1893.] -/ < J [Brinton. 



transfer, confused. The Zapotec guela also means night, and, 

 by transfer, old, harvest time, etc. These three, therefore, apply 

 to the da}^ a name of the same meaning. 



The Nahuatl calli means " house," the Tzental votan, " heart." 

 It is not difficult to connect these with the idea of darkness 

 night or old age, on the ground that the house is that which is 

 within, is dark, shuts out the light, etc. Possibly the derivation 

 was symbolic. Yotan, as a hero-god, was much venerated by 

 the Tzentals, says Bishop Nuiiez de la Vega ; he was called 

 " The Heart of the Nation ; " and at Tlazoaloyan, in Soconusco, 

 he constructed, by breathing or blowing, a " dark house " (una 

 casa lobrega), in which he concealed the sacred objects of his 

 cult. In this myth, therefore, which I have explained at some 

 lengths in a previous work, * we find an unequivocal connection 

 of the ideas of " darkness " and " house " united in the myth of 

 Yotan, indicating the oneness of the origin of all three in this 

 relation. This is proved by the coincidence that Tepeyollotl, 

 which has in Nahuatl the same meaning as Votan in Tzental, is 

 the god who is patron of this day.f 



The Fourth Day. 



1. Maya, ka7i or kanan ; 2. Tzental, ghanan ; 3. Quiche-Cak. , k'at 

 {k'ate, k'atic, gatu) ; 4. Zapotec, guache, or gueche ; 5. Nahuatl, cuetz- 

 palUn. 



All sorts of meanings have been attributed to the Maya day 

 name kan ; as, hamac, rope, yellow, snake, and, by Dr. Seler, 

 to abound in, abundance, to be in excess, etc. All agree that 

 the Tzental ghanan is the same word under a slightly different 

 form. In Cakchiquel, according to Guzman, Gompendio de 

 Nombres, MS., k^aii is the name applied to the female of the igu- 

 ana, or tree-lizard, and this I believe to be the original sense of 

 the Maya and Tzental terms, corresponding closely to the Na- 

 huatl cuetzpallin, which meant some species of lizard. The Za- 



* American Hero Myths, p. 217 : The word uotan is the general term in Tzental for 

 " heart " in both its physical and figurative senses, such as feeling, sentiment, courage, 

 affection, life, etc. Dr. Seler finds in the prefix o an indication of the Maya ol, Nahuatl 

 yol, heart ; but it is needless to explain this prefix from foreign tongues. In Tzental, yol 

 means that which is held or owned in common, that which belongs to the community 

 and is common property (comun cosa, yol; comunidad, yol, olol, olil, Lara, Vorabidario). 



t For a full discussion of this point, see Dr. Seler, in the Compte-Rendu of the Congress 

 of Americanists, viL Session, pp. -'161-569. He believes the Nahuatl Tepeyollotl was a 

 deity borrowed from the southern nations (Zapotec or Maya stocks). 



