Page:The Katunes of Maya History.djvu/67

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59

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 clironology, and likewise the first date of that name which the manuscript mentions. The difference of 11 years which appears in the Nahnatl computation cannot be regarded as of much importance.

If, however, it should seem desirable to examine chronoloo-ical 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.