Stone Lintel from Menché, Chiapas, representing a Maya priest asperging a penitent who is drawing a barbed cord through his tongue. After photograph in the Peabody Museum.
The character of the Bacab is best indicated by Landa's[91] description of the New Year festival celebrated for them; and he calls them "four brothers whom God, when creating the world, had placed at its four corners in order to uphold the heaven ... though some say that these Bacabs were among those who were saved when the earth was destroyed in the Deluge." In all the Yucatec cities there were, Landa states, four entrances toward the four points, each marked by two huge stones opposite one another; and each of the four successive years designated by a different New Year's sign was introduced by rites performed at the stones marking the entrance appropriate to the year. Thus Kan years were devoted to the south. The omen of this year was called Hobnil, and the festival began with the fabrication of a statue of Kan-u-Uayeyab which was placed with the stones of the south, while a second idol, called Bolon-Zacab, was erected at the principal entrance of the chief's house. When the populace had assembled they proceeded, along a path well-swept and adorned with greenery, to the gate of the south, where priests and nobles, burning incense mingled with maize, sacrificed a fowl. This done, they placed the statue upon a litter of yellow wood, "and upon its shoulders an angel—horribly fashioned and painted—as a sign of an abundance of water and of a good year to come." Dancing, they conveyed the litter to the presence of the statue of Bolon-Zacab at the chief's house, where further offerings were made and a banquet was shared by such strangers as might be within the gates. "Others drawing blood and scarifying their ears, anointed a stone which was there, an idol named Kanal-Acantun; and they moulded also a heart of bread-dough and another of gourd-seeds which they presented to the idol Kan-u-Uayeyab. Thus they guarded this statue and the other during the unlucky days, smoking them with incense and with incense mingled with ground maize for they believed that if they neglected these rites, they would be subject to the ills pertaining to this year. When the unlucky days were past, they carried the image of Bolon-Zacab to the temple, and the idol of the other to the eastern gate of the town, that there they might begin the New Year; and leaving it in this place, they returned home, each occupying himself with the duties of the New Year." This was regarded as a year of good augury; and similar rites were performed in connexion with each of the other year-signs. Under Muluc the omen was called Canzienal and was also regarded as good. It was the year of the east, and the gate was marked by an idol named Chac-u-Uayeyab, while the deity presiding at the chief's house was termed Kinich-Ahau, the meaning of which must be "Lord of the Solar Eye" if Brasseur's interpretation be correct. War-dances were a feature of the celebration, doubtless to Sol Invictus; and offerings made in the form of yolks of eggs further suggest solar symbolism; while it was believed that eye-disease or injury would be the lot of anyone who neglected the rites. Ix years were devoted to the north, with an omen called Zac-Ciui and regarded as evil. The god of the quarter was named Zac-u-Uayeyab, and he of the centre Yzamna, to whom were offered turkeys' heads, quails' feet, etc. Cotton was the sole crop in which abundance was to be expected, while ills of all sorts threatened. Darker still were the prognostics of Hozanek, the omen of Cauac years, sacred to the west. An image of Ek-u-Mayeyab was carried to the portals of the west, while Uac-Mitun-Ahau presided in the central place; and on a green and black litter the god of the gate was carried to the centre, having on his shoulders a calabash and a dead man, with an ash-coloured bird of prey above. "This they conveyed in a manner showing devotion mingled with distress, performing dances which they called Xibalba-Okot, which signifies 'dance of the demon.'" Pests of ants and devouring birds were among the plagues expected; and among the rites by which they sought to exorcise these evils was a night of bonfires, through the hot coals of which they raced with bare feet, hoping thus to expiate the threatened ills, all ending in an intoxication "demanded both by custom and by the heat of the fire."
V. THE MAYA CYCLES[92]
It is probable that the Mexican calendar is remotely of Mayan origin, especially as the fundamental features of the calendric system are the same in the two regions; viz., first, the combination of the Tonalamatl of two hundred and sixty days with the year of three hundred and sixty-five days in a "round" or "bundle," of fifty-two such years; and second, the co-ordination of cyclic returns of calendric symbols with the synodic periods of the planets, serving, along with purely numerical counts, to distinguish and characterize the major cycles. It is in this second feature that the Maya calendar is vastly superior to the Mexican; forming, indeed, by far the most impressive achievement of aboriginal America in the way of scientific conception.
The Mayan name for the period known to the Aztec as Xiuhmolpilli, or "Bundle of the Years," is unknown; it is customarily designated as the Calendar Round. In construction it is essentially the same as the Mexican: the day, kin (literally, "sun"), is combined in the twenty-day period, or uinal (probably related to uinic, "man," referring to the foundation of the vigesimal system in the full count of fingers and toes); and thirteen of these periods are united in the Tonalamatl (the Maya name is unknown), which Goodman designates the "Burner Period," believing it to be ceremonially related to incense burning. As the combination of thirteen numerals with the twenty day-signs causes the completion of their possible combinations in this period, the series, as with the Mexicans, begins anew at the end of the Tonalamatl; and is so continued, repeating indefinitely. The names of the Maya days, corresponding to the twenty signs, are: Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Eznab, Cauac, and Ahau. Each of these day-signs (and probably each of the thirteen numbers accompanying them) had its divinatory significance; and it is quite certain, from Landa's references alone, that divination formed a prominent use of calendric codices.
The year, or haab, of the Maya, again like the Mexican, consisted of eighteen uinals—Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, and Cumhu,—plus five "nameless days," or Uayeb. This year of three hundred and sixty-five days is, of course, a quarter of a day less than the true year, and such astronomers as the Maya must have been could not have failed to discover this fact. Bishop Landa states explicitly that they were quite aware of it; but they did not, in all probability, resort to any intercalation to correct the defect, for the whole genius of the Mayan calendar consists in their unswerving maintenance of the count of days. On the other hand, it is probable that the priests who made the solar observations adjusted the seasonal feasts to the changing dates as in the precisely similar custom of ancient Egypt, where each ascending Pharaoh swore to preserve the civil year of three hundred and sixty-five days without intercalation: the immense power and prestige given to the priesthood by this custom is a sufficient reason for its perpetuity. The fact that 20 (uinal) and 365 (haab) factor with 5 gives, again, the division of the uinal days into groups of five, each headed by one of the four—Ik, Manik, Eb, and Caban—which alone could be New Year's days.
The names of the "month," or divisions of the year, like the names of the uinal days, were symbolized by hieroglyphs, and the days of the month were numbered 0 to 19, since in their reckoning of time the Maya always counted that which had elapsed. Thus every day had a double designation: its position in the Tonalamatl, determined by day-sign and day-number (1 ... 13), and its position in the haab, determined by "month"-sign (uinal or Uayeb) and day-number (0 ... 19), as, for example, the date-name of the Maya Era, "4 Ahau 8 Cumhu." The possible combinations of these elements is exhausted only in a cycle of 18,980 days, equal to 73 Tonalamatls and to 52 haabs. This is the Calendar Round, or cycle of date-names, which, like the other elements in the Maya calendar, is endlessly repeated. It is probable that the Aztec had no such precision in their dating system even within the Year-Bundle, evidence for the employment of month-signs in computation of the day-series being uncertain.
In yet another important respect the Maya were far in advance of the Mexicans, for the latter had no adequate means of distinguishing dates of the same name belonging to separate Year-Bundles, in consequence of which their historic records are full of confusion; whereas the Maya developed an elaborate method—still, curiously enough, a day-count—parallel with the Calendar Round series, by which they were able to record historic dates for immense periods. The system was essentially mathematical and was based on their vigesimal notation, its elements being as follows:
| Kin | 1 day |
| Uinal | 20 days |
| Tun (18 Uinals) | 360 days |
| Katun (20 Tuns) | 7,200 days |
| Cycle (20 Katuns) | 144,000 days |
| Great Cycle, either 13 Cycles | 1,872,000 days |
| or 20 Cycles | 2,880,000 days |
In this series, it will be observed, the third day-group does not rise from the second by vigesimal multiplication; and it is assumed that it has been, as it were, psychologically deflected from the regular ascending series by the attraction of the 18 uinals of the natural year in order to bring the tun into some kind of conformity with the haab. Beyond the katun, the native names for the cycles are unknown, though their symbols have been determined.