The Mayan Calendar, Solar - Agricultural Year, and Correlation Questions

An Apparent Contradiction: July 16th Julian does not always fall on a recognized Ah Cuch Haab.

Despite the insistence that 1 Poop falls on July 16th Julian, this fact is not always born out by the various texts in the Books of Chilam Balam. A very good example of this is that the various copies of U Xoc Kin given in the Books of Chilam Balam³⁸  all show that July 16 = 1 Poop which falls on 11 Cimi. The fact that all the sources show the same set of dates means of course that they are all derived from the same original source, written in a particular year within the U Bubukil Haaboob. If we make the assumption that the Kan, Muluc, Hiix, and Cauac years were still in fact the year bearers or Ah Cuch Haaboob when this U Xoc Kin was written, since from various footnotes in the Tizimin it is clear that this U Xoc Kin had to be written in or before 1627, then it seems that the Ah Cuch Haab was 9 Kan, which is two days before 11 Cimi, and the year 9 Kan fell in 1589.^{39,  40,  41}

In the Cuceb we can see a similar discrepancy between the idea that the Ah Cuch Haab ideally falls on July 16th, Julian, and the date that it really falls on. As was noted above, in the final lines of the Cuceb⁴²  Ah Kauil Cħel writes that he wrote the Cuceb with Ah Na Puc Tun in the Mayan date of 18 Zac 11 Chuen, which he equates with the Julian date of February 15, 1544. This Mayan date of 18 Zac 11 Chuen happens only in the year 2 Hiix when the year bearer set is Kan, Muluc, Hiix, Cauac. Now the year 2 Hiix fell in the years 1543-1544, but it also fell in the years 1595-1596 which is the year in which the material given in the Códice Pérez, pp. 100-101 was written.⁴³

If we take 1 Poop = July 16 as being an absolute, then as Tozzer points out,⁴⁴  February 15th is in error, and this should read February 18th. However, if Ah Kauil Cħel is in fact correct, then the year 2 Hiix began on July 13th.

In fact, there is the following table from Solís Alcalá, pp 365-366, which gives the day of the Julian calendar on which 1 Poop would fall, depending on the Ah Cuch Haab:

       Terminado el 13 Cauac dejaban pasar, pues no los incluían en sus cuentas, trece días sin nombre que correspondían con los días 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 y 15 de julio. Al día siguiente, 16 de julio, comenzaba otro Katún de 52 años con el 1 Kan.

Note that, whether coincidentally or not, the two problems we have been looking at above, that of why 1 Poop does not fall on a recognized Ah Cuch Haab in U Xoc Kin, and that of why 18 Zac 11 Chuen is equated with the Julian date of February 15, 1544, are resolved of by this table. In the first instance it is clear that, using the above table, the U Xoc Kin should have read July 14 = 9 Kan, 1 Poop, and that all other Mayan month notations in the U Xoc Kin should be advanced two days. In the second instance it is clear that Ah Kauil Cħel is correct in giving 18 Zac 11 Chuen = February 15. If this table is in fact correct, then Landa may be in error by showing 12 Kan = July 16, when in fact he should have shown 12 Kan = July 10. However, Solís Alcalá has an explanation for this discrepancy.^{45  46}

Endnotes

38. Pérez pp. 2-24, Pérez pp. 51-64, Pérez pp. 140-150, Ixil pp. 36v-40v, Tizimin pp. 22r-27v, Kaua pp. 54-71, and Na/Tekax.

39. The previous year 9 Kan was 1537 and the next one was 1641, neither of which are possible for various reasons: 1537 being too early because it was before the final conquest, and 1641 being later than the footnotes given in the Tizimin. See Appendix 5 for further information.

40. There is however an alternative choice, but not a likely one. It has to be asked is how quickly did the people of New Spain adopt the Gregorian calendar. The people of northern Europe were rather slow in adopting it, with the English, for example, waiting until 1751, and of course the Russians until 1917. Did the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Spain in 1582 immediately carry weight in New Spain, or was there some delay of its adoption in Mexico? If New Spain adopted the Gregorian calendar quickly, could it thus be possible that the christian calendar part of the U Xoc Kin given in the Books of Chilam Balam be based on the Gregorian calendar while the notations about the Mayan calendar be hold-overs from a Julian calendar correlation? If that is the case, perhaps the year in question is Uacil Hiix = July 24. Uacil Hiix happened to fall in the years 1547 and 1599.

41. To illustrate the kind of problems we would get ourselves into if we are to take the colonial literature literally all the time, if we were to take the U Xoc Kin at its face value then we would have to accept that at the time it was written the Ah Cuch Haaboob were Cimi, Chuen, Cib, and Imix. Since there is no other indication in the Books of Chilam Balam that the Ah Cuch Haaboob during the colonial period were anything but Kan, Muluc, Hiix, and Cauac, then taking the U Xoc Kin as it is would be difficult to do. For other information about U Xoc Kin see Appendix 4.

42. Lines C566-568.

43. There is a calendar commentary which is to be found in the Códice Pérez (pp. 100-101) and Kaua (pp. 275-276), which reads in part:

    Hase de notar que en acabandose los diez y ocho meses y uinales despues del postrero dia de Cum Ku se han de contar los cinco dias de una Yail Haab por su nombre, y al sexto numero cae el Cuch Haab que entran y succeden como fue este año de 1595,(1) que fue Ah Cuch Haab Ca Hiix.(2) Que el primer dia de Cum Ku del año de 1596 sera Can Hiix que cae el 21 de ju[n]io(3) del d[ic]ho año. Del postrero dia de Poop(4) será Oxil Cauac para del dicho año de 1596 y parte del año de 1597, al cual le succedera Canil Kan, succediendo por su orden los Ah Cuch Haabes sin interpolacion de Buk Xoc como parece, de manera que aunque los d[ic]hos cinco dias se dicen mal dias ó Ixma Kaba no se entiende en acabando al nombrarlos por sus nombres sino en cuanto que no entran por algun Uinal ó mes.

    1)  The Kaua gives 1796, 1797, and 1798 respectively for this and the following years.

    2)  The Kaua gives 2 Kan, 3 Muluc, and 4 Hiix, respectively.

    3)  The ms. read "21 de julio". Kaua reads "12 de Julio".

    4)  The text possibly should read "El primer dia de Poop", or alternatively "Del postrero dia de Yail Haab".

44. See Tozzer, 1978, p. 151, footnote 748.

45. See page 365 of his Códice Pérez.

46. What is obvious, no matter what else one can conclude from the U Xoc Kin and the above discussion, is that we have eight available copies of the U Xoc Kin, and not one of the scribes thought to set the record straight and make changes to it according to when he was making his copy. For example, while it is clear that the dates correlating the Mayan calendar to the Christian calendar are from the Julian correlation, all of the copies we have of the U Xoc Kin are from the Gregorian era. Thus, if the scribes had considered this factor, we should have seen July 26th rather than July 16th being equated to 1 Poop. See Appendix 6.

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