there were no such days, nor were they dedicated to any of
their gods, on which account they were reputed "unfortunate." The whole
of those 13 days was a time of penitence and fasting, for fear that the
world should come to an end; nor did they eat any warm food, as the
fire was extinguished through the whole land till the new cycle began,
when the ceremony of the new fire was celebrated.

But as all these were matters relating only to rites and sacrifices
(not to the true computation of time), this mode of intercalating had
no application to the natural year, because it would have greatly
deranged the solstices, equinoxes, and beginnings of the years; and the
fact is abundantly proved by the circumstance that the days thus
intercalated (at the end of the cycle) had none of the symbols
belonging to the days of the year, and the ritual calendar accounted
them bissextiles at the end of each cycle, in imitation, though by a
different order, of the civil bissextiles, which (as being more
accurate) were more proper for the regulation of public affairs.

* * * * *

AN ALMANAC, ADJUSTED ACCORDING TO THE CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATION OF THE
ANCIENT INDIANS OF YUCATAN, FOR THE YEARS 1841 AND 1842, BY DON JUAN
PIO PEREZ.

_Observations_.--The notes or remarks _utz_, _yutz kin_, a lucky day,
_lob_, _u lob kin_, an unlucky day, signify that the Indians had their
days of good and of ill fortune, like some of the nations of ancient
Europe; although it is easily perceived that the number of their days
of ill fortune is excessive, still they are the same found by me in
three ancient almanacs which I have examined, and found to agree very
nearly. I have applied them to the number, not the name, of the day,
because the announcements of rain, of planting, &c, must, in my
opinion, belong to the fixed days of the month, and not to the names of
particular days; as these each year are changed, and turn upon the four
primaries, _Kan_, _Muluc_, _Gix_, and _Cauac_, chiefs of the year. In
another place, however, I have seen it laid down as a rule that the
days _Chicchan_, _Cimi_ or _Kimi_, _Oc_, _Men_, _Ahau_, and _Akbal_,
are the days of rest in the month; and this appears probable, as I see
no reason why there should be so great an excess of days of ill
fortune. In the almanacs cited above, this order was not observed,
either from ignorance or excessive superstition.

Thus the days on which the burner takes h