38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHTSTOLOGY [bull. 28 



a transferred or an incorrect one. Cocijo, on the contrary, is in the 

 dictionary transhited by dios dc las Ihivias ("god of the rains'"), and 

 by rayo; totia peni (juij cocijo by sacrificar honibre 6 nino por la 

 pliivia ("to sacrifice a man or a child for rain"); tace cocijo, b}" caer 

 rayo del cielo. In other words, cocijo is the rain g-od Tlaloc, who 

 has his place here in the tonalamatl because the four divisions of the 

 tonalamatl belong to the four cardinal points, and the rain god is at 

 home in the four cardinal points and differs according to the respective 

 cardinal point, as is plainly shown on the above-mentioned pages of the 

 Borgian codex, page 12, and the Codex Vaticanns B, page 28. If we 

 now inquire what the prefix quia, quie, might mean in speech, we find 

 "to strike", "stone", "rain", "crime or punishment", "to color", 

 "flower"; the first four, however, are to be distinguished from the 

 latter by special pronunciations of the i. If we substitute for "rain" 

 "thunderstorm", which is usually about the same thing in these 

 regions, then the first four meanings are readily evolved, one from 

 the other, and if we take this as the meaning of the prefix quia, quie, 

 we must translate quia-chilla, for instance, as "the crocodile Tlaloc", 

 the Tlaloc who bears the crocodile as his sign, or ce Cipactli (1 1). 



Of the other prefixes only the last two seem to have any special 

 meaning, which perhaps proceeds from the special augural value of the 

 numerals 12 and 13. Piici means "the omen ", usually, it is true, the 

 evil omen. Piiio might be a secondary form of chino, for p and ch 

 frequently stand one for the other in Zapotec word forms. ChiiTo, 

 chijnno means "full", "luck", "blessing", "riches", "thirteen", 

 "fifteen". But these are all meanings which can hardly be brought 

 into relation with the numeral 12, to which the prefix piiio refers. The 

 other prefixes seem to be only variations of the well-known prefixes 

 pe, pi, CO, hua, by which people in action and living beings are desig- 

 nated. The syllable la is demonstrative. 



If we set aside these prefixes, changing with the numeral attached 

 to them, we obtain the word chilla or chijUa for the first day sign. 1 

 find the three principal meanings for this in the dictionary to be: first, 

 "bean dice", pichijlla, frisolillos 6 havas con que echan las suertes los 

 sortilegos ("beans with which sorcerers tell fortunes"); then, "a 

 mountain ridge", pichijlla, lechijlla, chijUatani, loma 6 cordillera de 

 sierra; also, "the crocodile", peho pichijlla, pichijlla-peoo, peyoo, 

 cocodrillo, lagarto grande de agua, (' ' crocodile, great water lizard ") and 

 "swordfish", pella-pichijlla-tiio espadarte pescado; finally, chilla- 

 tao ("the great chilla"), is also given as one of the names of the 

 highest being. Here the meaning " crocodile" seems to me to be the 

 original and suitable one. For the way in which the first day sign is 

 drawn in Mexican and Zapotec picture writings, as a, figure ■!, obviously 

 indicates the head of the crocodile, with the upper jaw moving inde- 

 pendently, opening upward, which is a characteristic feature of this 



