seler] 



UNITY OF CIVILIZATION 



271 



corresponds to the system that is followed by the Mexicans and 

 Mayas. Cocij, or tobi cocij, is said to have been the name of such 

 a division of 13 days, " as we say, a month, a division of time "." 

 Cocij means '' the distributor '\ Its primitive meaning is in all 

 probability the same as cocij o, and it, therefore, in all likelihood refers 

 also to the god of rain and of the points of the compass. The word 

 has a general meaning of '' time 'V and means specially " a period of 

 20 days " ; and, indeed, in its narrowest sense " 20 days in the past '", 



Fig. 59. The twenty day signs, from the Borgian codex. 



" 20 days ago ", while '" 20 days in the future ", " in 20 days ", was 

 designated by huecij, or cacij. 



The separate days of the cocij, according to Juan de Cordova, 

 had each its special name, which was designated by the picture of 

 an animal, as an eagle, a monkey, snake, lizard, deer, hare, or the like. 

 Twenty such animal pictures are said to have been employed and 

 their signs to have been assigned to and painted upon the different 

 parts or members of a deer.'^ This observation is especially inter- 



" Juan de Cordova, Arte, p. 202. * 



"As cocij cogfta : tiempo encogido en quo no se puede trabajar ("fearful time in which 



tiempo de mieses, frutas, o de 

 of wealth ") ; Coo yoocho, piy& 



one could not worlt") ; cocij collapa, cocij layna, cocij 



siego, o de algo (" time of corn, fruit, or of harvesting 



y(iocho, cocij yfiocho : tiempo enfermo, o de pestilencia : ("time of sickness, or of pesti 



lence"). 



' .Juan de Cordova, Arte, p. 203, 



