Several names similar to it are found in the Peten district. On Lake Yaxta, are the ruins of the very ancient city Napeten, and that lake may have once been called “Chac-napeten,” “the water of Napeten.” Again, on the road from Peten to Bacalar is the town Chacnabil, and the compound Chacnabiltan would mean “toward or in the direction of Chacnabil” (see Itinerarios y Leguarios que proceden de Merida, etc., p. 15, Merida, 1851). The Itzas always remembered the Peten district, and when they met with reverses in northern Yucatan, they returned to it and established an important State there, which was not destroyed until the last decade of the seventeenth century.
[Maya]
[English]3. Hunpel haab minan ti hokal haab, “one year lacking from five score years.”
The name Ahmekat is probably an old form for ahmeknah or ahmektan, both of which are given in the Diccionario de Motul for chieftain, leader, captain.
[Maya]
[English]4. Lai tun, the relative lai with the particle tun, which is called by Beltran a “particula adornativa.” uchci is the aorist of the defective verb uchul, uchi, uchuc, to happen, to take place, come to pass. Emob is the third plural of emel, to descend, to disembark, arrive. Pio Perez translates the phrase ca emob uay lae, “luego bajaron aqui.” As this was written in the province of Mani, the “here” now refers in a narrower sense to the vicinity of the writer. The word chuulte I take to be an error of transcription for uchci, as it is so translated by Pio Perez. It is noteworthy that the word chicpahci, “discovered,” conveys the sense that Chichen Itza was already in existence when the migration here recorded reached northen Yucatan. It is from chicul, a sign or mark by which something is recognized.
Of the proper names in this section Bakhalal, “the canebrakes” (halal, the cane, bak, a roll or enclosure), is the modern province of Bacalar, on the east coast of the peninsula. Ziyan caan appears to be used as a synonym of it, or else refers to a part of it. Its meaning is a picturesque reference to the view from the sea shore, where the horizon is clearly defined, and the sky seems to rise from the water, “the birth of the sky;” Ziyan, birth, caan, sky.
The name Chi Cħeen Itza was that of one of the grandest ancient cities of Yucatan. Cħeen is the name applied to a tract of low-lying fertile land, especially suitable to the production of cacao (Berendt); chi is edge or border. It is therefore a name referring to a locality, “on the border of the cħeen of the Itzas.” Cħeen also means well or cistern, and another derivation is “at the mouth of the well,” as chi can also be rendered “mouth;” either of these is appropriate to the features of the locality, as it is a fertile low-lying tract with two large natural reservoirs near by.
[Maya]
[English]5. Paxi, from paaxal, a neuter form of the active verb pa, to break in pieces; it means “to go to pieces, to fall in ruins, to be depopulated or deserted.” Applied to a city it is often translated “to be destroyed,” but it does not convey quite so positive a meaning. Kuyan uincob, “men of God,” from Ku the general name for Divinity. Chichen Itza was one of the chief centres of religious life in Yucatan, and its priests were esteemed among the most learned in the peninsula.
The name Chanputun, Champoton, or, reversed, Potonchan, is derived by Gomara from the Nahuatl potonia, to smell badly, and chan, house (in composition). Elsewhere, however, we find it in the form Chakanputun, and this is Maya. Chakan is the term applied to a grassy plain, a savanna, and it was especially applied to the ancient province in which the city of Ho, now Merida, was situated, as appears from the following entry in the Diccionario de Motul, MS.
“Ahchakan: el que es de Mérida, o de los pueblos de aquella comarca, que se llama Chakan.”
The correct form of the name is probably Chakan peten, the savanna region.