Brlnton.] ^"4: [Oct. 6, 



root as manaal^ -which the Dice. Motul explains as " aguaceros 

 que vienen antes de que entran las aguas de golpe, con los cuales 

 suelen florecer arboles, matas y yerbas." 3Iui/al in Maj'a means 

 " cloud." 



16. Pax. — The principal feast in this month was called pacum 

 Chac, the recompense or repayment of Ghac, the gods of rain. 

 The name was probably derived from this term ; though it may 

 be from paxah, to play upon a musical instrument, as Pio Perez 

 suggests, with reference to the music of the festival. 



IT. Kayah. — From kaij.^ to sing, to warble; applied both to 

 persons and birds. No festival is assigned to this month. 



18. Cum ku. — Translated by Pio Perez as a loud and distant 

 noise like thunder, etc. No such derivation is supported by the 

 old authorities. Gum^ in Maj'a, is an earthen jar or pot, Nahuatl, 

 comitl ; cum ku is the potter's furnace in which such jars are 

 burned {Dice. Motul) ; but as ku also means " god," cum ku is 

 the god of the vase or jar, the deity so often represented in 

 Maya and Nahuatl art, reclining on his back and holding a vase 

 in the centre of his stomach (Le Plongeon's Ghac mol, etc.). 

 He was the god of the rains, this month being at the height of 

 the rainy season. 



THE TZENTAL MONTHS. 



The original authority for the names of the Tzental months is 

 Fr. Juan de Rodaz, in his Arte de la Lengua Tzotzlem 6 Tzina- 

 canteca, 1688, MS., a copy of which was in the possession of the 

 late Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg,but which I have not seen. It 

 would appear that the Zotzils and Tzentals had the same month- 

 names. We have, further, the testimony of a Mexican writer, 

 Emetorio Pineda, who saj^s that at the time he wrote, 1845, the 

 natives continued to divide the solar year into eighteen months, 

 the names of which he gives.* Their use, he states, was to 

 arrange for their agricultural operations, and to fix the dates for 

 their overt or secret religious rites. 



* Pineda, Descripcion Qeograftca de Chiapas y Soeonusco, pp. Ill, sq. (Mexico, 18)5). 



