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
Instead of having to surmise this fancied relation, I think the
explanation is to be found in the fact that similarity in the form of
the glyph is indicative of a similarity in the sounds of the words
represented. Here the _ch_ becomes _x_ (sh).
Dr Seler also calls attention in this connection to the animal figures
in Dres. 36a and elsewhere, which are "represented as plunging down
from heaven with torches in their paws, and fire also issuing from the
tassel-like ends of their tails, which doubtless denote the lightning,
the death-dealing servant of the Chac." By the mention of this last
word--_chac_--Dr Seler has shown that correct reasoning by a different
line leads to precisely the same result as that which appeals to the
phonetic or ikonomatic character of the symbol. Here again the _ch_
sound appears as the chief element of the character. The rain or field
deities, the chacs, are usually represented in the codices as dog or
panther like animals; and _chuac_, "the tempest," and, according to
Henderson, _chac_ also, signifies lightning. But the relation of figures
and phonetic value includes also the animal; _chacbolay_, "a savage
tiger, a young lion" (Perez); _chacboay_, "a leopard" (Henderson);
_chacoh_, "a leopard;" _chacekel_, "a tiger, jaguar;" _chac-ikal_, "the
storm, the tempest." The similar figures in Tro. 32c probably symbolize
the dry burning season which parches and withers the corn. The word is
probably _choco_, _chocou_, or some related form.
THE FOURTH DAY
Maya, _kan_ or _kanan_; Tzental, _ghanan_; Quiche-Cakchiquel, _k'at_
(_k'ate_, _k'atic_, _gatu_); Zapotec, _guache_ or _gueche_; Nahuatl,
_cuetzpallin_.
The Maya symbol of this day is subject to but few and slight variations.
The principal forms are shown in plates LXIV, 57, to LXV, 3. That given
by Landa is presented in plate LXIV, 57. The forms in the codices are
shown in plates LXIV, 58; LXV, 1, 2, 3, that with the eye (LXV, 3) being
the usual form given in Peresianus; LXV, 4 represents it as found on the
right slab of the Palenque tablet.
The significations of the Maya word _kan_ are various, as "yellow,"
"rope," "hamac," etc, and, according to Dr Brinton, the Tzental _ghanan_
is the same word under a slightly different form. However, he contends
that the original sense is to be found in the Cakchiquel word _k'an_, as
given by Guzman (in a manuscript work in his possession), who says it is
the name applied to the female iguana, or tree lizard. This, it is true,
brings the signification into close correspondence with that of the
Nahuatl term, but it is more than probable that the Maya and Tzental
terms were in use before the application mentioned by Guzman was made by
the Cakchiquel. It is noticeable, however, that in the list from
Taylor's "Te-Ika-a-Maui," presented in the appendix, "lizards" are given
as symbolic of one of the New Zealand days.
[Illustration: PL. LXV COPIES OF GLYPHS FROM THE CODICES]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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