self.

The brief description of their reckoning of time, given by Sanchez y
Leon, may be quoted: "They divided the year into 18 months, and each
month into 20 days; but they counted only by nights, which they
mentioned as dawns (alboradas); the movements of the sun in the ecliptic
governed their calendar; they began their year forty days before ours;
they celebrated annually three great feasts, like Easters, at which
periods both sexes assembled together at night, and indulged in
drunkenness and wantonness."[31-2]

I think in this extract the author should have said that they began
their year 40 days later than ours, as this would bring his statement
more into conformity with other writers.

_Personal and Family Names._

Among the Cakchiquels, each person bore two names; the first his
individual name, the second that of his family or _chinamitl_. This word
is pure Nahuatl, and means a place enclosed by a fence,[32-1] and
corresponds, therefore, to the Latin _herctum_, and the Saxon _ton_. As
adopted by the Cakchiquels, it meant a household or family of one
lineage and bearing one name, all of whom were really or theoretically
descended from one ancestral household. To all such was applied the term
_aca_, related or affined;[32-2] and marriage within the chinamitl was
not permitted. When a man of one chinamitl married into another, every
male in the latter became his brother-in-law, _baluc_, or son-in-law,
_hi_.[32-3]

Each _chinamitl_ was presided over by a recognized leader, the "head of
the house," whose title was _ah[c,]alam_, "the keeper of the
tablets,"[32-4] probably the painted records on which the genealogy of
the family and the duties of its members were inscribed.

The division of the early tribes into these numerous families was not
ancient, dating, according to tradition, from about a century and a half
before the Conquest.[32-5]

The family name was sometimes derived from a locality, sometimes from a
peculiarity, and at others from astrological motives.[33-1]

The personal name was always that of the day of birth, this being
adopted for astrological reasons. There was a fixed opinion that the
temperament and fortunes of the individual were controlled by the
supposed character of his birthday, and its name and number were
therefore prefixed to his family name. This explains the frequent
occurrence in the Cakchiquel _Annals_ of such strange appellatives as
_Belehe Queh_, nine deer; _Cay Batz_, two