42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



outside of the kernel of corn, we must admit tliat the hierogl3q3h Kan 

 does indeed correspond to the ideas which the popped corn suggests. 

 And, indeed, the part which the hieroglyph plays in the pictures of the 

 Maya manuscripts is of such a nature that all authors have hitherto 

 spontaneously agreed in explaining the glyph Kan as "maize." I 

 myself formerly took the corncob, which we sometimes see represented 

 with teeth and eyes, to be Kan, because 1 did not think of popped corn; 

 but I can now let this explanation drop, because tlie word peche and 

 the ideas connected with it atl'ord a satisfactory solution of the peculiar 

 characteristics of the hieroglyph. 



For the fifth day sign the Zapotec calendar gives the roots zee, 

 zi], which, again, are not, as we might suppose from the Aztec name 

 for the fifth day sign (Coatl), to be translated "snake" (snake in 

 Zapotec is pella or bela), but which seem to mean something abstract, 

 namely, "misfortune", "evir', "trouble", "misery". In one place 

 in the calendar, and that precisely in the first 13-day period, the 

 word ciguij is used instead of zee, zii; and that means "deceiver", 

 "layer of snares, who brings one into trou})le''\ If we consider these 

 variants, we can, as I believe, ascribe a more pregnant meaning to zii, 

 one that is contained in the word pijci (pijze, peezi), undoubtedly 

 derived from this root, which is, " harmful portent". Thus we arrive 

 by a rounda])Out way at the same conception which the Aztec name 

 for the fifth day sign suggests to us, namely, the word "snake". For 

 it was this that the Zapotecs held to ])e the first and most serious of 

 all evil portents: Tenian estos Zapotecas muchas cosas por agiieros, 

 a las quales si encontraban 6 venian a sus casas 6 junto a ellas, se tenian 

 por agorados dellas. P]l primero y mas principal era la culebra, que 

 se llama pella, y como ay nuichas maneras dellas, de la manera que era 

 ella, assi era el agiiero, esto deslindava el sortilegio ("These Zapo- 

 tecs held many things to be omens, and if they met these things or if 

 these things entered or approached their homes they held it to be an 

 evil omen — that they would bring them misfortune. The first and 

 chief was the viper, which is called pella, and as there are many sorts 

 of them, according to the sort, so was the omen; this outlined the 

 enchantment"). (Juan de Cordova, Arte, page 21-1, 188<i.) In ni}- 

 paper on the character of the Aztec and Ma^^a manuscripts (Zeit- 

 schrift fiir Fthnologie, volume 20, page 61) I show that the Maya 

 glyph for the fifth day sign (/, figure 1) is derived from certain pecu- 

 liarities of the snake and undou])tedly denotes the snake. But the 

 meaning of the word by which the Mayas designated that day, namely, 

 Chicchan, was not quite clear to me. I have now no doubt that it means 

 chic-chaan, that is, tomado senal, tomado agiiero ("signal-bearer, 

 portent-bearer"). 



For the sixth day sign the Zapotec calendar gives the word form 

 lana or laana. Of the various m sailings which the dictionary sug- 

 gests for this root the one which I should think the most natural, if 



