Page:The Katunes of Maya History.djvu/59

51 the omitted periods of Ahanes, we have only to say that it grew out from the nature of the Maya enumeration itself. The two ends of the interrupted series being given, the number of the intervening Ahaues could be easily supplied.

What now remains is, to discover for the restored and completed series of Ahaues the corresponding chronological expressions in our era. We find the total Ahau periods mentioned in the annals were 60. We have thought it necessary to complete twenty more periods, so that we have seventy periods (20×70), or 1400 years. As soon therefore as we know in which year of our era the last or 13th Ahau mentioned in the manuscript fell, we can, by reckoning backward, find the years date of the first Ahau mentioned, to wit: the 8th Ahau, and also determine the dates and events of each of all the other intervening Ahaues. The manuscript fortunately affords us the necessary material for determining with incontestable certainty the years date of the last 13th Ahau. It is the following: we read in the 12th section that Chief Ajpulà died in a year when there were still six years wanting before the expiration of the 13th Ahau, and that the year of his decease was 1536 A. D.

According to this statement the 13th Ahau ended with the year 1542. Bishop Landa (see §41 of his Relacion de las Cosas d6 Yucatan) confirms the correctness of the above calculation, though he says that the 13th Ahau expired with the year 1641. Landa undoubtedly selects this date of June 10th, 1641, as that of the last decisive victory at T'ho over the Indians, while the author of the manuscript may have had in mind the date when Merida was officially incorporated as the capital, and a dependency of the Spanish crown, which was January 6, 1542. If we subtract the total number of Ahaues already obtained, and amounting to 1400 years, from the year 1542, we obtain for the first epoch