Day Symbols of the Maya Year: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-1895, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 199-266.Thomas, Cyrus
Religion
Day Symbols of the Maya Year: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-1895, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 199-266.
Thomas, Cyrus
Maya calendar
There can be no doubt that most, if not all, of the figures on this
plate (Tro. 29) are intended to represent the injurious and destructive
agencies to which maize and other cultivated plants were subject. Birds
and quadrupeds pull up the sprouting seed and pull down and devour the
ripening grain; worms gnaw the roots and winds break down the stalks,
one out of four escaping injury and giving full return to the planter.
The latter is therefore probably the correct interpretation, the only
difficult feature being the presence of the Earth god, which agrees
better with the first suggestion.
It is to be observed that the series on Tro. 29c really commences with
the right-hand group on 30c. The figure here holds in his hand an _ik_
symbol. Following this, the left group on 29c shows a bird pecking the
corn; the next, a small quadruped tearing it down; the next, a worm
gnawing at the root of a plant; and the fourth, or right-hand group, a
corn figure holding a _kan_ symbol, indicating the mature grain, the
uninjured portion of the crop. It would therefore appear that the _ik_
symbol in this series denotes wind.
As additional proof that the symbol is used to indicate "wind,"
reference is made to Tro. 24a. Here the long-nose Rain god, or Maya
Tlaloc, is seen amidst the storm, clothed in black and bearing on his
arm a shield on which are two _ik_ symbols (plate LXIV, 33), doubtless
indicative of the fierceness of the tempest. In front of him is the Corn
god, bending beneath the pouring rain. On plate 25, same codex, lower
division, the storm is again symbolized, and the _ik_ symbol is present
here also.
It seems from these facts to be quite certain that the value of the
symbol in the codices, so far as it can be satisfactorily determined,
corresponds in signification with the Maya name.
Referring again to Dr Seler's theory that the plant-like figures on Tro.
15*, 16* indicate the freshly extracted heart and the vapor arising
therefrom, the following additional items are noted: He says that in the
text the scene below, or at least these sprouting-plant figures, are
expressed by hieroglyphs 27-29, plate LXVIII. His comparison with the
so-called heart figures from the Mexican codices can scarcely be
regarded as convincing, for there is hardly any resemblance. Moreover,
he omits to furnish an explanation, on his theory, of the fact that some
of these rising "vapors" are crowned with blossoms or fruit (plate LXIV,
31).
I think it quite probable that Dr Seler, although not accepting the
theory of phoneticism, has been influenced to some extent by the form of
the right-hand character of the glyph shown in plate LXVIII, 27. This is
much like Landa's _o_, and _ol_ in Maya denotes "heart, etc."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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