The hand contributes to some of the most numerous hieroglyphs in the Mayan writing; and the significant poses assigned it in the pictures and statues prove how expressive it was to this people.
The forms presented in Fig. [30] by no means exhaust its delineations. They are drawn from gesture-speech and each is significant. No. 1, from the Cod. Cort., is the usual sign “to give;” No. 2, from the Cod. Tro., shows it in hasty writing; No. 3 is the hand closing (“la main qui se ferme,” Brasseur). It is the sign for the day manik, and is explained by Dr. Seler, “to eat;” but I take it to be the rebus for mach, “to grasp” (“asir, tomar con las manos,” Dic. Motul). No. 4, the hand closed, thumb downward (pollice verso), has probably an inauspicious significance (very common, e. g., Cod. Per., pp. 2, 3, 6, 7); No. 5 is the “supporting hand” (very frequent, usually in composition); No. 6 is intended to show the hand, palm upward, forming a cup (Cod. Dres., p. 40, Cod. Tro., p. 21),—it would signify “offering;” No. 6½, from the stelæ of Copan, must mean union or friendship. The two hands held as No. 7 occur repeatedly in Cod. Dres., pp. 6, 7, in the Tro. and Cort. often thus,
, to which Thomas, by means of his “key,” assigns the wonderful meaning, “a meat pie”! Nos. 8 and 9 are explained by Seler as the supporting hand; No. 10 shows the hand and arm pointing; No. 12, Cod. Tro., 30, 31, is the index finger extended; No. 11, Cort., p. 28, shows the closed hand as a suffix to the sign ik.[[109]]
Phonetically the hand is kab, which also means “arm, finger, juice, sap, tears;” and as a rebus it could stand for kaba, name.
By some writers all the signs, Fig. [32] are supposed to represent the eye. Nos. 1 and 2 may also stand for a tooth, and for the small bells worn as ornaments. No. 3 has been called the “weeping eye,” and by Brasseur “une hache;” but I take it to be the space within the closing hand (Figs. [31], No. 3). No. 4 shows the eyelashes of the closed eye, and signifies sleep or death. No. 5 is the “ornamented” or “serpent” eye, and, according to Thomas, is the characteristic of a deity. Nos. 6 and 8 are supposed by Seler to be the eye torn out. They are extremely common affixes. Schellhas explains No. 6 as “the head and creeping foot of a snail.” I am persuaded that it is a bird’s wing, or the chief feather of a wing, and means “superior,” “supremacy,” or something of that kind.[[110]] For that reason it always appears in the sign of Kin ich ahau. No. 8 I regard also as copied from a feather ornament.[[111]] No. 7, called by Seler the “bleeding eye,” I take to be a sign for stars.
Fig. 32.—The Eye and Similar Figures.
In Maya, ich, the eye, also means “face” and “twins.”
The design, Fig. [33], No. 1, abundant in the Codices and on the stone and ceramic remains, shows eyes, but is believed by Förstemann to represent the planet Venus, and to be a variant of Fig. 37, No. 4. Seler thinks it an ornamental kin (see Fig. [36]). It is carved on the great tortoise of Copan, and Nos. 2, 3, and 4 are from the pottery of that city, on which it is the most common glyph I have noted. In No. 5, from Cod. Dres., p. 57, it is postfixed to a human figure reversed. Brasseur explains it as “the spectacles of Tezcatlipoca,” and for a name, we may call it “the spectacles glyph.”