ss 



MISCELLANY. 



There are many things I desire to state that in a brief abridgment like this cannot be 

 brought under the general heads to which they properly belong, so I shall bunch them 

 together without any particular order, though endeavoring to preserve arrangement 

 enough to avoid confusion. Some of this matter might have been forced into preceding 

 chapters, and some might be crowded into sections that will follow ; but as a portion 

 of it would not be pertinent in either place, I have concluded to let it all go into one 

 general lot of miscellany. 



One of the most perplexing questions concerning the inscriptions is — What do the 

 subfixes to the day and chuen symbols mean 1 That which supports the day characters 

 is so like the sign for 72 accompanying the ahau and katun symbols that they might 

 be supposed to be identical, though it is not quite obvious if the centerpiece in the 

 day subfix is intended to be angular. But 72, or any other multiple of 9 or 18, can 

 have no significance, that I can conceive, in connection with an ordinary day sign. 

 The figures that usually run with abstract day symbols are 13 and 20. The number 

 of the cardinal days, the number in a day round, the number in a year — none of them 

 is divisible by 9 or 18. As the day symbols in the codices have no subfixes, as subfixes 

 are but seldom attached to the day signs at Palenque, as the character of the subfixes, 

 wherever they occur, never varies, I am inclined to think that they have no significance 

 whatever, but are mere pedestals, such as support so many other objects — only that in 

 this case they are more ornate than usual. There is a possibility, however, that this 

 subfix, which is distinctively the badge of the ahau and katun, may have been attached 

 to other time symbols when they were partisans of those periods in a chronological 

 reckoning — just as all the members of a team wear the same colors in a sporting 

 contest. 



I know of but few cases where the day symbols have affixes, other than the ordinary 

 numerals, that qualify their meaning beyond a doubt. Two of these are where the 

 date is indicated by the signs already spoken of to be the beginning of an ahau or a 



