[107]. In the Archives de la Société Américaine de France, for 1887, pp. 27, 28, 113, etc.
[108]. In this connection I would call the especial attention of students to the article by Dr. Schellhas, “Vergleichende Studien auf dem Felde der Maya-Alterthümer,” in the Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, 1890. He there illustrates their methods of tattooing, wearing the hair, personal ornaments, costumes, utensils, etc., as shown in the Codices and other remains.
[109]. On the interpretation of these and allied signs the student should consult Garrick Mallery, Sign Language among the North American Indians, in Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, Vol. 1, and W. P. Clark, The Indian Sign Language (Philadelphia, 1885). It is not possible for me here to give more than the most meager details on this important topic.
[110]. Bird’s wing in Maya is xik. Close in sound is xikal, queen (señora principal, Dicc. Motul). The first wing feather was also called “a knife” (la primera pluma de la ala del halcon se llama “cuchillo maestre,” “u cicil ulum.” Dicc. de San Francisco).
[111]. In the museum of the University of Pennsylvania there is a beautiful vase from Guatemala, with a vitrified surface; on it a face and head, with a necklace entirely of this sign, repeated in a pattern.
[112]. “Tup; ciertas arracadas de palo antiguas; y llamanse ahora las arracadas ó zarcillos.” Dicc. Motul.
[113]. In Maya a comb is xel. This as a verb means “to cut in two;” and as a numeral prefix it divides in half unities less than 20; as xel u yox kinbe, “two-and-a-half-day journeys.” Ikonomatically, the comb sign may have these significations. Landa gives it as the sign for ca, perhaps, as Valentini suggests, for cac, to pull out hair.
[114]. Uil also means anything favorable or advantageous—“cosa provechosa,” Dic. Motul. The word u never means “vase,” as Prof. Thomas has repeatedly stated, following the unreliable Brasseur.
[115]. “Los navajones para los sacrificios, de los quales tenian buen recaudo los sacerdotes,” p. 107, Ed. Madrid.
[116]. Relacion de la Villa de Valladolid (1579), Chap. XIV. I am aware that some variants of this glyph have a striking resemblance to a penis flaccidus cum testiculis; but after close comparison I have rejected this rendering. Thomas sees in the two shells “tortillas.”