Notes
the free scientific division of a vast portion of time is peculiar to the West. Connected with the West is that primeval extinct world which we call the New."—History of Rome, Vol. i. p. 239.
Page 67 (4).—They were named "companions," and "lords of the night," and were supposed to preside over the night, as the other signs did over the day. —Boturini, Idea, p. 57.
Page 67 (5).—Thus, their astrological year was divided into months of thirteen days; there were thirteen years in their indictions, which contained each three hundred and sixty-five periods of thirteen days, etc. It is a curious fact, that the number of lunar months of thirteen days, contained in a cycle of fifty-two years, with the intercalation, should correspond precisely with the number of years in the great Sothic period of the Egyptians, namely, 1491; a period in which the seasons and festivals came round to the same place in the year again. The coincidence may be accidental. But a people employing periodical series, and astrological calculations, have generally some meaning in the numbers they select and the combinations to which they lead.
Page 67 (6).—According to Gama (Descripcion, Parte i, pp. 75, 76), because 360 can be divided by nine without a fraction; the nine "companions" not being attached to the five complementary days. But 4, a mystic number much used in their arithmetical combinations, would have answered the same purpose equally well. In regard to this, M'Culloch observes, with much shrewdness, "It seems impossible that the Mexicans, so careful in constructing their cycle, should abruptly terminate it with 360 revolutions, whose natural period of termination is 2340." And he supposes the nine "companions" were used in connection with the cycles of 260 days, in order to throw them into the larger ones of 2340; eight of which, with a ninth of 260 days, he ascertains to be equal to the great solar period of 52 years.—(Researches, pp. 207, 208.) This is very plausible. But in fact the combinations of the two first series, forming the cycle of 260 days, were always interrupted at the end of the year, since each new year began with the same hieroglyphic of the days. The third series of the "companions" was intermitted, as above stated, on the five unlucky days which closed the year, in order, if we may believe Boturini, that the first days of the solar year might have annexed to it the first of the nine "companions," which signified "lord of the year" (Idea, p. 57); a result which might have been equally well secured, without any intermission at all, by taking 5, another favourite number, instead of 9, as the divisor. As it was, however, the cycle as far as the third series was concerned, did terminate with 360 revolutions. The subject is a perplexing one; and I can hardly hope to have presented it in such a manner as to make it perfectly clear to the reader.
Page 67 (7).—Hist. de Nueva España, lib. 4, Introd.
"It is a gentle and affectionate thought,
That, in immeasurable heights above us.
At our first birth the wreath of love was woven
With sparkling stars for flowers."
Schiller is more true to poetry than history, when he tells us, in the beautiful passage of which this is part, that the worship of the stars took the place of classic mythology. It existed long before it.
Page 69 (1).—Gama has given us a complete almanac of the astrological year, with the appropriate signs and divisions, showing with what scientific skill it was adapted to its various uses.—Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 25-31; 62-76.) Sahagun has devoted a whole book to explaining the mystic import and value of these signs, with a minuteness that may enable one to cast up a scheme of nativity for himself.—(Hist. de Nueva España, Lib. 4.) It is evident he fully believed the magic wonders which he told. "It was a deceitful art," he says, "pernicious and idolatrous; and was never contrived by human reason." The good father was certainly no philosopher.
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