The Zapotec name ape, which, according to Dr Brinton, may properly be translated by “lightning,” or “the lightning flash,” is much like the name for “fire” which prevails throughout Oceanica. Commencing with the Malay api, we trace it through the Oceanic islands in such forms as api, lap, yap, nap, yaf; to New Zealand kapura; Tonga and Samoan afi, and Hawaiian ahi.
In the Zapotec words laari-api-niza and ri-api-laha, translated “relampage, relampaguear,” we find precisely the original form of the Oceanic word for “five.”
Maya, ahau; Tzental, aghual; Quiche-Cakchiquel, hunahpu; Zapotec, lao or loo; Nahuatl, xochitl.
The symbol for this day, except where evidently imperfectly drawn, is subject to but few and slight changes, that given by Landa corresponding to the form found in the codices.
The usual and correct form is shown in [LXVIII], 5-7; slight variations are seen in [LXVIII], 8 and 9. Dr Seler figures several other varieties, but as these are from plates of the Dresden Codex, where the symbol is in columns, where they are evidently hastily made, without any attempt to have more than one or two in a column complete, they are not given here. The character represented in [LXVIII], 10, is from the Tikal inscription, and that in [LXVIII], 11, from the Palenque Tablet.
PL. LXIX SHELL BEARING MAYA GLYPHS
This shell, on which are engraved seven Maya hieroglyphs, was found in Belize and courteously sent to the Bureau of American Ethnology by Sir Alfred Moloney, Governor of British Honduras. The shell is here figured for the purpose of placing it before students of Central American paleography
The Maya and Tzental names signify “king, lord, sovereign.” The derivation of the word has been explained in various ways. Brasseur explains it by “the lord of the collar,” ah-au, as does Dr Brinton; Stoll gives “lord of the cultivated lands,” from the Ixil, avuan, “to sow.” Dr Seler, however, is disposed to derive the name from the masculine prefix ah and uinic or vinak, “man.” His method of reaching this conclusion is as follows: