220 DAY SYMBOLS OF THE MAYA YEAR (ETH. ANN. 16 
remarks, “rather brings to mind the idea of hanging,” often resembling 
a buneh of grapes. 
I take for granted the symbol, when standing for the day, is not 
pictorial or ideographic, but is adopted for its sound value. If this 
supposition be correct, then it must be a conventional representation 
of something the Maya name of which is ik or that has substantially 
this phonetic value. The form of the Mexican symbol, as above indi- 
cated, shows that in selecting it reference was had to the bird bill, to 
which possibly may have been added the idea of blowing foreibly from 
the mouth, a common method of indicating wind. (See for example the 
bird-mouth female, Tro. 25b, where the Zk symbol is present.) But 
it seems impossible to find in the symbol any reference to the bird, 
bird bill, or the act of blowing, or in fact anything indicating, even by 
a conventionalized figure, wind, air, spirit, or breath. Hence it is 
reasonable to conelude that it has been selected only because of the 
resemblance in sound of the thing it represents to the name Jk, I 
would be inclined to believe that the most usual form is the represen- 
tation of a tooth or two teeth, the name being used for its phonetic 
value only, but for the very troublesome fact that I can find no name 
for tooth in Maya to sustain this view. If we could suppose it to be a 
conventionalized ideogram of an insect, we would obtain the desired 
sound, as Perez explains ikel by ‘“bicho, insecto, polilla, gorgojo.” 
It must, however, be confessed that none of these suggestions are 
satisfactory. 
The following additional references to the bird as a symbol of the 
wind are appropriate at this point. 
Not only is the day Phecatl represented in the Mexican codices by a 
bird’s head, but we see a bird perched upon a tree at each of the cardinal 
points on plate 44 of the Fejervary Codex. Birds are also perched on 
three of the four trees representing the cardinal points on plate 65 of 
the Vatican Codex. 
In speaking of the myths of the Muyscas, Dr Brinton! says: 
In the cosmogonical myths of the Muyseas, this [alluding to a certain name] was 
the home or sonrce of light, and was a name applied to the demiurgie force. In 
that mysterious dwelling, so their account ran, light was shut up and the world lay 
in primeval gloom. Ata certain time the light manifested itself, and the dawn of 
the first morning appeared, the light being carried to the four quarters of the earth 
by great black birds, who blew the air and winds from their beaks. 
The Javanese also assigned a bird to each of the cardinal points, 
doubtless with substantially the same mythological concept. 
Commenting on a passage of the Popol Vuh, in which the name Voc 
is mentioned, the same author? says: 
The name Joc is that of a species of bird (Cakchiquel Faku). Coto describes it as 
having green plumage, and a very large and curved bill, apparently a kind of parrot. 
Elsewhere in the myth (page 70) it is said to be the messenger of Hurakan, resting 
neither in the heaven nor in the underworld, but in a moment flying to the sky, to 
Hurakan, who dwells there. 

! American Hero Myths, p. 222. 
2 Names of the Gods in Kiche Myths, p. 22. 
