[117]. Cosas de Yucatan, p. 112 (Ed. Madrid). What looks like the kan sign below it is the strap which fastens it.
[118]. Mr. Marshall H. Saville, in a paper published in the Journal of American Folk-lore, September, 1894, and stated to have been read before the American Association the preceding month, entitled “A Comparative Study of the Graven Glyphs of Copan and Quirigua,” observes of the design of the paxche that it “is probably a drum.” No expression to this effect was in the paper as read before the Association, and in the following number of the Journal Mr. Saville concedes that I was the first to offer this identification.
[119]. Duran: Hist. de las Indias, Trat. I, Lam. 29; Trat. II, Lam. 6.
[120]. I quote the explanation from the Dicc. de Motul,—“Paxaan: cosa que esta quebrada, como vasija, cabeza, barco, etc.; cosa que esta desparecida; paaxan in cab, huido se me han mis abejas; paaxan in cuchtel, paaxan in cahal, despoblado se me ha el pueblo, ido se me ha mi gente. Y asi se puede decir de muchachos, de hormigas, humo, niebla, nublados, dolor de cabeza, de la voluntad, etc., anadiendose al paaxan el nombre de la cosa.” In a similar sense the phrases paaxal yit caan, “the edge of the sky is broken,” paaxal u chun caan, “the beginning of the sky is broken,” are translated, “reir el alba, venir el dia, ò amanecer asi.”
[121]. In the Tzental dialect the drum entirely of wood was called culinte; that with a skin stretched across it, cayob. Lara, Vocabulario Tzental, MS.
[122]. A similar design is found on Mexican shields, e. g., Lienzo de Tlascala, plate 12, Cod. Porf. Diaz., lam. s. and on the curious sculptures at Monte Alvan, Oaxaca, figured in Captain Dupaix’s Second Expedition, plate 21, in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities.
[123]. Probably the “morriones de madera,” to which early writers allude as part of the armor of a Maya warrior.
[124]. “Torcer hilo con huso; chich kuch. Hilo torcido; chichin bil kuch.” Dicc. de Motul. Meanings of chich, are: “strong, swift, hard, violent,” also “grandmother.”
[125]. Father Ximenes speaks of the “asiento del rey;” “tenia un docel de pluma; sobre el guarda polvo, tenia cielos de diversos colores, tres, dos, etc.” Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 196. The symbol is therefore one of power and authority, rather than of a mere inanimate object.
[126]. See Antonio Peñafiel, Nombres Geograficos de Mexico; Estudio Jeroglifico, passim (Mexico, 1885). I would especially recommend this easily obtainable work to the student who would familiarize himself with the method of “ikonomatic” writing as it was used by the ancient Mexicans. Another series of admirable examples are in the “Lienzo de Tlascala,” published by the Junta Colombina (Mexico, 1892), under the editorship of the distinguished antiquary, Don Alfredo Chavero.