SEI.ER] THE MEXICAN CHRONOLOGY 49 



ti|rure which is invariably usod in the niamisciipts on the juofs from 

 which the intoxicatinj^ drink mead foams (see p^ tigure )>, page 86), 

 and which seems to be nothing but a somewhat conventionalized 

 form of the yacanietztli, the half-moon-shaped nose ornament of the 

 pulque god, which is used on drinking vessels in Mexican picture 

 writing/' The upper part of the hieroglyph shows the stripes usuall}' 

 employed for snakes, and seems to indicate the snake, which is often 

 drawn winding about the wine jug. The name Cib also suits this con- 

 ception, for ci is the maguey plant and is also used to denote the 

 pulque made from it, as well as all other intoxicating drinks. C'ib 

 might therefore be formed with the instrumental suftix and mean 

 "that which is used for making wine", either the honey or, perhaps 

 more correctly, the narcotic root which was added to the fermented 

 drink. The Mexicans called this addition patli, ''medicine*', from 

 which the pulque god was known as Patecatl.'' There is a connection 

 between these conceptions and the Mexican name for the day sign 

 (Cozaquauhtli, "vulture"), as 1 have already pointed out in \\\y 

 earlier work, arising from the conception of the vulture, "the bald- 

 headed," as the s^mibol of age, for the enjoyment of pulque, the intox- 

 icating drink, was in Mexico granted to old age only. It now seems 

 as if the Zapotec name for this day sign also fitted into the framework 

 of these conceptions, for loo, loo-paa, is the root, and may therefore 

 correspond to the Mexican patli, the Maya cib, that is, the puhjue 

 seasoning. In Gerqian there is an undoubted etymologic connection 

 between Wurzel (" root") and Wiirze ("seasoning"). So I believe that 

 the double meaning of the Zapotec name has perhaps more to do with 

 the divergent representation and designation of the sixteenth day sign, 

 as it appears in the Mexican and Maya calendar, than the connection of 

 ideas which links the conceptions of vulture, baldness, old age, and 

 pulque. If I am not mistaken, a divergent representation of this 

 day sign is also actually expressed in the Maya hieroglyph. For we 

 occasionally find a variant of it (y, figure 4) in which the distinguish- 

 ing element is not the pulque symbol, but a feather, or perhaps the 

 night bird itself, the owl (see hh^ figure -I, one of the glyphs of the 

 owl). This would also answer to the above-mentioned Guatemalari 

 name for this day sign. The forms in the books of Chilan Balam (r and 

 aa)^ also seem to indicate or reproduce a feather. 



The seventeenth day sign in the Zapotec calendar is xoo. This 

 corresponds exactly with the Aztec name for it, Olin, "motion", 

 for the Zapotec word xoo combines with the more general meaning 

 "powerful", "strong", "forcible", the special one "earth(iuake'': 



a See Veroffentlichung des Koniglichen Museums fiir Volkerkunde in Berlin, v. 1. pp. 132,133, and 



figs. 61, and 62, p. 169. 



bin my article on "DasTonalamatlder Aubin'schenSammlung" (Coraptercndu du scptiOme session 

 dii Congr^s international d'Am<:-ricanistes, Berlin, 1888), I accepted the in<-<>rr.'(i rcMilini.' riintecatl. 

 All the deductions based on this reading are therefore faulty. 

 7238— No. 28—05 4 



