[9] The Venus Period in the Borgian Codex Groups, English translation in Bull. 28 of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology. [↑]
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS RELATING TO THE TONALAMATL
Bulletin 28 of the Bureau of American Ethnology has several papers by Seler and Förstemann on the tonalamatl.
Morley, “An Introduction to the Study of Maya Hieroglyphs” (Bulletin 57 of the Bureau of American Ethnology). (Washington, 1915.)
Bowditch, Maya Numeration, Calendar and Astronomy. (Cambridge, Mass., 1910.)
Payne, History of the New World, vol. ii, pp. 310–332.
The beginner is strongly advised to peruse these works before approaching the subject in the pages of the older Spanish writers, most of whom possessed very hazy notions regarding it. By far the best textbook is that of Morley, who, although dealing with the Maya calendar at much greater length, writes with great clarity upon the Mexican system, which is indeed identical with the Maya tonalamatl in its simpler manifestations. Bowditch’s book is more for advanced students of the Maya hieroglyphical system, the senior wranglers of the subject, so to speak. But in places he dwells upon the Mexican tonalamatl in an illuminating and suggestive manner. The papers of Seler and other German writers on the tonalamatl, although most valuable, by no means possess the admirable clarity and simplicity of Morley’s invaluable essay. A good short article on the calendar is that of Dr. Preuss in Dr. Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii, pp. 124 ff.
A useful essay on the tonalamatl is that of de Jonghe, “Der alt-mexikanische Kalendar,” in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1906; and in the Journal des Américanistes de Paris, New Series, vol. iii (Paris, 1906), pp. 197–228. [[372]]