SELEK] DEITIES AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS 285 



former, and means " strong", *•' powerful ". Ni and pi are prefixes; 

 the second is the prefix just mentioned for animate beings, while the 

 first has a more general meaning and is equivalent to '"he Avho is". 

 There then remain as essential elements in the above appellations 

 only the following: Xee, cilia (xilla, chilla), pij (pije, piyee), nij. 



Of these different expressions, the first two, xee and cilia, are syno- 

 nyms. They are regularly used together as a compound, with the 

 meaning of " beginning '\ " origin ". The fundamental meaning of 

 both is doubtless " growing light ", " morning " ; cilia is the technical 

 expression for "morning"; te-cilla, "in the morning"; zoo-cilia, 

 piye-zoo-cilla, or toa-tillani-copijcha, " the quarter of the heavens be- 

 longing to the morning ", " the east ", or " wdiere the sun rises ". 

 Xilla and chilla are phonetic variants of cilia. We nuist probably 

 accept " bright " as the exact meaning of xee. Alone or accompanied 

 by the root ati xee is often used Avith the meaning " pure ". A direct 

 reference to the morning lies in the words quixee and quixij, properly 

 " the coming morning ", which are used for " to-morrow ", that is, 

 " the next day ". 



"The lord of the beginning" (Coqui-Xee, C^oqui-Cilla), or "the 

 great beginning" (Xee-Tao, Pixee-Tao, Cilia Tao), is thus properly 

 " the lord of growing bright, of the morning ". Translated into Mex- 

 ican it would read Tlauizcalpan Tecutli. The Mexicans used this 

 word for the morning star. 



An entirely different meaning lies in the third word. Pij, or chij, 

 for p and ch are here and frequently in Zapotec interchangeable,* 

 means " to be turned ", " to turn oneself ". From that is developed, 

 on the one hand, the meaning pij, pije, chije, piyee, pee, " that which 

 whirls ", " the wind " ; on the other hand, the meaning quoted above 

 of pije, piye "(rotation, rotation of time), calendar" and chij, chee, 

 yee, " course of time ", " time ", " day ". The latter meaning does not 

 concern us here. But from the meaning, " Avind ", the further ones of 

 "breath", "respiration"^ and "inner vital principle", "soul", 

 "spirit"" have been developed, and w^e must refer to this for the 

 names of the creative deity quoted alcove. Pije-Tao and Pij-Xoo are 

 " the great wind ", " the strong wind " and " the great, the strong, 

 powerful (living) spirit". 



Finally, the fourth word, nij, is the sauie as nija, which means 

 " foot ", " lower end ", " beginning ". Coqui-Nij is therefore only 

 another, a prosaic, expression for the meaning which lies in the name 

 Coqui-Xee, Coqui-Cilla. 



However, the association of ideas which arises from the use for the 



" This interchangeableness evidently occurs in the case before us because the root is 

 properly ii or ee, which is combined with a prefix (originally nominal) for the forma- 

 tion of an enlarged stem. 



* Cobaa, pee, pije, chije, " anhelito " (.Juan de Cordova, Vocabnlario). 



''Pij, chije, " viento, anima, y espiritu " (Juan de C6rdova, Vocabulario). 



