Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/260

194 Deducting this from 1518, the time when the Spaniards appeared on the coast, it carries us back to the year 870. If carried back only to the first year of the 11th of the first series, it gives the year 918, which differs but 17 years from the date (935) given above from Herrera's statement, a difference less than one Ahau. I am inclined, therefore, to believe the first line of the 8th paragraph properly belongs to the 7th, and that it was the intention of the writer to say that "with the governors of Chichen-Itza and Mayapan these Katunes, 11th, 9th to the 6th." In the 8th Ahau trouble arose between the parties to the compact, but the war did not end until in the 6th. It is probable, therefore, that the chronicler's data mentioned the 1 1th Ahau as the beginning of the compact, and that this was near the time when Mayapan was built.

According to Herrera, Chichen-Itza was already in existence when Cuculkan appeared and founded Mayapan. He further states that "whilst the Cocomes [who were given authority immediately after Cuculkan's departure] lived in this regular manner, there came from the southward, and the foot of the mountains of Lacando, great numbers of people, looked upon for certain to have been of the province of Chiapa, who traveled forty years about the deserts of Yucatan, and at length arrived at the mountains that are almost opposite to the city of Mayapan, where they settled and raised good structures, and the people of Mayapan some years after, liking their way of living, sent to invite them to build houses for their lords in the city. The Tutul-Xiu, so the strangers were called, accepting of their courtesy, came into the city, and their people spread about the country, submitting themselves to the laws and customs of Mayapan, in such peaceable manner that they had no sort of weapons, killing their game with gins and traps." (Loc. cit.)

This agrees precisely with the order of events in the Manuscript, except that nothing is mentioned corresponding with the 40 years of the 6th paragraph

In the prophecy by Nahau Pech, preserved in Lizana's work and copied by Brasseur into the chrestomathy of his Maya grammar, these passages occur:

"We have come now to the fourth period," or perhaps more correctly,