Note 108 — Chapter XX · Conjectures respecting the descendants of the tribes who built the Temples.—Knowledge and education of the Caciques and Priests.—Traditions of the arrival of white strangers from the East.—Las Casas.—Quetzal-Coatl.—Crosses found in Yucatan.—Gomara.—Legend of the flight of Spaniards by sea towards the West after the conquest of Spain by the Saracens.—Fabulous island of Antilia.—Columbus on his outward voyage steers for Antilia.—Trade-winds.—Considerations upon the probabilities of vessels being driven across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans towards America.
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The Indians in Yucatan, had a chief priest who had a general control over all matters relating to the priesthood. He nominated the priests to the villages, examined them in their sciences and ceremonies, provided them with books and sent them to attend in the service of the temples.
According to Landa “they taught the sons of other priests and the younger sons of the chiefs that were brought to them for this purpose when they were children, if it was observed that they were inclined towards this office. The sciences which they taught were the computations of the years, months, and days, the festivals and ceremonies, the administration of their sacraments, the days and times that were fatal, the manner of divinations and prophecies and coming events, the remedies for sickness and things concerning antiquities, and to read and write with their books, and characters with which they wrote and with figures which explained the writings.”
In Yucatan, as in Mexico, the calendar was carefully constructed. The year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours. Landa observes that the months were of two kinds. One was lunar and was regulated by the movements of the moon. The other method of computation was formed by dividing the year into eighteen divisions or months, each consisting of twenty days and there were five days and six hours over. Of these six hours one day was made every four years. For these three hundred and sixty-six days they had twenty letters or characters by which they were named. (Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, pp. 42; 202).
Las Casas observes in his Apologética Historia, chapter cxxi, that “the year of the Mexican people consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days divided into eighteen months and five days. Each month was twenty days, and the week was thirteen days of which they had constituted a calendar, and for each day of the week, of the month and of the year they had its idol with its own name, and these names were of men, or of women which they held or had held as gods; and thus all the days were filled up with these idols and names and figures in the same manner as our breviaries and calendars have for each day its saint.”
The illustration of the calendar stone is from a photograph taken from the original stone in the city of Mexico. This great astronomical record was discovered in the year 1790, buried several feet below the surface, in the spot where stood the chief pyramid and temple of the Aztecs. It is made from a large mass of basalt, and the circular part has a circumference of more than thirty-eight feet. It is probably one of the earliest and one of the most elaborate of the sculptured works of the Toltecs. It will be observed that the points have a singular resemblance to those of the mariner’s compass. The head placed in the centre has been supposed to represent the Mexican god of the sun. It is possible that it may have been intended to represent Quetzalcoatl, the traditional teacher and originator of the Mexican knowledge of astronomy.