Maya, men; Tzental, tziquin; Quiche-Cakchiquel, tziquin; Zapotec, naa or ñaa; Nahuatl, quauhtli.
Landa’s figure is so imperfect in this case that it is not given. The usual forms and variations are shown in plate [LXVI], 50 to 54. The last two, which show the widest variation, are from the Dresden Codex.
The Tzental and Quiche-Cakchiquel, tziquin, signifies “bird” in general, and the Nahuatl, quauhtli, “eagle.” The Maya and Zapotec names are more difficult to bring into harmony with the others. Dr Brinton thinks that the Zapotec name is derived from na, “to know, to understand, to be able through knowledge.” This, he says, “exactly corresponds to the Maya men, which means to understand, to be able to do ...; hence in this latter tongue, ah-men means the man of knowledge, the wise one, the master of wisdom.” “The bird,” he adds, “was the symbol of wisdom and knowledge.”
Dr Seler says it is difficult to determine the Yucatan name. However, from the form of the symbol he concludes it is intended to represent an aged face, by which he connects it with an aged goddess, Ixchel, the companion of Itzamna, and with certain Mexican deities. In his subsequent paper he says the Zapotec name furnishes linguistic proof of the above conclusion. “I had concluded,” he says, “that the Maya hieroglyph represented the image of the old earth mother, the universally worshipped goddess called Tonantzin, ‘our mother,’ who is connected in the Codex Vienensis with the eagle symbol.” He then adds that the Zapotec term naa or ñaa signifies “mother,” and thus finds the connection between the calendar names.
It is probable we will not be far wrong if we assume that reference to the bird as used in this connection is not so much to it as an animal as an augury, sign, or portent. The birds introduced in the Dresden and Troano codices, especially those on pages 16, 17, and 18 of the former and 18* and 19* of the latter, are supposed to have reference to auguries. In the “Vocabulario Castellano Zapoteco,” under “Ave,” we find mani-biici, “ave agorera.” In the Dresden Codex (17b) one of the birds introduced as playing this rôle is an eagle, or some rapacious species resembling an eagle or vulture. Although Seler believes the symbol to have been derived from the aged wrinkled female face, yet he closes his observations on this day in his first article as follows:
I think the reference to the eagle is very distinctly indicated [referring to a number of glyphs accompanying or indicating an eagle-like bird]. We can understand that these hieroglyphs were annexed as attributes of the deities. But how is it that figures 687-689 [same as our plate [LXVIII], 42] serve as a seat for the Chac? Now Chac [he refers to the long-nose god] is not really a god of water, but of rain; the rain-producing storm cloud is his vehicle; the storm bird is his beast of burden on which he rides.
It follows from this, notwithstanding his supposition in regard to the origin of the symbol, that he looks upon it as signifying the eagle, or bird. However, the explanations given by Drs Brinton and Seler of the Maya name fail to make a satisfactory connection between the names in the different calendars.
Not only do we find birds introduced on the pages of the Troano and Dresden codices above referred to, apparently for the purpose of indicating augury, but on Dres. 69b we see the long-nose god (probably Itzamna) sitting on the glyph [LXVIII], 42, holding a bird in his arms.
Also on Dres. 73b, where the groups are composed of short columns, each apparently relating to storms, winds, etc, we see in the right-hand group the bird and men-like glyph associated. Whether these are in fact men glyphs is a question not yet determined. I am as yet unable to interpret satisfactorily any of the compound characters of which these supposed men glyphs form a part. If the form shown in [LXVI], 28, the lower portion of which is substantially the same as Landa’s first l, is to be accepted as equivalent to [LXVI], 55, then it is probable that the symbol of the day does not indicate the phonetic value of the name. This would lead to the supposition that the name men is not the original one applied to the day, or that the symbol has been changed. I am inclined to believe one or the other of these suppositions to be correct. If the symbol could be identified in the inscriptions, I would adopt the first supposition until substantial evidence of its erroneousness could be produced.