Part 9
As long as such hopes fail of realization, we must be satisfied with the slight, but yet important, contribution offered us in the manuscript. We may complain of its brevity, yet notwithstanding it is the most complete document we possess of ancient American history. It is all the more important for the reason that it relates to Yucatan, which in our opinion, is the _very cradle_ of early American civilization. It is also pleasant to observe that the manuscript is not at variance with what we have learned from the fragmentary records made by Landa, Lizana and Cogolludo. Notwithstanding its imperfections, it interprets and explains much that had hitherto appeared uncertain and deficient. It is of undoubted authenticity, and forms a firm foundation for the reconstruction of the history of the past, which till now has remained enigmatical, and which is faintly expressed by the crumbling ruins of the peninsula.
The manuscript, finally, affords a guarantee that the long past not only reached back to the remotest epoch of our era, but that more than all, it stands in a near, perhaps in the most intimate, connection with the history of the Nahuatl race. In reference to the homogeneous structure of the Maya and Nahuatl calendars we have already expressed our belief that these two nations were closely related to each other. In the traditions of both occurs the name of Tula or Tulapan, as a fatherland common to each of them.[47] This supposition appears to us still further justified by the circumstance that the chronological annals of both nations revert to the same period of time as a starting point. As regards the Nahuatls, we refer to the circle of signs engraved on the Calendar Stone which gave us the information that the annalists of Anahuac in the year 1479, counted back twelve hundred and forty-eight years to the celebration of their first festival in honor of the sun; that is, they carried back their political or religious record to the year 231 A. D. The Maya manuscript corresponds to this date, as we think, since the year 242 A. D. resulted from our calculation. It was the year in which the ancient conquerors, after wandering 80 years, arrived on the Island of Chacnouitan where they made a permanent settlement. This event happened in the 13th Ahau (see table), which, as we know, is the starting point of Maya chronology, and likewise the first date of that name which the manuscript mentions. The difference of 11 years which appears in the Nahuatl computation cannot be regarded as of much importance.
THE MAYA AHAUES OF THE MSS., BROUGHT INTO CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE YEARS OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA:—
════════════════════╤════════════════ Ahaues Before Christ│ ────────────────────┼──────────────── 10 118│ 8 98│ 6 78│ 4 58│ 2 38│ 13 18│ ────────────────────┴────────────────
Ahaues Christian Era│ ────────────────────┼──────────────── 11 2│ 9 22│ 7 42│ 5 62│ 3 82│ 1 102│ 12 122│ 10 142│ 8 162│ 6 182│ 4 202│ 2 222│ 13 242│
11 262│I. Ahau Katun. 9 282│ 7 302│ 5 322│ 3 342│ 1 362│ 12 382│ 10 402│ 8 422│ 6 442│ 4 462│ 2 482│ 13 502│
11 522│II. Ahau Katun. 9 542│ 7 562│ 5 582│ 3 602│ 1 622│ 12 642│ 10 662│ 8 682│ 6 702│ 4 722│ 2 742│ 13 762│
11 782│III. Ahau Katun. 9 802│ 7 822│ 5 842│ 3 862│ 1 882│ 12 902│ 10 922│ 8 942│ 6 962│ 4 982│ 2 1002│ 13 1022│
11 1042│IV. Ahau Katun. 9 1062│ 7 1082│ 5 1102│ 3 1122│ 1 1142│ 12 1162│ 10 1182│ 8 1202│ 6 1222│ 4 1242│ 2 1262│ 13 1282│
11 1302│V. Ahau Katun. 9 1322│ 7 1342│ 5 1362│ 3 1382│ 1 1402│ 12 1422│ 10 1442│ 3 1462│ 6 1482│ 4 1502│ 2 1522│ 13 1542│ ════════════════════╧════════════════
If, however, it should seem desirable to examine chronological parallels we shall refer our readers to a second chapter on Central American chronology which is hereafter to appear, in which we propose to undertake the task of illustrating and explaining still further the parallelism of Maya and Nahuatl dates. It will then be proved that in this written and still existing Nahuatl chronology, supported by the date 231 A. D., found on the Calendar Stone, a still earlier date designated as _X Calli_ can be found, which represents the year 137 A. D. In this year, according to the annals, a great eclipse of the sun took place, with the remarkable statement that it occurred exactly at the end of a year at 12 o’clock noon. In our manuscript we find the first date preceding the settlement of Chacnouitan designated with the 8th Ahau, the date of the setting out from Tulapan, which we have already stated to be the years 142–162 A. D. Another agreement is that the Nahuatl records show that 166 years before the occurrence of the above mentioned eclipse of the sun in the year 1 _Tecpatl_, a congress of astrologers to amend the calendar of the nation took place at a town called Huehuetlapallan, and by reckoning back we find that this year corresponds with the year 29 B. C. If we then follow a hint which Señor Perez has very ingeniously furnished that the manuscript strangely begins with an 8th Ahau instead of a 13th Ahau, and that the Maya chronology could be dated back to such a 13th Ahau as a proper beginning connected with some interesting event, we find by reckoning back from the 8th to the 13th Ahau the corresponding date to be the years 18–38 B. C.
Now, the results gained in this line of investigation, can be formulated as follows:—
1. That the conquerors and settlers of the Yucatan peninsula, as well as those of the Anahuac lakes, were joint participants in a correction of their national calendar about the year 29 B. C.
2. That about the year 137 A. D., when a total eclipse of the sun took place, the ancestors of both nations set out from their common fatherland, Tula or Tulapan.
3. That about the year 231 A. D., both nations made their appearance on the coast of Central America, and succeeded in conquering a large portion of the peninsula.
It is true that we have only documentary evidence to substantiate the theory just referred to. But, if we do not possess the desirable evidence of monumental inscriptions, it behooves us to examine and to weigh carefully that which still remains. In this connection we should also remember that the sculptor, in carving his records, was not guided by his memory alone, but that he copied the symbols from the sacred books of his race; and that on the other hand, our learned Maya writer, when translating these latter into written phonetic language, drew his text, as did the sculptor from similar sources.
If therefore with the help of written records we can build up hypotheses partially satisfactory, and not altogether improbable, we have accomplished all that could be expected for the present, at least, and have perhaps excited an interest in a branch of history which has hitherto been held as dead and unproductive.
In conclusion, we would express the hope that the Maya manuscript may be submitted to a rigid critical and linguistic examination, and that the publication of the work may be appended to a heliotype copy of the original in order to exhibit to students a document of so great importance, and to ensure its preservation.
Footnote 26:
S. Salisbury, Jr., Esq.
Footnote 27:
Col. John D. Washburn.
Footnote 28:
The Hon. Isaac Davis.
Footnote 29:
The Palenque Tablet, in the U. S. National Museum. By Charles Rau, 1879.
Footnote 30:
The North Americans of Antiquity, their origin, migrations, and type of civilization considered. By John T. Short, 1880.
Footnote 31:
Historia de Yucatan. By Eligio Ancona, Mérida, 1879, Vol. I., page 95, note 1.
Footnote 32:
Historia de Yucatan, Eligio Ancona, Mérida, 1879, Vol. II., page 78.
Footnote 33:
Historia de Yucatan, Eligio Ancona, Mérida, 1879, Vol. I., page 156. “Landa in Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, § viii., also speaks of the tranquillity and good harmony which reigned among the chiefs of those cities, and we notice that concerning the epochs referred to, his report is in accordance, in many details, with that of the anonymous author of the ‘Maya Epochs.’”
Footnote 34:
_Diego Lopez de Cogolludo_, Historia de Yuacathan. Madrid, 1683, Lib. IV., Cap. 5. “The count they kept in their books was by 20 to 20 years, and also by _lustros_ of 4 to 4 years. When five of these lustros had passed, or twenty years elapsed, they called this time _Katun_, and set one hewn stone (_piedra labrada_) upon another, well cemented by lime and sand. This can be noticed in their temples and ecclesiastical buildings, and especially on some ancient walls of our convent in Mérida, upon which the cells have been built.”
The expression Katun, mentioned in this passage, and to which we have assigned a place in our title, requires a few words of explanation. As far as we know, it occurs only three times in our Central American authors; in Cogolludo, Landa, and in our manuscript. The first gives Katun the meaning of a period of twenty years. The second (§ XLI.), uses the following phraseology: “Contando XIII. veyntes con una de las XX. letras de los meses que llaman Ahau, sin orden, sino retruecandolos como pareceran en las siguiente raya redonda, llaman les a estos en su lengua Katunes.” This phraseology is somewhat obscure, nevertheless it will be admitted that his intention was to state that each of the images of the thirteen Ahaues, depicted on the surface of the wheel, represented twenty years, this being a period which they also called Katunes. We arrive at this definite conclusion by the consideration that if Landa says that the period of twenty years was called _Ahau_, and another one, that of 260 years, _Katun_, he would have stated the latter fact in expressive words; the occasion for doing so being too urgent to let it pass. The third author uses the word _Katun_ in his introductory lines, without giving it any numerical value. But it will be noticed that in the text which follows, the expression _Katun_ is used interchangeably with that of Ahau for a period of 20 years. This concordance of the three authors allows us to conclude that whenever the word _Katun_ is employed, the short period of 20 years was meant. In this connection a question arises: How is it that no author has made mention of the long period of 260 years, with which we become acquainted in Señor Perez’s chronological essay. It is probable he found it mentioned in some Maya manuscripts in which this long period appeared under the name of _Ahau Katun_. Though this fact of itself may be considered of no importance, still, as it would bring to light another of the many numerical combinations (13×20=260) in which those people indulged, with the fundamental figures of their calendar system, we must feel a great interest in the asserted fact, hoping it will turn out to be a correct statement. Our researches have been directed for a long time towards the discovery of the symbols which the Maya annalists or sculptors would have employed for their chronological periods. It was in connection with these studies that we discovered the Nahuatl symbols for the same, of which we gave account in our discussion on the Calendar Stone. Yet while this discovery only corroborates the suspicion long entertained that a certain set of Maya symbols represented the lustra of 5, and another the period of 20 years, we have not yet been able to recognize a Maya symbol for the period of 260 years.
The word Katun is a compound of _Kat_, to ask, to consult, and _tun_, stone; hence the stone, which when asked, gives account. Thus it was also understood by Cogolludo, who, when mentioning the word _Katun_ (see above), was referring to the square stones incrusted into walls, upon which the convent was built. What traditions he followed in this is still better illustrated by the words in continuation of this passage: “In a place called Tixualahtun, which means a spot where one hewn stone is set upon another one, the Archives of the Indians are said to have existed, to which they resorted for all questions of historical interest (recurso de todos los acaecimientos), as we should do to Simancas, in Spain.” The stone columns found on the spot named, can be seen pictured in J. L. Stephens’ Incidents of travel in Yucatan, Vol. II., page 318.
Footnote 35:
Señor Orozco y Berra, the learned and laborious author of the “Carta ethnografica de México, México, 1864,” has made this matter a subject of special investigation in “Anales del Museo Nacional de México,” 1879, Tom. I., Entrega 7, page 305.
Footnote 36:
Las cosas de Yucatan. Diego de Landa. Edition B. de Bourbourg. Paris, 1864. Page 315, § XL.
Footnote 37:
A specimen of such an instrument with a surface inscribed as the cut shows would hardly have been preserved. We think that the box enclosed a round disk turning on a pivot; this contrivance, evidently served as an aid to the memory in enumerating the alternating Ahaues. To-day, we should obtain the same result by writing the Ahaues in a horizontal or vertical line, but the Nahuatls and Mayas, having solely a symbolical or pictorial manner of representation, made use of this ingenious arrangement by painting the series of the Ahaues on the circumference of a circle. Thus the idea of an uninterrupted sequence of time and the connection of the 2d Ahau with the 13th were brought to notice.
Footnote 38:
Ahau translated means: sovereign, king, august, principal. See page 3 of Juan Pio Perez’s “Diccionario de la lengua Maya,” published in Mérida in 1877, by the friends and faithful executors of the last will of the defunct scholar. This valuable work comprises the whole of the linguistical stock of the Maya language, the words collected exceeding the number of 20,000, on 437 pages, quarto. It may be purchased from Dr. George E. Shiels, 896 Broadway, New York.
Footnote 39:
Proceedings of Am. Antiq. Society, April 24, 1878, page 16, in an article on the Mexican Calendar Stone, by Ph. J. J. Valentini, in which mention was made of this singular kind of notation from the right to the left hand. A. v. Humboldt, in “Vue des Cordilléres,” page 186, remarks: “Le cercle intérieur offre les vingt signes du jour: en se souvenant que Cipactli est le premier et Xochitl le dernier, on voit qu’gu’ici, _comme partout ailleurs_, les Mexicains ont rangé les hiéroglyphes de droite à gauche.” The great scholar has clothed in the form of a proven statement that which at the beginning of this century was an opinion generally prevalent among Americanists, and which does not bear the test, when the numerous copies existing of the Mexican calendar days are examined. They all show the arrangement of the days from the left to the right. The sculptured calendar is the only exception.
Footnote 40:
Historia de Yucatan; by Eligio Ancona, Mérida, 1879, Vol. I., page 159.
Footnote 41:
Remarks on the Centres of Ancient Civilization in Central America. Address read before the Amer. Geogr. Society, New York, July 10, 1876, by Dr. C. Hermann Berendt.
Footnote 42:
Herrera, Decade IV., Lib. X., Chapt. 2, 3 and 4. These three chapters are a compilation of data concerning the ancient history of Yucatan, and the adventurous career of the Itza race, which appear to be drawn from sources unknown at this day, and which are independent of what we can learn from Landa, from the author of the Maya Manuscript, and from Cogolludo.
Footnote 43:
Traces of such a migration and succeeding halting places can be discovered in the Quiché annals, edited by Brasseur de Bourbourg, with the title of _Popol Vuh_. “Popol Vuh, le livre sacré et les mythes de l’antiquité centro-Américaine,” Paris, 1861, on pages 83, 235, 241, and pages 215, 217, 236, in which names are quoted and regions described which give evidence of a course of migration from northern to southern Mexico.
Footnote 44:
_E. Ancona, Historia de Yucatan, Vol. I., page 34._ Mérida, 1879.—“The word Chacnovitan or Chacnouitan first appeared in the Maya MSS. or series of Maya epochs. Upon examining this document, and observing that the tribe wandered from Tulapan to Chacnouitan and later to Bakhalal and from there to Chichen-Itza, etc., it will be understood that the name in question was given to no other portion of our peninsula than to that which lies at the south. Brasseur de Bourbourg supposes, and we think not without reason, that Chacnouitan lay between Bakhalal and Acallan, s. e. of the Laguna de los Terminos.—See Brasseur de Bourbourg, Archives de la comission scientifica, Tomo. I, page 422, note 2.”
Footnote 45:
Señor Perez in his commentary makes his calculation that 1496 was the year of the death of Chief Ajpulà, and succeeds in giving it a plausible appearance of correctness. But we observe that in order to reach this date he was not aware of having altered the words of the Maya text, and those of his own translation. This translation said correctly: “There were still six years wanting before the completion of the 13th Ahau.” In the text of the commentary, however, we find him starting his count on the supposition that the original text was the sixth year of the 13th Ahau. Though this change is by no means allowable, he succeeds, ingeniously enough, in arriving at the year above quoted, and in stating also the dates of the day and month, precisely as the annalist had set them down.
Footnote 46:
Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yucatan, Mérida, 1879, Vol. I., page 333.
Footnote 47:
With reference to the Mayas, consult the Quiché traditions in Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Popol Vuh, pages 215, 217 and 236, and Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Memorial of Tecpan Atitlan, page 170, note 3. For the Nahuatl race, Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique, Vol. I., Appendix, page 428, in extracts made from the Codex Chimalpopoca.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 53, changed “Ahcuitok” to “Ajcuitok”. 2. P. 81, changed “Ajmekut” to “Ajmekat”. 3. P. 94, changed “Mayapanes” to “Mayalpanes”. 4. Footnote 9, changed “de la grau” to “de la gran”. 5. Footnote 39, changed “interieur” to “intérieur” and “hiéroglyphs” to “hiéroglyphes”. 6. Footnote 43, changed “centro-Americaine” to “centro-Américaine”. 7. Silently corrected typographical errors. 8. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 9. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.