52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



snake, a.s well as d^ which in the Dresden manuscript in several places 

 serves as a seat or footstool for Chac, and the element Caban generally 

 as the heavenly seat, I gave the wrong emphasis to descent from above 

 instead of to descent. In fact, this hgure, likev/;, figure 4, which serves 

 in other parts of the Dresden manuscript as the seat of C'hac, should 

 be defined as "the lower place", the "earth". Indeed, the face of 

 the old earth goddess is clearly visible in w^ figure 4, while the tigure 

 of the hieroglvph Caban, as I stated above, shows us the goddess's hair. 

 I will also mention /, figure 5, which in the Troano codex, page 25*J, 

 accompanies the figure of the tobacco-smoking god of heaven. Accord- 

 ing to a view still prevailing in Yucatan, the Balam, the gods of the four 

 cardinal points, or the four winds, are great smokers, and shooting 

 stars are merely the burning stumps of gigantic cigars which these 

 beings fling down from heaven. And when it thunders and lightens, 

 the Balitm are striking fire to light their cigars." Grlyph i gives us the 

 element of the stone and the element of descent from on high. The 

 popular belief just described explains therefore in a simjjle way these 

 singular pictures and the hieroglyphs which accompany them. In 

 another place (Troano codex, page 26*16) the smoker is described in the 

 text b}^ the hieroglyph k. This is either to be translated as " the noc- 

 turnal " (see the hieroglyph Akbal) or as "the red", Chac, For I 

 have found the element Akbal in various places (for instance, in the 

 Cortes codex, page lOd) used as a substitute for u, figure 1, Chac, " red". 



The eighteenth day sign in the Zapotec calendar bears the name 

 opa or gopa. This is undoubtedly the same word as copa, " cokr', 

 "the cold"; taca-copa, tipee-copa, "to be cold''; tix6pa-ya, "I am 

 cold." This name agrees with the meaning of the sign in the Mexican 

 calendar (Tecpatl, "flint") and with the pictures of the Maya hiero- 

 gl^'phs (Ezanab), which also represent the stone which is struck, the 

 tip of the flint; for the notions "stone", "tip", " cold" are merged, 

 one into the other, in the conceptions and language of the Mexicans. 

 Itztlacoliuhqui, the god of stone, is also the god of cold, of infatuation, 

 and of sin. 



The Zapotec name for the nineteenth day sign is harder to interpret. 

 After removing the prefixes, we have the forms ape, appe, aape, gappe. 

 This is probably to be resolved into aa-pee or caa-pee, and this would 

 signify "covered with clouds" or " cloud covering". Now, this does 

 not answer directly to the Mexican name Quiauitl, " rain", but it does 

 to the form of the Maya hieroglj^ph {p^ figure 5), which, as I have 

 shown in my former work, contains an abbreviation of the head of 

 the moan bird (^^ /, and ///, figure 4), the mythical conception of the 

 mu3'al, the "cloud covering of the heavens." The name also seems. to 

 correspond to the other Mexican names, for the sign in Guatemala 

 was ayotl, " tortoise"; for the cloud was also expressed by the picture 



<i Brinton, Folklore Journal, v. 1. 



