were shared by the
Chinese and Mexicans, one of these being the belief that the earth was
flat and square. The name for a year in ancient Mexican was xiuitl,
literally, grass, and this was represented in the picture writings by a
bunch of young blades of some sort of grass, possibly maize-shoots. "The
earliest written Chinese character for a year represented a stalk of
wheat.... In the ancient work entitled the San Fun, part of which was
probably written in the 23d century B.C., there is evidence that among
some of the aboriginal tribes of China the year, as among the Egyptians
and some of the people of India, was divided into three periods, known as
the grass-springing, tree-reigning and tree-decaying periods. Under the
higher culture of the Chinese these divisions disappeared and the twelve
months became the recognized parts of the year" (Douglas, China, pp. 269
and 310). Amongst the Mexican month-names there are also some which allude
to such regularly recurring and impressive natural phenomena as the
sprouting of trees and the appearance of verdure or springing of the
maize, etc.

An indication as to what was the most ancient and primitive method of
rotation employed seems afforded by the Chinese description how, for
governmental purposes, the five-year period was adopted, one year
pertaining to the emperor or central ruler and the following four to the
quarters of the empire. An analogous employment of a quinary period as a
means of obtaining a rotation of contribution from the four quarters of
the empire to its metropolis, identified with the first day, is
discernible in the Mexican institution of the macuil-tianquiztli, or
five-day market, by which means the entire year was divided into five-day
groups.

A study of the ancient Chinese calendar furnishes, moreover, an indication
of the way in which the numeral 12 came to be recognized and adopted by
primitive people. It is obvious that the early astronomers, having
determined the length of the year by observing Ursa Major at nightfall,
recognized that, during the period required for its annual complete
revolution around the pole star, there regularly appeared twelve new
moons. In China, at a remote period, a division of the year into "months
was adopted, the early names of which have, according to the author of the
earliest Chinese dictionary, the Urhye, been lost." "The modern Chinese
year is lunar in its divisions, though regulated by the sun in so far that
Ne