224 DAY SYMBOLS OF THE MAYA YEAR (ETH. ANN. 16 
character is the akbal symbol (though not complete) surrounded by a cir- 
cle of dots. This circle, Dr Seler contends, often indicates flames which 
consume the object it surrounds, or light which emanates from that 
object. Ifthewhole is butasimple ideogram, itmustbe taken, as a whole, 
as indicating a particular mythological personage; otherwise itis in part 
phonetic, or given after the Mexican rebus method of denoting names. 
If not a simple ideogram, this prefix is most probably used in some 
sense phonetically with reference chiefly to the k sound. The eircle of 
dots is used here probably to indicate the vowel sound w or 0. But 
in making this suggestion I do not by any means intend to suggest 
that the Maya scribes had reached that stage of advancement where 
they could indieate each sound by acharacter. All I wish to assert is 
that I find in numerous cases characters accompanied by this circle of 
dots where the proper interpretation appears to be a word having as 
its prominent vowel element wu or 0. Hence the inference that there is 
some relation between this circle and these vowel sounds—this and 
nothing more. 
In Dres. 16¢ is the symbol shown in plate Lxtv, 49. This, as I have 
shown elsewhere,! represents the kukuitz or Quetzal figured below the 
text. Here are encircling lines of dots, and in the Maya name the wu 
sound repeated; and here also is Landa’s ku. In Dres. 47¢ the symbol 
for the month Mol is given as shown in plate Lxtv, 50. Here again is 
seen the circle of dots, and the vowel appears to hold good in other 
places. We see it in Landa’s first 0, It will also assist usin giving at 
least a consistent interpretation to the strange character shown in plate 
LXIV, 51, which occurs repeatedly on plate 19 of the Tro. Codex. In the 
pictures below are individuals apparently, and as interpreted by most 
authorities, engaged in grinding paint or other substance or in making 
fire. The right half of the glyph, including the circle of dots and cross- 
hatching might, according to the value heretofore given these elements, 
be rendered by huck, ‘to rub, grind, pound, pulverize;” which certainly 
agrees with the interpretation usually given the pictures below. Pos- 
sibly the whole glyph may be interpreted by cecelhuchah, ‘to triturate.” 
While this, so far as it relates to the left portion of the glyph, is a 
mere suggestion, it agrees with the fact that the ornamented or cross- 
barred! border is found in the symbol for Cib, and the three dots with 
Landa’s e? 

}American Anthropologist, July, 1893, pp. 258-259. 
“Dr Brinton (Primer, ete, p. 93) explains it as the symbol of a drum. He remarks that ‘‘in a more 
highly conventionalized form we find them in the Cod. Troano thus [giving plate Lxtv, 51], which has 
been explained by Pousse, Thomas, and others as making fire or as grinding paint. Itis obviously 
the dzacatan, what I have called the ‘pottery decoration’ around the figures, showing that the body 
of the drum was earthenware.’ Yet (p. 130 and fig. 75) Dr. Brinton explains this identical group or 
paragraph as a representation of the process of making fire from the friction of two pieces of wood. 
It seems to me clear that this glyph represents something in the picture, and not the personage, as there 
isa special glyph for this. A comparison of the groups in the two divisions of this plate (Tro. 19) and 
plates 5 and 6 b of the Dresden Codex shows that the glyph refers to the work or action indicated by 
the pictures. ‘Chat it refers to something in or indicated by the pictures, and that no drum is figured, 
will, I think, be admitted by most students of these codices. 

