The Unlucky Days and a Hot Day at the End of the Year

While doing some research on the Mayan calendar I read this article:

https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/mayan.html

Here are the basics:

"The Mayan Calendar consists of three separate corresponding calendars, the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar) and the Haab (civil calendar). Time is cyclical in the calendars and a set number of days must occur before a new cycle can begin."
"The Long Count is an astronomical calendar which was used to track longer periods of time, what the Maya called the “universal cycle”. Each such cycle is calculated to be 2,880,000 days (about 7885 solar years). The Mayans believed that the universe is destroyed and then recreated at the start of each universal cycle. This belief still inspires a myriad of prophesies about the end of the world." 

"The divine calendar is also known as the Sacred Round or the Tzolkin which means “the distribution of the days”. It is a 260-day calendar, with 20 periods of 13 days used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events. Each day is numbered from one to thirteen, and then repeated. The day is also given a name (glyph) from a sequence of 20 day names. The calendar repeats itself after each cycle." 

"The Haab is a 365 day solar calendar which is divided into 18 months of 20 days each and one month which is only 5 days long (Uayeb). The calendar has an outer ring of Mayan glyphs (pictures) which represent each of the 19 months. Each day is represented by a number in the month followed by the name of the month. Each glyph represents a personality associated with the month." 

"The Haab is somewhat inaccurate as it is exactly 365 days long. An actual tropical or solar year is 365.2422 days long. In today’s Gregorian calendar we adjust for this discrepancy by making almost every fourth year a leap year by adding an extra day – a leap day – on the 29th of February."

"The three calendars are used simultaneously. The Tzolkin and the Haab identify and name the days, but not the years. The Long Count date comes first, then the Tzolkin date and last the Haab date. A typical Mayan date would read: 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Kumku, where 13.0.0.0.0 is the Long Count date, 4 Ahau is the Tzolkin date and 8 Kumku is the Haab date."

For the most part the information was similar to other information.

However, a few days later I was reading in Alma 51. Amalickiah had brought his Lamanite armies into the lands of the Nephites, and had successfully attacked and conquered several Nephite cities (because the people had become wicked and contentious again) that had been fortified under Captain Moroni's direction. In verse 29 the Lamanites were stopped by Teancum and his army. In verses 33 to 37 Teancum, along with a servant, sneak into the Lamanite camp after everyone was sleeping, and Teancum kills Amalickiah. This apparently happened during the last night of the year.

Alma 52 verses 1 and 2 states that when the Lamanites "awoke on the first morning...they found Amalackiah was dead" and "they were affrighted; and they abandoned their design."

Since the Lamanites were likely very superstitious of what they may have seen as signs and omens, the death of their king at the end of the year would have been very doubtful of going on.

But, consider what the article said about the Haab. It was a 365-day calendar divided into 18 20-day months. This leaves 5 days left, which was a very short 5-day month at the end of the calendar year. These five days were considered unlucky and the people considered these days as having "prognostic power for the coming year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_calendars

If the Lamanites were using the Mayan calendar, then the death of the king at the end of these five unlucky days would have been seen as a very bad omen. They

It is also interesting to note that there was not a lot of progress in the war, either for the Lamanites to conquer or the Nephites to regain the lands, during that year following Amalickiah's death (Alma 52: 1-15)

As a side note, it is interesting on a calendar perspective that on the last day of the year it was a very hot day (Alma 51:33).

If the Nephites were using a 365-day calendar, without any correction for the quarter-day lost every year, then in the 534 years since Lehi left Jerusalem the calendar would be off by 133.5 days, or about 4.5 months.

So, here's an example. Let's use December 31 as the end of the year when Lehi left Jerusalem. Without any leap years, after 534 years the end of the year would be around August 20. Since we don't know exactly when the new year started at Lehi's time, we can't really know when it was in Captain Moroni's time.

I don't think the Nephites placed as much emphasis in precisely dating every day of the year on a consistent basis as we do. Dates were important, but we make them a bigger deal and we want the same day to happen at the same time of year every year.