A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics

101.  “The Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan,” in the American Historical Magazine, for 1870.

102.  A notable exception to this, commented on by de Rosny, is seen on pages 18 and 19 of the Codex Peresianus. Why the rule should be reversed in those sections is still a problem.

103.  Study of the MS. Troano, Preface, p. viii.

104.  Alfredo Chavero, Antiguedades Mexicanas, p. xi (Mexico, 1892). The Codex Porfirio Diaz must be read from right to left.

105.  D. G. Brinton, “The Alphabets of the Berbers” in Proceedings of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia, p. 64 (Philadelphia, 1894).

106.  For instances, the numerals in connection with the snakes in Cod. Dres., pp. 61–64, and 69–73, are to be read from right to left, and from below upward, beginning at the last page of the series, and proceeding toward the left on the extended sheet. Förstemann, Entzifferung, No. II, 1891.

107.  In the Archives de la Société Américaine de France, for 1887, pp. 27, 28, 113, etc.

108.  In this connection I would call the especial attention of students to the article by Dr. Schellhas, “Vergleichende Studien auf dem Felde der Maya-Alterthümer,” in the Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, 1890. He there illustrates their methods of tattooing, wearing the hair, personal ornaments, costumes, utensils, etc., as shown in the Codices and other remains.

109.  On the interpretation of these and allied signs the student should consult Garrick Mallery, Sign Language among the North American Indians, in Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, Vol. 1, and W. P. Clark, The Indian Sign Language (Philadelphia, 1885). It is not possible for me here to give more than the most meager details on this important topic.

110.  Bird’s wing in Maya is xik. Close in sound is xikal, queen (señora principal, Dicc. Motul). The first wing feather was also called “a knife” (la primera pluma de la ala del halcon se llama “cuchillo maestre,” “u cicil ulum.” Dicc. de San Francisco).

111.  In the museum of the University of Pennsylvania there is a beautiful vase from Guatemala, with a vitrified surface; on it a face and head, with a necklace entirely of this sign, repeated in a pattern.

112.  “Tup; ciertas arracadas de palo antiguas; y llamanse ahora las arracadas ó zarcillos.” Dicc. Motul.

113.  In Maya a comb is xel. This as a verb means “to cut in two;” and as a numeral prefix it divides in half unities less than 20; as xel u yox kinbe, “two-and-a-half-day journeys.” Ikonomatically, the comb sign may have these significations. Landa gives it as the sign for ca, perhaps, as Valentini suggests, for cac, to pull out hair.

114.  Uil also means anything favorable or advantageous—“cosa provechosa,” Dic. Motul. The word u never means “vase,” as Prof. Thomas has repeatedly stated, following the unreliable Brasseur.

115.  “Los navajones para los sacrificios, de los quales tenian buen recaudo los sacerdotes,” p. 107, Ed. Madrid.

116.  Relacion de la Villa de Valladolid (1579), Chap. XIV. I am aware that some variants of this glyph have a striking resemblance to a penis flaccidus cum testiculis; but after close comparison I have rejected this rendering. Thomas sees in the two shells “tortillas.”

117.  Cosas de Yucatan, p. 112 (Ed. Madrid). What looks like the kan sign below it is the strap which fastens it.

118.  Mr. Marshall H. Saville, in a paper published in the Journal of American Folk-lore, September, 1894, and stated to have been read before the American Association the preceding month, entitled “A Comparative Study of the Graven Glyphs of Copan and Quirigua,” observes of the design of the paxche that it “is probably a drum.” No expression to this effect was in the paper as read before the Association, and in the following number of the Journal Mr. Saville concedes that I was the first to offer this identification.

119.  Duran: Hist. de las Indias, Trat. I, Lam. 29; Trat. II, Lam. 6.

120.  I quote the explanation from the Dicc. de Motul,—“Paxaan: cosa que esta quebrada, como vasija, cabeza, barco, etc.; cosa que esta desparecida; paaxan in cab, huido se me han mis abejas; paaxan in cuchtel, paaxan in cahal, despoblado se me ha el pueblo, ido se me ha mi gente. Y asi se puede decir de muchachos, de hormigas, humo, niebla, nublados, dolor de cabeza, de la voluntad, etc., anadiendose al paaxan el nombre de la cosa.” In a similar sense the phrases paaxal yit caan, “the edge of the sky is broken,” paaxal u chun caan, “the beginning of the sky is broken,” are translated, “reir el alba, venir el dia, ò amanecer asi.”

121.  In the Tzental dialect the drum entirely of wood was called culinte; that with a skin stretched across it, cayob. Lara, Vocabulario Tzental, MS.

122.  A similar design is found on Mexican shields, e. g., Lienzo de Tlascala, plate 12, Cod. Porf. Diaz., lam. s. and on the curious sculptures at Monte Alvan, Oaxaca, figured in Captain Dupaix’s Second Expedition, plate 21, in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities.

123.  Probably the “morriones de madera,” to which early writers allude as part of the armor of a Maya warrior.

124.  “Torcer hilo con huso; chich kuch. Hilo torcido; chichin bil kuch.” Dicc. de Motul. Meanings of chich, are: “strong, swift, hard, violent,” also “grandmother.”

125.  Father Ximenes speaks of the “asiento del rey;” “tenia un docel de pluma; sobre el guarda polvo, tenia cielos de diversos colores, tres, dos, etc.” Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 196. The symbol is therefore one of power and authority, rather than of a mere inanimate object.

126.  See Antonio Peñafiel, Nombres Geograficos de Mexico; Estudio Jeroglifico, passim (Mexico, 1885). I would especially recommend this easily obtainable work to the student who would familiarize himself with the method of “ikonomatic” writing as it was used by the ancient Mexicans. Another series of admirable examples are in the “Lienzo de Tlascala,” published by the Junta Colombina (Mexico, 1892), under the editorship of the distinguished antiquary, Don Alfredo Chavero.

127.  Nagualism; a Study in Native American Folk-lore and History, p. 20, note. Sometimes water was used, when the word in Maya is puhaa, “to blow water,” and is translated in the dictionaries, “rociar con la boca.”

128.  Mallery: Picture Writing of the American Indians, p. 700. The double curves that we see on the snake, Cod. Cort., p. 15, etc., I construe as the sign of the sky. The expression in Maya was u nak caan, “la boveda del cielo;” literally, the “belly” of the sky.

129.  The transformation of the human into the arboreal form and its opposite are frequently referred to in the myths and pictography of the red race. Some interesting observations upon this point, by the Rev. S. D. Peet, may be found in the American Antiquarian, for September, 1894.

130.  See the Codex Borgia, plates 8, 16, 17, 18, 19; Cod. Vaticanus, plate 65; Cod. Colomb., Lam. 5, 17; Cod. Vienna, pp. 18, 37, etc.; and consult Pousse in Arch. de la Soc. Amer., 1887, p. 102; Schellhas, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1886, p. 53.

131.  Dr. Harrison Allen: An Analysis of the Life Form in Art, p. 37 (Philadelphia, 1875); A. P. Maudslay: Biol. Cent. Amer. Archæology, Part II, plate 23, etc.

132.  Mr. E. P. Dieseldorff, in a description of a very beautiful decorated vase from the vale of Chamá, Guatemala, says that fans were not in use among the natives, and that the object in the paintings usually identified as such is a “soplador,” or fire-blower, made of woven palm leaves, and still found in every house. Verhand. der Berliner Anthrop. Gesell., 1894, p. 374.

133.  “Tenian cierto azofar blando y con alguna poca mezcla de oro, de que hazian las hachuelas de fundicion y unos cascabelejos con que vaylavan y una cierta manera de escoplillos con que hazian los idolos.” Relacion de Yucatan, p. 107. (Madrid edition.)

134.  U hadz muyal, literally, “its blow, the cloud.” Another figure which seems to indicate the same is the broad, pointed object seen in the hands of deities. Cod. Cort., p. 28; Cod. Tro., pp. 29, 30, 38, 39. It is the same as the Nahuatl tlauitequiliztli, portrayed in the hands of Tlaloc, in plate 70, of Boban’s Catalogue Raisonné of the Goupil collection.

135.  The name is from lil, to sprinkle, haa, water, and bal, the instrumental termination. The Relacion de la Villa de Valladolid, 1579, cap. xiv, says: “el ahkin llevaba un hisopo, atado en el muchas colas de vibora y culebras ponzoñosas.”

136.  The Atlatl or Spear Thrower of the Ancient Mexicans. By Zelia Nuttall (Cambridge, Mass., 1891).

137.  See Cod. Dres., p. 50. Precisely the same design recurs in the (Mexican) Codex Borgia, published in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities. No. 11 is also a Mexican calendar sign (Gama).

138.  I hesitated some time to assign the flint knife to the East, but believe the evidence is in its favor. As Chavero has pointed out (Antiguedades Mexicanas, p. xxxv), in Mexican symbolism, the tecpatl belongs decidedly to the West.

139.  The Native Calendar of Mexico and Central America, p. 4 (Philadelphia, 1893).

140.  “Kan: cuzcas ò piedras que servian à los indios de moneda y de adorno al cuello.” Dicc. de Motul. I owe this identification to my late friend, Dr. C. H. Berendt, a profound Maya scholar. Its correctness will be confirmed by examining Cod. Cort., p. 12. Cod. Dres., p. 48, etc. This circulating medium of the Mayas is mentioned in the Relacion de Valladolid, 1579, cap. 33. In purchasing a wife the expression was ah coy kan, “he who must pay kans,” as these were the consideration. (Dicc. Motul.) Other meanings of kan are: yellow, and hence ripe fruit, the yolk of an egg, cooked maize, etc.; anything precious or valuable; a measure of length; a set task; a net, and to fish or hunt with one.

141.  Variants of the chuen are extremely frequent in the mural inscriptions, and its correct interpretation, therefore, highly important. As stated in the text, I believe they generally stand for chun, which means “the foundation, the beginning, the first, the cause.” We find such expressions as tu chun che, “at the foot of the tree;” tu chun uitz, “at the base of the hill,” etc. In Tzental, chu is the teat or mamma, chunel, to suck the teat. In many inscriptions the position of the chun is antithetic to the pax, the one indicating the beginning, the other the end of a series.

142.  Nuñez de la Vega, Constituciones Diocesanas, p. 10. The story was that Been inscribed his own name upon them. I have not ascertained that this locality has been examined by modern travelers. It might offer valuable material.

143.  E. Pineda, Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas, pp. 7, 8.

144.  See Förstemann, Entzifferung, IV, S. 15.

145.  Seler observes, on doubtful premises,—“Tzec scheint der Zermalmer zu bedeuten.”

146.  “Mac, tapa de vasija.” The opinion of Allen that the sign represents the extended arms, the “great span,” is inappropriate. The measure called mac was much greater (doce brazas, Pio Perez). Another meaning of mac is the sea turtle and its shell (galapago y concha del).

147.  Dr. Seler, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1891, p. 111, gives another monogram for Kin ich—the cauac, with the “blowing” prefix (see p. 98) and the “machete” subfix.

148.  See Cogolludo: Historia de Yucatan, Tom. I, p. 317.

149.  This inscription, painted on stucco, was copied by H. F. Becker and printed in the Archives de la Société Américaine de France. See de Rosny, L’Interpretation des anciens Textes Mayas, p. 12., note (Paris, 1875).

150.  Another example is in the Thompson collection, and a third, somewhat similar, also from a vase from Yucatan (now in Berlin), has been published by Dr. Schellhas, Internat. Archiv. für Ethnographie, 1890 (p. 3 of his separatum).