By the latter fact I would explain the frequent appearance of this sign
on the neck of vases and on haunches of venison (Cod. Tro. 22, etc.). The picture of a necklace shown in the Lienzo de Tlascala, p. 7, will demonstrate how close is the resemblance. That in Landa’s alphabet (see above, p. 15) this sign is given for u, confirms my supposition.
Fig. 36.—Sun and Moon Signs.
The hieroglyphs of the sun, Fig. [36], Nos. 1 and 2, cannot be mistaken. In the latter, the four teeth indicate the biting heat. This design often occurs on war shields. No. 1 is that usually employed in composition. The word for sun is kin, which has the further meanings, “day, light, festival, time, news, to rule;” from it are derived kinal, “heat, hot;” kinam, “strength, bravery, power, poison, fear, veneration;” ah-kin, “a priest,” etc. The kin sign usually indicates a beneficent divinity.
The third sign in Fig. [36] is that for moon (Schellhas). Dr. Seler, however, claims that it is the symbol of “night,” and that where it means 20 (see above, p. 21), it is not derived from u, moon, but from uinic, man. He explains the figure as a human head with a “bleeding eye,” and bare teeth.
In all these points I think he is in error. Maya grammar does not authorize the derivation of uinal from uinic (in which Seler follows Brasseur); but it may come from u, month, uin or uen, “relating to a month.” His statement that the 20–day period was not spoken of as an uinal, is disproved by Landa, who calls it uinal hun ekeh, “a dark month,” to distinguish it from one lighted by the moon. A close examination of most of the drawings will show that the line on which the supposed bare teeth are shown is not that of the mouth, but that of the necklace above mentioned, which has the value u. Cf. Fig. [3], No. 3.
No. 1, Fig. [37], I introduce from Mexican pictography; it is the sacred green jade jewel, the xihuitl, meaning “precious, divine.” By it I explain the very common No. 2, a modification either of it or of the kin sign, constantly associated with deities (on the hand, Cod. Dres., p. 21; on the leg, id., 12; on the back, id., 39; and always on the head-dress of the God of Growth).
