In the Egyptian Pyramids the sides are of equal lengths, and, with one exception (Saccara), composed of straight lines, which is not the case with any pyramid of the American Continent. The sides are never equal, are frequently composed of curves and straight lines, and in no instance form a sharp apex.
VESTIGIA PHALLICÆ RELIGIONIS PROUT QUIBUSDAM MONUMENTIS AMERICANIS
INDICANTUR.—(Vid. tom. i., pag. 181.)
Haec monumenta ex undecim Phallis constant, omnibus plus minusve fractis, undique dispersis, atque solo semiobrutis, duoram circiter vel trium pedum mensuram habentibus. Non ea nosmetipsi reperimus neque illis hanc Phallicam naturam attribuimus; nobis autem, has regiones ante pererrantibus, hæc eadem monumenta Indi ostenderunt, quodam nomine appellantes lingua ipsorum eandem vim habente, ac supra dedimus. Quibus auditis, hæc Phallicæ religionis, his etiam in terris, vestigia putanda esse tunc primum judicavimus. Monumenta attamen de quibus huc usque locuti sumus, non, ut bene sciunt eruditi, libidinem denotant, sed potius, quod memoria dignissimum, nostra etiam continente vis genitalis cultum, omnibus pæne antiquis Europæ Asiæque nationibus communem, per symbola nota olim viguisse. Quam autem cognationem hic Phalloram cultus his populis cum Americæ aboriginibus indicare videatur, non nostrum est, qui visa tantum vel audita litteris mandamus, his paginis exponere.
ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY OF YUCATAN; OR, A TRUE EXPOSITION OF THE METHOD USED BY THE INDIANS FOR COMPUTING TIME.—Translated from the Manuscript of Dan Juan Pio Perez, Gefe Politico of Peto, Yucatan.
1°. Origin of the Period of 13 Days (triadecateridas).
The inhabitants of this peninsula, which, at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, was called Mayapan, and by its first inhabitants or settlers Chacnouitan, divided time by calculating it almost in the same manner as their ancestors the Tulteques, differing only in the particular arrangement of their great ages (siglos).
The period of 13 days, resulting from their first chronological combinations, afterward became their sacred number, to which, introducing it ingeniously in their reckonings, they made all those divisions subordinate which they devised to adjust their calendar to the solar course; so that the days, years, and ages were counted by periods of thirteen numbers.
It is very probable that the Indians, before they had corrected their computation, used the lunations (neomenias) to regulate the annual course of the sun, counting (señalando) 26 days for each lunation; which is a little more or less than the time during which the moon is seen above the horizon in each of its revolutions; dividing this period into two of 13 days, which served them as weeks, giving to the first the first 13 days during which the new moon is seen till it is full; and to the second, the other thirteen, during which the moon is decreasing until it cannot be seen by the naked eye.