[37]. Like chimal ik, “north wind.” Chimal is the Nahuatl chimalli, shield, so these terms must be of late origin in Maya.
[38]. “Regianse de noche, para conocer la hora, por el lucero, i las cabrillas i los astilejos; de dia, por el medio dia.” Landa, Cosas de Yucatan, cap. 34.
[39]. Entzifferung der Mayahandschriften, No. IV.
[40]. “Las tres estrellas juntas que estan en el signo de Geminis, las quales, con otras, hacen forma de tortuga.” Dicc. de Motul.
[41]. These definitions are given in the Dicc. Motul.
[42]. In Cod. Peres., pp. 18, 19, the sun is shown bitten by birds, snakes, etc. We probably have in this a reference to an eclipse. On a later page I shall show the hieroglyph of the double loop of the rope, which probably signifies the moon in conjunction.
[43]. The account of Hernandez is given by Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, cap. CXXIII. The monk says that the principal lords alone knew the histories of the gods.
[44]. Lizana’s work, of which only one complete copy is known to exist (in Madrid), has been partly republished by Brasseur in the Appendix to Landa, Cosas de Yucatan. He says the votaries came from Chiapas and Tabasco, p. 359.
[45]. The Dicc. Motul defines Hunab Ku thus: “the one true and living God; the greatest of all the gods of Yucatan was so named, and he had no idol, because they said that he could not be represented, seeing that he was incorporeal.” This dictionary, to which I shall often refer, is one of the Maya language, composed at the Convent of Motul, about 1570. A copy is in my possession.
[46]. In my work, American Hero-Myths (Philadelphia, 1882), Chap. IV, “The Hero-gods of the Mayas,” I have treated at considerable length the duplicate traditions relating to Itzamna and Cuculcan.