TORTOISE AND SNAIL IN MAYA LITERATURE" 



It is a well-known fact that at the time when the days and nights 

 are of equal length the sun rises directly in the east and sets in the 

 Avest. A^^iile the length of the days increases these phenomena occur 

 farther to the north and as it decreases farther to the south. At the 

 periods of the longest and of the shortest day an apparent standstill 

 (solstice) takes place in this movement, after which it is reversed. 



The Mayas of Yucatan, Chiapas, and Guatemala, who had attained 

 high culture of a certain kind, seem, if all signs do not deceive us, to 

 have denoted this standstill in their hieroglyphs and the accomj^any- 

 ing pictures by the two creatures who are slowest in their movements, 

 the tortoise and the snail. To men who observe from a purely 

 natural point of view, the two are nearly akin to one another, both by 

 their slowness and by being encased in a shell. The summer solstice, 

 the time of the sun's greatest heat, was assigned to the tortoise, as the 

 larger animal, and the winter solstice to the snail. ; 



AVe will first consider the tortoise and the summer solstice. As the 

 Maya year begins on the IGth of July and contains 18 months of 20 

 days each, besides 5 intercalary days, the summer solstice occurs 

 in the seventeenth month, known as Kayab. If we look at the hiero- 

 glyph of this month we find, as Doctor Schelllias was the first to 

 recognize, only the head of a tortoise with the sign of the sun (kin) 

 in place of an eye (see «, h, c, figure 103, from Biologia Centrali- 

 Americana-Archa?ology, part 8, pages 18 and 72, and part 10, plate 

 77, page 17). In this way it frequently appears in the Dresden 

 manuscri])t, so that no reference is necessary. In this manuscript 

 the center of page 40 is especially noteworth}^ There we find by the 

 hieroglyph a picture representing a human form with a tortoise's 

 head. In each hand this personage holds a torch, one pointing 

 upward and the other downward, a fit symbol for the waxing and 

 then waning days. Above the picture are t^^o astronomic signs, one 

 of which doubtless represents the sun. Before the hieroglyj)h is the 

 numeral 4. It may be merely accidental that the fourth day of the 

 week of thirteen days is also noted below (see d). In the Dresden 

 codex, page 39a, the lightning beast also carries two torches, one point- 

 ing up and the other down (see e). The tortoise is especially frequent 

 in that part of the Madrid Troano codex, long since sei)arated from it, 

 which is now commonlv called Codex Cortesianus. It does not 



" Schild Krote unci Schnecke in tier Miiyaliteratur, Dresden, June 21, 1892. 



423 



