44 BUREAU OF AMKRICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



covering's indicated, and whose picture (^, m) might readily create in 

 the Bishop's mind the conception tliat the demon was represented with 

 horns, all the more so because the monks were apt to see devils every- 

 where in the figures of aboriginal mythology and to imagine the devils 

 very realisticall}' with horns. We should therefore translate the 

 Tzental-Zotzil name tox by "covering", "veir\ "strata", "cloud 

 covering". And then it is a striking coincidence that we also find the 

 Zapotec word for the sixth day sign used, alone or in combination 

 with pee or zaa, for "cloud". Compare pee-lana-tao-peye or pee-zaa- 

 lana-tao-nagace, nube negra y oscura (literally, "great fog cloud", 

 "great black cloud"), zaa-quiepaa, pee-zaa, zee-lana-tao-yati, nube 

 blanca. From the idea of "covered", "dark", might readily be 

 evolved that of death, by whose name the sixth day sign is denoted in 

 the other calendars. Indeed, Moan, the cloud spirit, also appears in the 

 Maya maiuiscript, invariably accompanied with the symbol of death. 



It is as easy to decipher the seventh day sign as it was hard to read 

 the sixth. By removing the prefix we get the name china, and this 

 is exactly the Mexican mazatl, "deer", given in the Mexican calen- 

 dar, and the queh, quieh, given in the Guatemalan calendar, as the 

 seventh day sign. In my earlier work I strove to show that the 

 Maya glyph for the seventh day sign also agrees with this. The real 

 meaning is, as I stated on page 32, "to eat", "food", "meat". The 

 Maya word manik is possibly may-nik ("cloven hoof"). 



For the eighth day sign, which answers to the Mexican Tochtli, 

 "rabbit," we obtain, after removing the prefix, the word lapa. Now, 

 there is no such word as lilpa, "rabbit"; but the designations which 

 are used for "rabbit" lead to the same idea which is contained in 

 lapa. Lapa means "to divide", "to break in pieces", and the rab- 

 bit is peela or piteeza, both of which words mean "the divided", 

 "that which is cut up (carved)". That the idea of something divided, 

 cut up, underlies the name of this day sign is also proved by the Ma3"a 

 hieroglyph for the same {/i, figure 4), in which the idea of divided, 

 cut up, is clearly indicated. Perhaps the expressions Lambat and 

 Lamat, which are used in Tzental-Zotzil and in Maya for this day 

 sign, and which can hardly be explained from the well-known Maya 

 roots, may also be traced back to this underlying Zapotec lapa. 



The ninth day sign is in Mexican atl, "water". The Zapotec cal- 

 endar gives the words niza and queza. The former is the familiar 

 and generally used Zapotec word for "water". Various derivatives 

 show that queza is only a variant of niza — peque^a, peniya, or pinica, 

 milano ave; quie-cache-niya, quie — queya, marmol, piedra marmolena 

 ("marble, marble stone"). Both are probably derived from ezaa 

 ("to come down"). 



For the tenth day sign the Zapotec calendar gives the word tella; 

 the Mexican has Itzcuintli, "dog". The Maya expressions for this 



