Page:The Katunes of Maya History.djvu/40

32 it. The second combination, then, would follow when the presidency of Idol 4 would have finished its term, and in this way the row 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, may have had its origin.

Now, it is true that the order in which these numbers stand is different from that transmitted to us, which begins with 13 and is followed by 11 and 9. The reverse of this method of reckoning may possibly be accounted for in this way: An epoch unknown to us may have occurred when the Maya chroniclers desired to review past events and bring them into order. Counting backwards from such a date they would have called the first period of twenty years not the 13th, nor, according to our above statement, the 1st, but the 2d Ahau. Consequently the period after the expiration of the great cycles of 260 years would have been called the 13th Ahau, though properly speaking it should have been the 2d Ahau. An historical epoch for such reckoning backward is known to have occurred. It occurred again in the year 1542, when the conquest of Yucatan by the Spaniards took place. It appears that the Mayas in that year declared their 13th Ahau period to be at an end, from 1522 to 1542; consequently a back reckoning, according to this system of the Mayas, gave a 2d Ahau for the period of 1502–22, a 4th Ahau for that of 1482–1502, and going on in the same way of reckoning the year 1282 would have represented the expiration of the 13th Ahau.

The circle of Landa exemplifies this manner of counting. He starts from the 13th Ahau, counting from left to right. But if we count in the opposite direction we should obtain the row of numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, &c., as we have shown above. If we refer to the striking discovery on the Mexican Calendar stone that the days upon that circle are not counted