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 298 MAY MAYAS MAY (Lat. Mains), the fifth month in the Gregorian calendar, consisting of 31 days. Among the Romans it was sacred to Apollo, and almost every day was a festival. On the 9th, llth, and 13th days was celebrated the festival of the lernuria in memory of the dead, and consequently it was believed that marriages contracted in this month would result fatally. There is also a French proverb: Noces de Mai, noces de mart. From the ancient Flora- lia, or festival in honor of Flora, celebrated from April 28 to May 2, is perhaps derived the mediaeval and modern custom of observing May 1 (Mayday) with festive and floral rites. The druids also were accustomed to light large fires upon the summits of hills on the eve of May. Polydore Vergil says it was usual to adorn not only houses and gates, but also churches, with boughs and flowers. Hall men- tions in his "Chronicle" that Henry VIII. rode a-Maying with Queen Catharine and many lords and ladies from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's hill. MAY, Caroline, an American authoress, born in England. She is the daughter of the Rev. Edward Harrison May, for many years pastor of one of the Dutch Reformed churches of New York. She has edited " American Fe- male Poets " (1848), with numerous biograph- ical and critical notes ; " Treasured Thoughts from Favorite Authors" (12mo, 1851); "The Woodbine" (1852), an annual; and has pub- lished "Poems" (1864), and "Hymns on the Collects " (1872). Miss May is also a painter and musician. She resides at Pelham, West- chester co., N". Y., on the grounds of Miss Bolton's " Priory." Her brother, EDWARD H. MAY, is a painter of some celebrity in Paris. MAY, Samuel Joseph, an American clergyman, born in Boston, Sept. 12, 1797, died in Syracuse, N. Y., July 1, 1871. He graduated at Harvard college in 1817, studied divinity at Cambridge, and in 1822 settled as a Unitarian minister at Brooklyn, Conn. He was a member of the convention which organized the national anti- slavery society in 1833, and signed the "Decla- ration of Sentiments." In 1835 he became general agent of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society, in which capacity he travelled and lec- tured extensively. In 1836 he became pastor of the Unitarian society in South Scituate, Mass., and from 1842 to 1844 was principal of the girls' normal school at Lexington, Mass. In 1845 he accepted the pastorate of the Uni- tarian society in Syracuse, N. Y., which he retained until three years before his death. He was always active in the cause of popular education, as well as in the promotion of char- ity. For his advocacy of emancipation his life was frequently in danger, and in January, 1861, he was mobbed and burned in effigy in Syra- cuse for attempting to hold an abolition con- vention. He published " Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict" (Boston, 1868), and sev- eral addresses and essays. See "Memoir of Samuel Joseph May " (Boston, 1873). MAY, Sir Thomas Erskinc, an English author, born in 1815. In 1831 he was appointed as- sistant librarian of the house of commons, and was gradually promoted until in 1871 he be- came clerk of the house. He was knighted in 1866. In 1844 he published a "Treatise on the Laws, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament," which is the acknowledged parliamentary text book, and has been often reprinted and translated into foreign languages. He has also published several other works on the practice and mode of procedure in the house of commons. In 1854 he collected and reduced to writing, for the first time, the "Rules, Orders, and Forms of Proceeding of the House of Commons," which were adopt- ed and ordered to be printed by the house. In 1861-'3 he published "The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III., 1760-1860" (a continuation of Hallam's work on that subject), which was reprinted in the United States and transla- ted into French and German, and of which a third edition with a supplementary chapter appeared in 1871. He has also published the " History of Democracy in Europe." MAYAS, the race of Indians inhabiting Yuca- tan and some adjoining districts. By some ethnologists they are regarded as a distinct race, though the precise, period of their arrival on the peninsula is unknown ; by others as descended from the Toltecs, according to which theory the first immigration must have taken place between 1052 and 1200 ; and others still imagine them to be the resultant of two races, one from the islands of Hayti, Cuba, &c., and the other from the west (Toltecs ?), under the guidance of Zamna, a priest, who named the different parts of the coast and the interior, and was the first to train the people in the arts of civilization. The last theory appears the most plausible, inasmuch as nearly all writers agree in crediting the Toltecs with the introduction of civilization into the peninsula. As to their rulers, Landa is of opinion that three brothers came from the west to Chichen Itza and ruled there ; that after the death or departure of one, the two others became ty- rannical and were slain ; and that Cuculan (the Mexican Quetzalcoatl) reestablished order, founded Mayapan (a name afterward extended to the whole peninsula), and left the lordship to the house of the Cocomes, about the 10th century. From the south (Chiapas) came large tribes, the Tutuxiu (also Toltecs), who aided the natives to overthrow the Cocom dynasty and massacre the monarch of Mayapan, proba- bly in the first half of the loth century. The kingdom was then divided into upward of 40 petty seigniories, all tributary and submissive to the ~batabe or cacique of Mani. Large num- bers migrated to the adjoining district of Peten, where they are known under the name of Itzaes. Landa, and since him Stephens, Squier, and many others, rank the Mayas among the most civilized of American nations, with an