August 19, 1892.] 



SCIENCE, 



lOI 



iag up hills, or working bicycles or pedals, or standing 

 on tip-toe, or dancing, tires out the calf, produces pain in 

 the hamstring muscle and a weakness in the back. These 

 conditions are not rarely ascribed to ingrowing toe- 

 nails, corns, or a tender foot, while in fact they are the 

 legitimate outgrowths of slowly developing anatomical de- 

 formities. Added to the improper shape of the shoe and its 



Figs. 4 and S.— Adults' feet, showing the advanced stages of deformity. Scale, 

 oue-eigth of an Inch to one inch. 



poor construction, we have the element of bad leather with 

 stiff inflexible joining, all going as important factors of the 

 development of the deformity. The question of the arrest 

 of these changes, the prevention of deformity, lies, of course, 

 entirely in properly made shoes. The shoe should certainly 

 he the same width from the metatarso-phalangeal articula- 

 lio.i to the tip of the toe. Crowding should be prevented. 

 The soles should be flat, no heels to jab the foot forward 

 upon the toes. The weight should be transmitted directly 

 to the plantar arch, and not to the ball of the foot. Stock- 

 ings should be wide and not taper at the toes, having a uni- 

 form width as in the shoe from the ball to the tip of the toe; 

 they should be seamless in the area coming in contact with 

 the toes and soles. The texture of both the stocking and the 

 shoe should be pliable, and neither should be worn long 

 enough to become saturated with moisture. 



PHONETIC VALUE OF THE CH'I GLYPH IN THE 

 MAYA GRAPHIC SYSTEM. 



BY mLBORNE T. CRESSON, A.M., M.D. 



The Ch'i glyph, which figures so extensively both in the 

 hieratic and demotic script of the Mayas, seems to have 

 been used in the most archaic forms of their graphic system, 

 as it appears in their altar tablets of Copan (see Fig. 3 of 

 the illustration accompanying this article), and it is also to 

 be remarked among the ikouomatlc decorations of various 

 ancient Maya cities. 



ChH, in Maya, means "to seize" Or ''hold" with pins, 

 thorns, or claws, or other sharp-pointed objects; this would 

 be clearly ikonomatic for Ch'ic or ChH. In 1876, while in 

 Paris, it was my good fortune to examine, at the library' of 

 the Ecole des Beaux Arts, an excellent photograph of the 

 tablet to the left-hand side of the doorway of Casa, No. 3, 

 Palenque, which, in a previous article published in Science, 

 I have suggested is probably a bas-relief of Kukuitz. The 

 design and technique of this masterpiece of the Maya scribe- 

 sculptor's art is especially fine, particularly the ikonomatic 

 decorations which ornament the figure of the god. The 

 head-dress of the figure represents feathers, maize leaves, 

 the quetzal head, and other decorations, notably that of a 

 heron {Baac-hd) in the act of pinching a fish [cay) in its 

 powerful bill. The suggestion of Baac-hd in the act of pinch- 

 ing cay in its bill (Fig. 6), although it recalled by means of 

 the various phonetic components of the crane's bead, neck, 

 and eye, that the scribe intended to suggest to one's mind ha- 

 caba, or hach kabah, or it may be ah kaba, also sug- 

 gested that chH, " to pinch," "bite," was implied by the ac- 

 tion of the heron's bill. It would make the sentence more 

 complete, for the fish, cay, is, in fact, but a determinative, 



showing that ch\i is intended rather than chH, thus giving 

 us "Ba-haa-cha" or "haS-chS, ba," an excellent rebus-like 

 suggestion of a7i fca&a, which in Maya =" he who has a 

 name." I notice that in the Casa, No. 2, tablet, Palenque, 

 that the main clouee of Brasseur calls attention to "ah 

 kaba," and a sculptured vase recently discovered in Yuca- 

 tan, now in the Peabody Museum, has this same hieroglyph 

 incised upon it in connection with other components which 

 suggest xma-kaba-kin= " days without names." The so- 

 called "nail-head " component of this glyph seems to have 

 the phonetic value of d. It is absent, however, on the vase 

 just referred to. In order to And out whether the chH glyph 

 was used in other localities, a reference to Catherwood's 

 drawing of the glyphs on the top of an altar at Copan, and 

 various other sculptured tablets, indicates that it was used 

 repeatedly by the Maya scribes. In one instance, at Copan, 

 it recalls Chikin, the '" west" or "sun-bitten." (Fig. 13). 



The chH glyph has numerous variants, and seems to be 

 accompanied by determinatives so as to indicate the vowel 

 combinations, such as ch(%, chci, chH, cho, chii. We have 

 called attention to a supposed determinative in a previous 

 article published in Science, and one has already been re- 

 ferred to in this article. Where the glyph has no determina- 

 tive whatever, as in Pig. 1, I accept it as ch\ If accom- 

 panied by the small circle, as in Fig. 2, I use it as chH. 

 The sign of May orientation (Pig. 13), Chikin, the " west " 

 or " sun-bitten," is an instance where this phonetic value 

 has worked successfully. Where the ch'i glyph accom- 

 panied by two small circles (Fig. 15) placed on either of the 

 tooth-like attachments (Fig. 16) which generally accompanies 

 it, the phonetic value ch'u is suggested (see Figs. 4 and 5). 

 Fig. 19 gives an admirable example of where two of the 

 count-numerals are attached to the glyph; and, accepting it 

 as a determinative, we obtain the phonetic value ch'd. 



The ch'i glyph sometimes appears as shown in Fig. 18, 

 and the resemblance of it to that of the day-sign, manik 

 (Fig. 10), is striking. Manik has the same components, 



'» 'ijl. G' 



S^e^' 



only the outer line of the glyph encloses it completely, while 

 in the ch'i glyyh the two ends of the pinching claw, or 

 hand, are left open. Where it is closed we have a glyph 

 formed, as in Pig. 20, which is not unlike the draughtsman's 

 T-square, and seems to have the phonetic value ma. The 

 T-square glyph (Fig. 20) is used at Palenque, small ventila- 

 tors in the walls of one of the houses being shaped like it. 

 At Ch'i Ch'een-Itza it appears as an ikonomatic decora- 

 tion on the walls of a temple, and the small component 

 (Fig. 11), so often used in the Maya glyphs, also appears as 

 an ikonomatic decoration at Ch'i, Ch'een, Itsa. Its phonetic 



