8. Chuen. The figure is that of a mouth, chi, with fangs; but as that was not very near in sound, a calabash, chu, is sometimes portrayed at the bottom of the circle, within. The mouth of no particular animal is intended, as is evident from allied designs; though Brasseur and Seler claim that it is of a monkey, Schellhas, of a snake, etc. The day name is close in sound to chun, the first, the beginning, and appears occasionally as a numeral (see above, p. 23). Piles of chuen are shown as offerings, e. g., Cod. Dres., pp. 26, 42; Cod. Cort., p. 3. Do they mean “first fruits?”[[141]]
9. Eb. The face of an old man with a peculiar pointed ear mark. The word eb means “ladder;” ebtun, a stone stairway; ebzah, to sharpen or point a flint; this last may explain the sharpened ear and dots.
10. Ben, or Been. Explained by Brasseur as showing a path, be; by Seler, as a mat and a straw roof. To me, it looks like a be che, a wooden bridge, the two supports of which are shown and which was sometimes covered with a straw mat. This rebus gives the first syllable of the name. In Tzental tradition Been was the ancient hero who erected the inscribed stelæ (piedras paradas) at Quixté, near Comitan,[[142]] which the natives still decorate at certain times with garlands of flowers, etc.[[143]]
11. Ix. The usual figure contains a number of black dots. These suggest the word xiix, scattered grain husks. Seler thinks it shows “the round hairy ear and spotted skin of the jaguar.” Brasseur proposed that it conventionally portrays the feminine parts, as ix is the feminine prefix in Maya.
12. Men. The head of an aged person, supposed by Brasseur and Seler to be Mother Earth. Sometimes it is extended worm-like, as in Fig. [43], No. 3.