearer clays: Kan, Mulue, fx, and Caune, And the third was to add one day t0 the twenty-day inal so that it ‘would be evenly divisible by seven (21 +7 The prablem withthe first solution was that it gave the “week” the same number of days as the month, whereas the Spanish month contained at least four weeks. The second solution did not have this prob lem because it gave each of the first eighteen months of the year exacily four weeks, but it ereated another problem: the days in each week had different names, Whereas all the weeks inthe Christian year had days with the same seven names. The third solution bad the advantage of giving each of the first eighteen months of the Maya year three weeks of exactly the same length as the Spanish week. We think it may have been inspired by the Spanish custom of refr- 98 ring 10 week as eight days” (ocho dias, instead of 3s “fifteen days", of fouricen days. According 0.3 this method of reckoning, she Maya uizal could then be construed as contain ns" (21 signa). rather than the more accurate twenty (they Finesse ‘he problem by referring tothe extra day ast “Tetut to the frst sign) (See page 12 ofthe Kawa). Evidene ofall three solutions is found inthe Kaw, suggesting thatthe colonial Maya were never able to find sit tle satsiactory equivalent to the European 52° A seven days, and to a fortni (quince dias), ins day week in their own calendares “ihe pert As Poricrwna ehonl robr ne Spania af determine on which day of te {oma fine ear cul begin, Becaecach Fe vitae inne cr ory ane and Fee st lie days wih whch the nthbe 4%, ganhad the same name as the day that began the year. Roe ee Me ent of the days on which they began, but this could BP seni caleustedby addingsevento (orsubaacting ear iecelegeucaabia iene ternal kala be dy bere ofthe month Caiplew te Mayaby interpreting incrset hc tradioalyurbearrs (uc heabo) “he May respon sir way tthe Span era ety pers Signe bene day inthe wnt Kan. Ms and Case pas ofthe Rane) The Maya and the Cian extents both ha tap alr eytes base! onthe yr tat he th ner prints were very dient Ths Chitin ee there were twenty named | pacotibe Cision cemry was the elo ound | 2ffiyne years, wich eons | thine year To esendr rounds presented | Vetuseyeks whch equated 10 years wih spt | Venus evans, Larger epte depended oni {fathead ‘The tty and its higher-order units, the kat, the Saktun, and the pictun, were not easily related to the ! larger eycles of the Christian calendar, because they Fepresented vigesinnal, no skecinnal, periods, Thus, al ‘though theoretically the at could be equated withthe IxTRODUCTION, 3 year. the Karun with the decade, the bake with the ‘century, and the pievun with the millennium, this was rarely done because the Maya periods were so much, larger than the Chistian ones (the kuru was about toviee the length othe decade, the bukiw almost four times as long as the century. and the pictwn nearly ccight Limes longer than the millennium). Another way of reconciling the two systems would have been to equate five Aarwns with one Christian century and four centuries with one Baku, but this expedient was also never adopted, probably because the ealendrical eyele ‘of most interest fo the Yucatecan Maya atthe time of the conquest was the one composed of thirteen Karun. or approximately 256 years. which corresponded to none of the periouls of the Christian calendar. It was not until the second half of the eighteenth century that the Maya decided to do something about syitehronizing any part of the long count with the Christian calendar. The calendar relorm consisted of three steps: (1) the basic unit of the kat would be: come the haub of 365 days. replacing the run of 360 days; 2) the length of the karwr would be increased from twenty wns to twenty-four years (haahs). and 3) the Karun would be named after the day on which it began, instead of the day on whieh it ended. The year 1776 was chosen for making the changes for three reasons: (1) a karur was scheduled to end dur ing that year, and the end of the newly defined next atun would therefore coincide with the end of the century (1776 + 24 = 1800); (2) in that year, the be ginning of a haub would precede the last day of a ka faut by only one day, thus facilitating the shift from four-year (haab) ka tus; and (3) the first kattar with (venty-Four years woud have the same name as the last Aarun of twenty tunis. The reform took place on | June 1776 (Grego: rian), which corresponded to 12.8.0.0.0 2 Ahau 2 Pop in the colonial Maya calendar. This day repre: sented both the end of a Katurigy 2 Akaw and the be- ginning of a Katunyg 2 Ahu tH. Miram 1994). In fther words, the shift from ial eounting and fiom nwenty-ton Karns 40 twenty Ioventy-su aris 10 ten erminal counting f0 ini- four-year kutuns was effeeted without the need for an imtercalary period of even one day! From then on, the ‘kato began on the second day of the huab and ended fon the first day of the Ath. Another effet af the calendar weform of 1776 way tw inerease the length of the tnsteen-katiay eycle Thom approximately 286 faahs to exactly 312 habs