Note 27-1 — I. INTRODUCTION.

I mention this particularly in order to correct a grave error in Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 130. He says, “Suelen de costumbre sembrar para cada casado con su muger medida de cccc piés que llaman hun-uinic, medida con vara de XX pies, XX en ancho y XX en largo.” The agrarian measure uinic or hun uinic (one man) contained 20 kaan, each 24 yards (varas) square. One kaan was estimated to yield two loads of corn, and hence the calculation was forty loads of the staff of life for each family. Landa’s statement that a patch 20 feet square was assigned to a family is absurd on the face of it.