Identifier: mexicancentralam28bowd (find matches)
Title: Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history;
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Bowditch, Charles P(ickering), 1842- (from old catalog) ed Seler, Eduard, 1849-1922 Förstemann, Ernst Wilhelm, 1822-1906 Schellhas, Paul, 1859- (from old catalog) Sapper, Karl Theodor, 1866- (from old catalog) Dieseldorff, Erwin P. (from old catalog) Wesselhoeft, Selma, (from old catalog) tr Parker, Alberta M., (from old catalog) tr Jay I. Kislak Reference Collection (Library of Congress) DLC
Subjects: Maya calendar Calendar
Publisher: Washington, Gov't print. off.
Contributing Library: Internet Archive
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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gard to the Maya territoryin my work entitled Uber den Charakter der aztekischen und derMaya-Handschriften ,& and regarding the Zapotec territory in awork on Mexican chronology which appeared in 1891.c The Zapoteccalendar is distinguished from those used by the other nations by cer-tain peculiarities which one is tempted to consider evidences of specialantiquity, but which are, perhaps, only the result of a particulardevelopment and an especial use for augural purposes. a Cyrus Thomas attempted to show relation of the Central American calendar to thatused in Hawaii. This attempt, however, must be pronounced an utter failure. Theancient inhabitants of Hawaii had a kind of actual month of 30 days ; and the onlyagreement with the Mexican calendar could be the fact that 12X30, like 18X20, gives thenumber 360, thus leaving a surplus of 5 days in the year. b Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, v. 20, 1888, p. 1 and following. c Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, v. 23, 1891, p. 89 and following. 266
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selhr) UNITY OF CIVILIZATION 207 Like all other things and every event of the world, the calendar wasgoverned by relations to space by the powers ruling in the four pointsof the compass. This was true of the simple calendar, the so-calledtonalamatl, of 13X20, or 260, days, and of the greater periods oftime, the 4X13, or 52, solar years, which, as I have demonstrated inanother place,* were developed necessarily and logically from thatsimple calendar. These greater periods of time, that is to say, thesingle components of the same, the successive, years each bearing thename of one of four signs, stood in a specially close relation to thepoints of the compass. The reference of the years to the cardinalpoints, therefore, was quite common to both the Mexicans and theMayas. The Zapotecs referred also the simple tonalamatl to the fourpoints of the compass, and therefore divided it into four sections of65 days each. According to the conception of the Zapotecs, each ofthese periods was governed

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