Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/480

 Page 65 (4).—The ancient Etruscans arranged their calendar in cycles of 110 solar years, and reckoned the year at 365 d. 5 h. 40 m.; at least, this seems probable, says Niebuhr. (History of Rome, Eng. trans. [Cambridge, 1828], vol. i. pp. 113, 238.) The early Romans had not wit enough to avail themselves of this accurate measurement, which came within nine minutes of the true time. The Julian reform, which assumed 365 d. 5 h. as the length of the year, erred as much, or rather more, on the other side. And when the Europeans, who adopted this calendar, landed in Mexico, their reckoning was nearly eleven days in advance of the exact time,—or, in other words, of the reckoning of the barbarous Aztecs; a remarkable fact. Gama's researches led to the conclusion that the year of the new cycle began with the Aztecs on the ninth of January ; a date considerably earlier than that usually assigned by the Mexican writers.—(Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 49-52.) By postponing the intercalation to the end of fifty-two years, the annual loss of six hours made every fourth year begin a day earlier. Thus, the cycle commencing on the ninth of January, the fifth year of it began on the eighth, the ninth year on the seventh, and so on; so that the last days of the series of fifty-two years fell on the twenty-sixth of December, when the intercalation of thirteen days rectified the chronology, and carried the commencement of the new year to the ninth of January again. Torquemada, puzzled by the irregularity of the new year's day, asserts that the Mexicans were unacquainted with the annual excess of six hours, and therefore never intercalated!—(Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 36.) The interpreter of the Vatican Codex has fallen into a series of blunders on the same subject, still more ludicrous.—(Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. PI. 16.) So soon bad Aztec science fallen into oblivion, after the Conquest!

Page 65 (5).—These hieroglyphics were a "rabbit," a "reed," a "flint," a "house." They were taken as symbolical of the four elements, air, water, fire, earth, according to Veytia. — (Hist. Antig., tom. i. cap. 5.) It is not easy to see the connection between the terms "rabbit" and "air," which lead the respective series.

Page 67 (1).—The table of two of the four indictions of thirteen years each will make the text more clear. The first column shows the actual year of the great cycle, or "bundle"; the second, the numerical dots used in their arithmetic. The third it composed of their hieroglyphics for rabbit, reed, flint, house, in their regular order. By pursuing the combinations through the two remaining indictions, it will be found that the same number of dots will never coincide with the same hieroglyphic. These tables are generally thrown into the form of wheels, as are those also of their months and days, having a very pretty effect. Several have been published, at different times, from the collections of Siguenza and Boturini. The wheel of the cycle of fifty-two years is encompassed by a serpent, which was also the symbol of "an age," both with the Persians and Egyptians. Father Toribio seems to misapprehend the nature of chronological wheels: "Tenian rodelas y escudos, y en ellas pintadas las figuras y armas de Demonios con su blason." — Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4.

Page 67 (2).—Among the Chinese, Japanese, Moghols, Mantchous, and other families of the Tartar race. Their series are composed of symbols of their five elements, and the twelve zodiacal signs, making a cycle of sixty years' duration. Their several systems are exhibited in connection with the Mexican, in the luminous pages of Humboldt (Vues des Cordillères, p. 149), who draws important consequences from the comparison, to which we shall have occasion to return hereafter

Page 67 (3).—In this calendar, the months of the tropical year were distributed into cycles of thirteen days, which being repeated twenty times, — the number of days in a solar month,-completed the lunar or astrological year of 260 days; when the reckoning began again, “By the contrivance of these trecenas (terms of thirteen days) and the cycle of fifty-two years” says Gama, "they formed a luni-solar period, most exact for astronomical purposes." —(Descripcion, Parte i, p. 27.) He adds, that these trecenas were suggested by the periods in which the moon is visible before and after conjunction. — (Loc. cit.) It seems hardly possible that a people, capable of constructing a calendar so accurately on the true principles of solar time, should so grossly err as to suppose, that in this reckoning they really "represented the daily revolutions of moon" “The whole Eastern world," says the learned Niebuhr, " has followed the moon in its calendar;