APPENDIX H

In the above table it is the end of the katun that is dated, as the katun is named for the day on which it ends. The Christian dates are taken from a similar table compiled by Dr. Morley ¹ and are in accordance with the well-known Morley-Spinden correlation of Maya and Christian chronology. According to the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation each of the Christian dates given above should be three years later.

Although there is only a variation of about three years between the two correlations so far as the katun count of the Books of Chilam Balam is concerned, they differ by about 259 years in their interpretations of the Initial Series dates of the monuments in terms of European chronology. According to the former correlation, the end of the last Katun 13 Ahau before the Spanish Conquest fell on 12. 9. 0. 0. 0. 13 Ahau 8 Kankin, in the year 1536. ² The latter correlation, however, places the end of the same Katun 13 Ahau on 11. 16. 0. 0. 0. 13 Ahau 8 Xul, in the year 1539. ³

The only two possible references to the Long Count known to the writer are those which we have seen on pages 79 and 83 of the present work, and these unfortunately are somewhat vague. In the former it is stated that the mounds in Yucatan were constructed during a period of "three score and fifteen katuns." Evidently referring to the Maya, the latter passage tells us: "Four four-hundreds of years and fifteen score years was the end of their lives." In the Books of Chilam Balam we find occasional references to the haab, or 365 day year, when the tun of 360 days is plainly meant. Consequently in terms of the Long Count we have on page 79 a mention of a period which would be recorded on the monuments as 3. 15. 0. 0. 0.; and on page 83 the period referred to would be 4. 15. 0. 0. 0. These two statements are indefinite in several important respects. No date in the Long Count is given as a starting point. No current Maya day, month, year or katun is given as the end of either of these periods. Although the implication is that Maya civilization came to an end at the close of these periods, native writers differ somewhat

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as to just when the end came. Some of them considered that it ended early in Katun 13 Ahau, as predicted by the prophet Chilam Balam, while many others very logically put the end either at the close of Katun 13 Ahau or at the foundation of Merida in 1542. If we make the assumption that these three score katuns and "four four-hundreds of years" refer to the even baktuns of the Long Count and then add fifteen katuns, it is of interest to note that the date 11. 15. 0. 0. 0. falls on a day 2 Ahau, which is also the name of the last day of the katun immediately preceding the Spanish invasion of Yucatan.

According to the 1539 correlation Katun 2 Ahau, the last katun prior to the Spanish invasion, ended in 1519, and its position in the Long Count was 11. 15. 0. 0. 0.   2 Ahau 8 Zac. Subtracting 3. 15. 0. 0. 0. from this we reach the date 8. 0. 0. 0. 0., or very near the time when the Maya must have begun to record their chronology on imperishable media. The oldest contemporaneous date is 8. 6. 4. 2. 17. which is recorded on the Tuxtla Statuette. If we subtract from 11. 15. 0. 0. 0. the other period mentioned in the Chumayel, 4. 15. 0. 0. 0., the count will be carried back to 7. 0. 0. 0. 0. which is believed to be the general period when Maya Chronology was first developed. ¹ In other words, either of the totals given in the Chumayel Manuscript, counted backward from 11. 15. 0. 0. 0., will reach an Initial Series value which we now believe is about the time that Maya chronology, in the first case, was actually inaugurated and, in the other case, was first committed to stone. No such interesting conditions will arise, however, if the 12. 9. 0. 0. 0. correlation is used. To this extent the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel tends to support the former correlation against the latter. We also have here an indication that the Maya calendar continued unbroken, except for the shift of a single day in the Year Bearer, from the time of the inscriptions down to that of the Spanish occupation of Yucatan. ²

Footnotes

204:1 Events not mentioned in the Chumayel are enclosed in parentheses.

205:1 Morley 1920, p. 503.

205:2 Spinden.

205:3 Martinez H. 1926, p. 11. Goodman fixes the date on October 30, 1539; Thompson (1927, p. 21) places it on November 13, 1539. For other correlations see Morley 1920, pp. 524-535.

206:1 Spinden 1924, p. 156.

206:2 In this summary the writer has quoted freely from a letter of Dr. S. G. Morley, who was kind enough to point out the significance of the results to be obtained by such a subtraction as suggested above.