this line we observe is in the tenth column (12 at top); counting hack thirteen months (always including the one from which we start), we find that the first month of the year is the column having 6 at the top. The backward counting is exactly the reverse of the forward method heretofore explained; count to the left until the first column is reached, then go back to the thirteenth.
We thus ascertain that 13 Ahau of the 13th month falls on the second day of the month in the year 6 Cauac. Proceeding in the same way with the Ahau in the Kan, Muluc, and Ix columns, we obtain the seventeenth day of the month in the year 4 Kan, twelfth in 9 Muluc, and seventh in 1 Ix. We thus ascertain that the years are 6 Cauac, 4 Kan, 9 Muluc, and 1 Ix.
If we examine Table III, showing the years of the cycle, we shall find as a matter of course that these years occur but once in the entire period.
In order apparently to further complicate this calendar, which was undoubtedly devised by the priests, as Landa says, "to deceive that simple people," another period called the Ahau or Katun was introduced. This period, according to most authorities, consisted of twenty years, but according to Perez of twenty-four. It is in reference to this period that we find the chief difference between authorities, because upon the proper determination of its length, and the numbering, depends the possibility of identifying dates of the Maya calendar with corresponding ones of the Christian era. In order to settle these points it is necessary not only to determine the length of the Ahau or Katun, but also the number of Katunes contained in the great cycle, the method in which they were numbered, and the proper position of these numbers in this long period. Up to the present time these are the rocks on which all the calculations have been wrecked. My chief object, therefore, so far as the calendar is concerned, will be to settle if possible these disputed points; but will defer the discussion of these questions to a subsequent part of this paper, remarking only for the present that, according to all authorities, these Katunes were numbered as follows, and in the order here given: 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2; this number completing the great cycle or Ahau-Katun,[1] which consisted of 260 years if the
- ↑ I use this compound term for the grand cycle only. Katun and Ahau are used separately as equivalents and as applying only to the period of 20 or 24 years; Cycle for the period of 52 years.
