to be discarded at the end of the marginal period, or Uayeb (Cogolludo). In this same interval, the incoming patron deity of the year was installed and the outgoing one removed. Through annually shifting procession routes, the calendrical model of the four 'Year Bearers' (New Year days) was projected onto the four quarters of the town. Landa's detailed treatment of the New Year rites – the most important description of a pre-Hispanic Maya ritual complex to have come down to us – corresponds on essential points to the schematic depiction of these rites in the much earlier Dresden Codex. Like the Year Bearers, the thirteen twenty-year periods (katuns) of the Short Count were viewed as divine lords in their own right and worshipped accordingly. The katuns had specific divine patrons (as mentioned in the Chilam Balam books) and their own priests. Occupational groups The 18 months had festivals, dedicated to specific deities, which were largely celebrated by occupational groups (in particular hunters and fishermen, bee-keepers, cacao planters, curers, and warriors). It is not known if and to what extent this festival cycle of the kingdom of Maní was shared by the other Yucatec kingdoms, and if it was also valid for the earlier Mayan kingdoms, both in Yucatán and elsewhere. Life cycle Life cycle rituals (or rites of passage) demarcate the various stages of life. Landa details one of these rituals, destined for making young boys and girls marriageable (caput sihil 'second birth'). The Yucatec Maya continue the ritual (Hetz mek) which marks a child's movement from cradling or carrying to the mother's hip. It is performed at about three months and has godparents of the ceremony. The child is offered implements appropriate to its gender, tools for boys and cloth or thread for girls. If the children grasp them, this is considered a foretelling. All children are offered pencils and paper. Health Contemporary healing rituals focus on the retrieval and reincorporation of the lost souls or soul particles imprisoned somewhere by specific deities or ancestors. The procedures can include the sacrifice of fowl treated as the patient's 'substitute' (Tzotzil k'exolil-helolil). The main collection of ancient Yucatec curing rituals is the so-called Ritual of the Bacabs. In these texts, the world with its four trees and four carriers of earth and sky (Bacabs) located at the corners is the theatre of shamanic curing sessions, during which "the four Bacabs" are