568 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



shown by the large section devoted to it in Codex Troano-Cortesianus. 

 The frequent eombination of the signs kan and iniix (with wnter and 

 pipes as affixes) seems to signify food and drink, a meal, a banciuet. 

 They occur almost exclusively in the tonalamatl, and not in the 

 astronomic representations. The Maya glyph unquestionably denotes 

 a female breast. 



All this seems, therefore, to point to a deity of the honey industry 

 or of pulque. Schellhas has not yet discovered such a god, but I hope 

 to find one farther on. 



I must call attention to the fact that, first by Brasseur de Bour- 

 bourg, then by Seler and others, a black god, Ek-chuah, is mentioned 

 as patron of the day Imix, as protector of cacao planters, travelers, 

 and merchants. Yet I avoid connecting this god by a factitious train 

 of thought with the desired pulque god, and leave the question open 

 for the future. 



19. Ik, z. The Maya word ik is the same as the igh of the Tzen- 

 tals and the ik of the Kiches and Cakchikels, and corresponds in mean- 

 ing also to the Aztec Ehecatl. Owing to this agreement it is unnec- 

 essary for my purjDose to examine the various Zapotec expressions for 

 this day. But the common meaning is that of wind, breath, air (in 

 the jDictorial representations also that of fire, as a particular kind of 

 air), then, figuratively, that of life and spirit. 



The glyph of the day has various forms. The most primitive 

 appears to me to be the rectilinear one, as it occurs particularly in 

 the inscriptions, and also in the eye included in the glyph of the god. 

 The day series of the tonalamatl readily suggest a burning torch or 

 candle, but this rectilinear shape reminds one of the tree of Jife or of 

 the sacrificial tree. In addition to this other forms occur^ which are 

 entirely unintelligible to me (see, for example, Brinton, Essays of an 

 Americanist, page 271). 



The deity of the daj' is decidedly god B, Cukulcan. or Quetzalcoatl, 

 the bird-serpent, this most universal and most diversely busy god of 

 the Mayas, especially of the Tzentals. In place of the eye this glyph 

 displays the rectilinear figure of ik, which alone is conclusive. The 

 picture of the god itself may, by the long nose, have reference to 

 breath, just as god K, by his ornamental nose, denotes the blast of the 

 storm. 



20. Akbal, aa. In Kiche-Cakchikel this day is called b}^ the same 

 name. It means darkness, night, like the Zapotec (luela. In Nahuatl 

 we have Calli, '" the house ", ])robably in the sense of an abode for 

 the night and on account of the darkness prevailing within it. In 

 Tzental the day is called Votan, after the demigod, the so-called 

 " heart of the nation '', who built a dark house in Tlazolayan for the 

 sacred objects of his cult. He answers to the Aztec Tepeyollotl 



