Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/165

142 for, if we do not understand them, I affirm that the Indians can betray us face to face.

Cogolludo (lib. iv, cap. 5) gives the following description of the calendar and the method of reckoning time. "In the time of their heathendom the Indians of Yucatan had books made of the bark of trees; over this was a white cement which was perpetual, and these books were from ten to twelve varas long, being doubled over and folded.... On these the Indians painted the accounts of their years, wars, inundations, famines, hurricanes, and other events. From one of them, which Dr. Aguilar took away from some Idolaters, it was learned that in ancient times there was a plague called Mayacimil and also another called Ocna Kuchil, which is to say Sudden Deaths, and Times-in-which-ravens-entered-the-houses-to-eat-the-corpses. Inundation and hurricane they called Hunyecil, Overflowing-of-trees....

"They counted the year as having 365 days, divided into months of twenty days each, corresponding to ours in this order:

By this count the year was divided into eighteen months, but their year began on the seventeenth of our July. The five days which were lacking to complete the 365 were called Nameless Days. They held them to be melancholy, and they said that on them happened disastrous deaths and unforeseen events, such as stings and bites from poisonous snakes and wild or venomous animals as well as quarrels and dissensions; and they especially feared the first of these days. During this period they tried not to go out of their houses, and so they always provided themselves with what was necessary beforehand so as not to have to go to the fields or elsewhere. At this time they attended especially to their Heathen Rites, begging their Idols to keep them free from harm in those dangerous days and to grant that the following year might be fertile and abundant. And these days so greatly feared were the 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 (sic) of our July. All the days of the month had each its name, which I leave untold for fear of prolixity.

"By means of this count they know the time in which to clear the woodlands and to burn the underbrush, to expect rains, to sow the Maize and other vegetables, for all which actions they have their Proverbs. The first Religious (says Aguilar), holy men, and true Keepers of the Vineyard of Jesus Christ, tried to abolish this count, holding it to be superstitious, but they did not progress far because most [of the Indians] know it. This matter was laid before a great and Apostolic Man named Padre Solana, and before another scarcely less great called Fray Gaspar de Naxara, who were great Ministers and Preachers and who felt that it was not prejudicial to the Christianizing of the Indians; but Padre Fuensalida says in his Relation, treating of the ancient