Chapter IV: Introduction: Contents (1)

1. THE NAME "MAYA." 2. THE MAYA LINGUISTIC FAMILY. 3. ORIGIN OF THE MAYA TRIBES. 4. POLITICAL CONDITION AT THE TIME OF THE CONQUEST. 5. GRAMMATICAL OBSERVATIONS. 6. THE NUMERAL SYSTEM. 7. THE CALENDAR. 8. ANCIENT HIEROGLYPHIC BOOKS. 9. MODERN MAYA MANUSCRIPTS. 10. GRAMMARS AND DICTIONARIES OF THE LANGUAGE.

Sec. 1. _The Name "Maya."_

In his second voyage, Columbus heard vague rumors of a mainland westward from Jamaica and Cuba, at a distance of ten days' journey in a canoe.[9-1] Its inhabitants were said to be clothed, and the specimens of wax which were found among the Cubans must have been brought from there, as they themselves did not know how to prepare it.

During his fourth voyage (1503-4), when he was exploring the Gulf southwest from Cuba, he picked up a canoe laden with cotton clothing variously dyed. The natives in it gave him to understand that they were merchants, and came from a land called MAIA.[10-1]

This is the first mention in history of the territory now called Yucatan, and of the race of the Mayas; for although a province of similar name was found in the western extremity of the island of Cuba, the similarity was accidental, as the evidence is conclusive that no colony of the Mayas was found on the Antilles.[10-2] These islands were peopled by a wholly different stock, the remnants of whose language prove them to have been the northern outposts of the Arawacks of Guiana, and allied to the great Tupi-Guaranay stem of South America.

MAYA was the patrial name of the natives of Yucatan. It was the proper name of the northern portion of the peninsula. No single province bore it at the date of the Conquest, and probably it had been handed down as a generic term from the period, about a century before, when this whole district was united under one government.

The natives of all this region called themselves _Maya uinic_, Maya men, or _ah Mayaa_, those of Maya; their language was _Maya than_, the Maya speech; a native woman was _Maya c[=h]uplal_; and their ancient capital was _Maya pan_, the MAYA banner, for there of old was set up the standard of the nation, the elaborately worked banner of brilliant feathers, which, in peace and in war, marked the rallying point of the Confederacy.

We do not know where they drew the line from others speaking the same tongue. That it excluded the powerful tribe of the Itzas, as a recent historian thinks,[12-1] seems to be refuted by the documents I bring forward in the present volume; that, on the other hand, it did not include the inhabitants of the southwestern coast appears to be indicated by the author of one of the oldest and most complete dictionaries of the language. Writing about 1580, when the traditions of descent were fresh, he draws a distinction between the _lengua de Maya_ and the _lengua de Campeche_.[12-2] The latter was a dialect varying very slightly from pure Maya, and I take it, this manner of indicating the distinction points to a former political separation.

The name Maya is also found in the form _Mayab_, and this is asserted by various Yucatecan scholars of the present generation, as Pio Perez, Crescencio Carrillo, and Eligio Ancona, to be the correct ancient form, while the other is but a Spanish corruption.[13-1]

But this will not bear examination. All the authorities, native as well as foreign, of the sixteenth century, write _Maya_. It is impossible to suppose that such laborious and earnest students as the author of the Dictionary of Motul, as the grammarian and lexicographer Gabriel de San Buenaventura, and as the educated natives whose writings I print in this volume, could all have fallen into such a capital blunder.[13-2]

The explanation I have to offer is just the reverse. The use of the terminal _b_ in "Mayab" is probably a dialectic error, other examples of which can be quoted. Thus the writer of the Dictionary of Motul informs us that the form _maab_ is sometimes used for the ordinary negative _ma_, no; but, he adds, it is a word of the lower classes, _es palabra de gente comun_. So I have little doubt but that _Mayab_ is a vulgar form of the word, which may have gradually gained ground.

As at present used, the accent usually falls on the first syllable, _Ma'ya_, and the best old authorities affirm this as a rule; but it is a rule subject to exceptions, as at the end of a sentence and in certain dialects Dr. Berendt states that it is not infrequently heard as _Ma'ya'_ or even _Maya'_.[14-1]

The meaning and derivation of the word have given rise to the usual number of nonsensical and far-fetched etymologies. The Greek, the Sanscrit, the ancient Coptic and the Hebrew have all been called in to interpret it. I shall refer to but a few of these profitless suggestions.

The Abbe Brasseur (de Bourbourg) quotes as the opinion of Don Ramon de Ordonez, the author of a strange work on American archaeology, called _History of the Heaven and the Earth_, that _Maya_ is but an abbreviation of the phrase _ma ay ha_, which, the Abbe adds, means word for word, _non adest aqua_, and was applied to the peninsula on account of the scarcity of water there.[15-1]

Unfortunately that phrase has no such, nor any, meaning in Maya; were it _ma yan haa_, it would have the sense he gives it; and further, as the Abbe himself remarked in a later work, it is not applicable to Yucatan, where, though rivers are scarce, wells and water abound. He therefore preferred to derive it from _ma_ and _ha_, which he thought he could translate either "Mother of the Water," or "Arm of the Land!"[15-2]

The latest suggestion I have noticed is that of Eligio Ancona, who, claiming that _Mayab_ is the correct form, and that this means "not numerous," thinks that it was applied to the first native settlers of the land, on account of the paucity of their numbers![15-3]

All this seems like learned trifling. The name may belong to that ancient dialect from which are derived many of the names of the days and months in the native calendar, and which, as an esoteric language, was in use among the Maya priests, as was also one among the Aztecs of Mexico. Instances of this, in fact, are very common among the American aborigines, and no doubt many words were thus preserved which could not be analyzed to their radicals through the popular tongue.

Or, if it is essential to find a meaning, why not accept the obvious signification of the name? _Ma_ is the negative "no," "not;" _ya_ means rough, fatiguing, difficult, painful, dangerous. The compound _maya_ is given in the Dictionary of Motul with the translations "not arduous nor severe; something easy and not difficult to do;" _cosa no grave ni recia; cosa facil y no dificultosa de hacer_. It was used adjectively as in the phrase, _maya u chapahal_, his sickness is not dangerous. So they might have spoken of the level and fertile land of Yucatan, abounding in fruit and game, that land to which we are told they delighted to give, as a favorite appellation, the term _u luumil ceh, u luumil cutz_, the land of the deer, the land of the wild turkey; of this land, I say, they might well have spoken as of one not fatiguing, not rough nor exhausting.

Sec. 2. _The Maya Linguistic Family._

Whatever the primitive meaning and first application of the name Maya, it is now used to signify specifically the aborigines of Yucatan. In a more extended sense, in the expression "the Maya family," it is understood to embrace all tribes, wherever found, who speak related dialects presumably derived from the same ancient stock as the Maya proper.

Other names for this extended family have been suggested, as Maya-Kiche, Mam-Huastec, and the like, compounded of the names of two or more of the tribes of the group. But this does not appear to have much advantage over the simple expression I have given, though "Maya-Kiche" may be conveniently employed to prevent confusion.

These affiliated tribes are, according to the investigations of Dr. Carl Hermann Berendt, the following:--

1. The Maya proper, including the Lacandons.

2. The Chontals of Tabasco, on and near the coast west of the mouth
of the Usumacinta.

3. The Tzendals, south of the Chontals.

4. The Zotzils, south of the Tzendals.

5. The Chaneabals, south of the Zotzils.

6. The Chols, on the upper Usumacinta.

7. The Chortis, near Copan.

8. The Kekchis, and

9. The Pocomchis, in Vera Paz.

10. The Pocomams. }

11. The Mams. }

12. The Kiches. }

13. The Ixils. } In or bordering on Guatemala.

14. The Cakchiquels. }

15. The Tzutuhils. }

16. The Huastecs, on the Panuco river and its tributaries, in Mexico.

The languages of these do not differ more, in their extremes, than the French, Spanish, Italian and other tongues of the so-called Latin races; while a number resemble each other as closely as the Greek dialects of classic times.

What lends particular importance to the study of this group of languages is that it is that which was spoken by the race in several respects the most civilized of any found on the American continent. Copan, Uxmal and Palenque are names which at once evoke the most earnest interest in the mind of every one who has ever been attracted to the subject of the archaeology of the New World. This race, moreover, possessed an abundant literature, preserved in written books, in characters which were in some degree phonetic. Enough of these remain to whet, though not to satisfy, the curiosity of the student.

The total number of Indians of pure blood speaking the Maya proper may be estimated as nearly or quite 200,000, most of them in the political limits of the department of Yucatan; to these should be added nearly 100,000 of mixed blood, or of European descent, who use the tongue in daily life.[19-1] For it forms one of the rare examples of American languages possessing vitality enough not only to maintain its own ground, but actually to force itself on European settlers and supplant their native speech. It is no uncommon occurrence in Yucatan, says Dr. Berendt, to find whole families of pure white blood who do not know one word of Spanish, using the Maya exclusively. It has even intruded on literature, and one finds it interlarded in books published in Merida, very much as lady novelists drop into French in their imaginative effusions.[20-1]

The number speaking the different dialects of the stock are roughly estimated at half a million, which is probably below the mark.

Sec. 3. _Origin of the Maya Tribes._

The Mayas did not claim to be autochthones. Their legends referred to their arrival by the sea from the East, in remote times, under the leadership of Itzamna, their hero-god, and also to a less numerous, immigration from the west, from Mexico, which was connected with the history of another hero-god, Kukul Can.

The first of these appears to be wholly mythical, and but a repetition of the story found among so many American tribes, that their ancestors came from the distant Orient. I have elsewhere explained this to be but a solar or light myth.[20-2]

The second tradition deserves more attention from the historian, as it is supported by some of their chronicles and by the testimony of several of the most intelligent natives of the period of the conquest, which I present on a later page of this volume.

It cannot be denied that the Mayas, the Kiches and the Cakchiquels, in their most venerable traditions, claimed to have migrated from the north or west, from some part of the present country of Mexico.

These traditions receive additional importance from the presence on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, on the waters of the river Panuco, north of Vera Cruz, of a prominent branch of the Maya family, the _Huastecs_. The idea suggests itself that these were the rearguard of a great migration of the Maya family from the north toward the south.

Support is given to this by their dialect, which is most closely akin to that of the Tzendals of Tabasco, the nearest Maya race to the south of them, and also by very ancient traditions of the Aztecs.

It is noteworthy that these two partially civilized races, the Mayas and the Aztecs, though differing radically in language, had legends which claimed a community of origin in some indefinitely remote past. We find these on the Maya side narrated in the sacred book of the Kiches, the _Popol Vuh_, in the Cakchiquel _Records of Tecpan Atitlan_, and in various pure Maya sources which I bring forward in this volume. The Aztec traditions refer to the Huastecs, and a brief analysis of them will not be out of place.

At a very remote period the Mexicans, under their leader Mecitl, from whom they took their name, arrived in boats at the mouth of the river Panuco, at the place called Panotlan, which name means "where one arrives by sea." With them were the Olmecs under their leader Olmecatl, the Huastecs, under their leader Huastecatl, the Mixtecs and others. They journeyed together and in friendship southward, down the coast, quite to the volcanoes of Guatemala, thence to Tamoanchan, which is described as the terrestial[TN-1] paradise, and afterwards, some of them at least, northward and eastward, toward the shores of the Gulf.

On this journey the intoxicating beverage made from the maguey, called _octli_ by the Aztecs, _cii_ by the Mayas, and _pulque_ by the Spaniards, was invented by a woman whose name was _Mayauel_, in which we can scarcely err in recognizing the national appellation _Maya_.[23-1] Furthermore, the invention is closely related to the history of the Huastecs. Their leader, alone of all the chieftains, drank to excess, and in his drunkenness threw aside his garments and displayed his nakedness. When he grew sober, fear and shame impelled him to collect all those who spoke his language, and leaving the other tribes, he returned to the neighborhood of Panuco and settled there permanently.[23-2]

The annals of the Aztecs contain frequent allusions to the Huastecs. The most important contest between the two nations took place in the reign of Montezuma the First (1440-1464). The attack was made by the Aztecs, for the alleged reason that the Huastecs had robbed and killed Aztec merchants on their way to the great fairs in Guatemala. The Huastecs are described as numerous, dwelling in walled towns, possessing quantities of maize, beans, feathers and precious stones, and painting their faces. They were signally defeated by the troops of Montezuma, but not reduced to vassalage.[24-1]

At the time of the Conquest the province of the Huastecs was densely peopled; "none more so under the sun," remarks the Augustinian friar Nicolas de Witte, who visited it in 1543; but even then he found it almost deserted and covered with ruins, for, a few years previous, the Spaniards had acted towards its natives with customary treachery and cruelty. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference, had enticed them into a large wooden building, and then set fire to it and burned them alive. When this merciless act became known the Huastecs deserted their villages and scattered among the forests and mountains.[24-2]

These traditions go to show that the belief among the Aztecs was that the tribes of the Maya family came originally from the north or northeast, and were at some remote period closely connected with their own ancestors.

Sec. 4. _Political Condition at the Time of the Conquest._

When the Spaniards first explored the coasts of Yucatan they found the peninsula divided into a number of independent petty states. According to an authority followed by Herrera, these were eighteen in number. There is no complete list of their names, nor can we fix with certainty their boundaries. The following list gives their approximate position. On the west coast, beginning at the south--

1. _Acalan_, on the Bahia de Terminos.
2. _Tixchel_ (or Telchac?)
3. _Champoton_ (Chakanputun, or Potonchan).
4. _Kinpech_ (Campech or Campeche).
5. _Canul_ (Acanul or H' Canul).
6. _Hocabaihumun._
7. _Cehpech_, in which Merida was founded.
8. _Zipatan_, on the northwest coast.

On the east coast, beginning at the north--

9. _Choaca_, near Cape Cotoche.
10. _Ekab_, opposite the Island of Cozumel.
11. _Conil_, or of the Cupuls.[TN-3]
13. _Bakhalal_, or Bacalar.
14. _Chetemal._
15. _Taitza_, the Peten district.

Central provinces--

16. _H' Chel_ (or Ah Kin Chel) in which Itzamal
was located.
17. _Zotuta_, of the Cocoms.
18. _Mani_, of the Xius.
19. _Cochuah_ (or Cochva, or Cocola), the principal
town of which was Ichmul.

As No. 15, the Peten district, was not conquered by the Spaniards until 1697, it was doubtless not included in the list drawn up by Herrera's authority, so that the above would correspond with his statement.

Each of these provinces was ruled by a hereditary chief, who was called _batab_, or _batabil uinic_ (_uinic_=man). He sometimes bore two names, the first being that of his mother, the second of his father, as _Can Ek_, in which _Can_ was from the maternal, _Ek_ from the paternal line. The surname (_kaba_) descended through the male. It was called _hach kaba_, the true name, or _hool kaba_, the head name. Much attention was paid to preserving the genealogy, and the word for "of noble birth" was _ah kaba_, "he who has a name."

Each village of a province was organized under a ruler, who was styled _halach uinic_, the true or real man. Frequently he was a junior member of the reigning family. He was assisted by a second in command, termed _ah kulel_, as a lieutenant, and various subordinate officials, whose duties will be explained in the notes to Nakuk Pech's narrative.

Personal tenure of land did not exist. The town lands were divided out annually among the members of the community, as their wants required, the consumption of each adult being calculated at twenty loads (of a man) of maize each year, this being the staple food.[27-1]

Sec. 5. _Grammatical Observations._

Compared with many American languages, the Maya is simple in construction. It is analytic rather than synthetic; most of its roots are monosyllables or dissyllables, and the order of their arrangement is very similar to that in English. It has been observed that foreigners, coming to Yucatan, ignorant of both Spanish and Maya, acquire a conversational knowledge of the latter more readily than of the former.[28-1]

An examination of the language explains this. Neither nouns nor adjectives undergo any change for gender, number or case. Before animate nouns the gender may be indicated by the prefixes _ah_ and _ix_, equivalent to the English _he_ and _she_ in such expressions as _he-bear_, _she-bear_. The plural particle is _ob_, which can be suffixed to animate nouns, but is in fact the third person plural of the personal pronoun.

The conjugations of the verbs are four in number. All passives and neuters end in _l_, and also a certain number of active verbs; these form the first conjugation, while the remaining three are of active verbs only. The time-forms of the verb are three, the present, the aorist, and the future. Taking the verb _nacal_, to ascend, these forms are _nacal_, _naci_, _nacac_. The present indicative is:--

Nacal in cah, I ascend.
Nacal a cah, thou ascendest.
Nacal u cah, he ascends.
Nacal c cah, we ascend.
Nacal a cah ex, you ascend.
Nacal u cah ob, they ascend.

When this form is analyzed, we discover that _in_, _a_, _u_, _c_, _a-ex_, _u-ob_, are personal possessive pronouns, my, thy, his, our, your, their; and that _nacal_ and _cah_ are in fact verbal nouns standing in apposition. _Cah_, which is the sign of the present tense, means the doing, making, being occupied or busy at something. Hence _nacal in cah_, I ascend, is literally "the ascent, my being occupied with." The imperfect tense is merely the present with the additional verbal noun _cuchi_ added, as--

Nacal in cah cuchi, I was ascending.
Nacal a cah cuchi, Thou wast ascending.
etc.

_Cuchi_ means carrying on, bearing along, and the imperfect may thus be rendered:--

"The ascent, my being occupied with, carrying on."

This is what has been called by Friedrich Mueller the "possessive conjugation," the pronoun used being not in the nominative but in the possessive form.

The aorist presents a different mode of formation:--

Nac-en, (i.e. Naci-en) I ascended.
Nac-ech, Thou ascended.
Naci, He ascended.
Nac-on, We ascended.
Nac-ex, You ascended.
Nac-ob, They ascended.

Here _en_, _ech_, _on_, _ex_, are apparently the simple personal pronouns I, thou, we, you, and are used predicatively. The future is also conjugated in this form by the use of the verbal _bin_, _binel_, to go:

Bin nacac en, I am going to ascend.
Bin nacac ech, Thou art going to ascend.
etc.

The present of all the active verbs uses this predicative form, while their aorists and futures employ possessive forms. Thus:--

Ten cambezic, I teach him.
Tech cambezic, Thou teaches him.
Lay cambezic, He teaches him.

Here, however, I must note a difference of opinion between eminent grammatical critics. Friedrich Mueller considers all such forms as--

Nac-en, I ascended,

to exhibit "the predicative power of the true verb," basing his opinion on the analogy of such expressions as--

Ten batab en, I (am) a chief.[31-1]

M. Lucien Adam, on the other hand, says:--"The intransitive preterit _nac-en_ may seem morphologically the same as the Aryan _as-mi_; but here again, _nac_ is a verbal noun, as is demonstrated by the plural of the third person _nac-ob_, 'the ascenders.' _Nac-en_ comes to mean 'ascender [formerly] me.'"[31-2]

I am inclined to think that the French critic is right, and that, in fact, there is no true verb in the Maya, but merely verbal nouns, _nomina actionis_, to which the pronouns stand either in the possessive or objective relations, or, more remotely, in the possessive relation to another verbal noun in apposition, as _cah_, _cuchi_, etc. The importance of this point in estimating the structure of the language will be appreciated by those who have paid any attention to the science of linguistics.

The objective form of the conjugation is composed of the simple personal pronouns of both persons, together with the possessive of the agent and the particle _ci_, which conveys the accessory notion of present action towards. Thus, from _moc_, to tie:--

Ten c in moc ech, I tie thee,
literally, I my present tying thee.

These refinements of analysis have, of course, nothing to do with the convenience of the language for practical purposes. As it has no dual, no inclusive and exclusive plurals, no articles nor substantive verb, no transitions, and few irregular verbs, its forms are quickly learned. It is not polysynthetic, at any rate, not more so than French, and its words undergo no such alteration by agglutination as in Aztec and Algonkin. Syncopated forms are indeed common, but to no greater extent than in colloquial English. The unit of the tongue remains the word, not the sentence, and we find no immeasurable words, expressing in themselves a whole paragraph, such as grammarians like to quote from the Eskimo, Aztec, Qquichua and other highly synthetic languages.

The position of words in a sentence is not dissimilar from that in English. The adjective precedes the noun it qualifies, and sentences usually follow the formula, subject--verbal--object. Thus:--

_Hemac cu yacuntic Diose, utz uinic._
He who loves God, [is] good man.

But transposition is allowable, as--

_Taachili u tzicic u yum uinic._
Generally obeys his father, a man.

As shown in this last example, the genitive relation is indicated by the possessive pronoun, as it sometimes was in English, "John, his book;" but the Maya is "his book John," _u huun Juan_.

Another method which is used for indicating the genitive and ablative relations is the termination _il_. This is called "the determinative ending," and denotes whose is the object named, or of what. It is occasionally varied to _al_ and _el_, to correspond to the last preceding vowel, but this "vocalic echo" is not common in Maya. While it denotes use, it does not convey the idea of ownership. Thus, _u c[=h]een in yum_, my father's well, means the well that belongs to my father; but _c[=h]enel in yum_, my father's well, means the well from which he obtains water, but in which he has no proprietorship. Material used is indicated by this ending, as _xanil na_, a house of straw (_xan_, straw, _na_, house).

Compound words are frequent, but except occasional syncope, the members of the compound undergo no change. There is little resembling the incapsulation (_emboitement_) that one sees in most American languages. Thus, midnight, _chumucakab_, is merely a union of _chumuc_, middle, and _akab_, night; dawn, _ahalcab_, is _ahal_, to awaken, _cab_, the world.

While from the above brief sketch it will be seen that the Maya is free from many of the difficulties which present themselves in most American tongues, it is by no means devoid of others.

In its _phonetics_, it possesses six elements which to the Spaniards were new. They are represented by the signs:

c[=h], k, pp, t[=h], tz, [c].

Of these the c[=h] resembles dch, pronounced forcibly; the [c] is as dz; the pp is a forcible double p; and in the t[=h] the two letters are to be pronounced separately and forcibly. There remains the _k_ which is the most difficult of all. It is a sort of palato-guttural, the only one in the language, and its sound can only be acquired by long practice.

The _particles_ are very numerous, and make up the life of the language. By them are expressed the relations of space and time, and all the finer shades of meaning. Probably no one not to the manor born could render correctly their full force. Buenaventura, in his Grammar, enumerates sixteen different significations of the particle _il_.[35-1]

The elliptical and obscure style adopted by most native writers, partly from ignorance of the art of composition, partly because they imitated the mystery in expression affected by their priests, forms a serious obstacle even to those fairly acquainted with the current language. Moreover, the older manuscripts contain both words and forms unfamiliar to a cultivated Yucatecan of to-day.

I must, however, not omit to contradict formally an assertion made by the traveler Waldeck, and often repeated, that the language has undergone such extensive changes that what was written a century ago is unintelligible to a native of to-day. So far is this from the truth that, except for a few obsolete words, the narrative of the Conquest, written more than three hundred years ago, by the chief Pech, which I print in this volume, could be read without much difficulty by any educated native.

Again, as in all languages largely monosyllabic, there are many significations attached to one word, and these often widely different. Thus _kab_ means, a hand; a handle; a branch; sap; an offence; while _cab_ means the world; a country; strength; honey; a hive; sting of an insect; juice of a plant; and, in composition, promptness. It will be readily understood that cases will occur where the context leaves it doubtful which of these meanings is to be chosen.

These _homonyms_ and _paronyms_, as they are called by grammarians, offer a fine field for sciolists in philology, wherein to discover analogies between the Maya and other tongues, and they have been vigorously culled out for that purpose. All such efforts are inconsistent with correct methods in linguistics. The folly of the procedure may be illustrated by comparing the English and the Maya. I suppose no one will pretend that these languages, at any rate in their present modern forms, are related. Yet the following are but a few of the many verbal similarities that could be pointed out:--

MAYA. ENGLISH.
bateel, battle.
c[=h]ab, to grab, to take.
hol, hole.
hun, one.
lum, loam.
pol, poll (head).
potum, a pot.
pul, to pull, carry.
tun, stone.

So with the Latin we could find such similarities as _volah_=volo, _[c]a_=dare, etc.

In fact, no relationship of the Maya linguistic group to any other has been discovered. It contains a number of words borrowed from the Aztec (Nahuatl); and the latter in turn presents many undoubtedly borrowed from the Maya dialects. But this only goes to show that these two great families had long and close relations; and that we already know, from their history, traditions and geographical positions.

Sec. 6. _The Numeral System._

The Mayas had a mathematical turn, and possessed a developed system of numeration. It counted by units and scores; in other words, it was a vigesimal system. The cardinal numbers were:--

Hun, one.
Ca, two.
Ox, three.
Can, four.
Ho, five.
Uac, six.
Uuc, seven.
Uaxac, eight.
Bolon, nine.
Lahun, ten.
Buluc, eleven.
Lahca, twelve.
Oxlahun, thirteen.
Canlahun, fourteen.
Holhun, fifteen.
Uaclahun, sixteen.
Uuclahun, seventeen.
Uaxaclahun, eighteen.
Bolonlahun, nineteen.
Hunkal, twenty.

The composition of these numerals from twelve to nineteen inclusive is easily seen. _Lahun_ is apparently a compound of _lah hun_ (sc. _uinic_), "it finishes one (man);" that is, in counting on the fingers. _Lah_ means the end, to end, and also the whole of anything. _Kal_, a score, is literally a fastening together, a shutting up, from the verb _kal_, to shut, to lock, to button up, etc.

From twenty upward, the scores are used:--

Hun tu kal, one to the score, 21.
Ca tu kal, two to the score, 22.
Ox tu kal, three to the score, 23,

and so on up to

Ca kal, two score, 40.

Above forty, three different methods can be used to continue the numeration.

1. We may continue the same employed between 20 and 40, thus:--

Hun tu cakal, one to two score, 41.
Ca tu cakal, two to two score, 42.
Ox tu cakal, three to two score, 43,

and so on.

2. The numeral copulative _catac_ can be used, with the numeral particle _tul_; as:--

Cakal catac catul, two score and two, 42.
Cakal catac oxtul, two score and three, 43.

3. We may count upon the next score above, as:

Hun tu yoxkal, one on the third score, 41.
Ca tu yoxkal, two on the third score, 42.
Ox tu yoxkal, three on the third score, 43.

The last mentioned system is that advanced by Father Beltran, and is the only one formally mentioned by him. It has recently been carefully analyzed by Prof. Leon de Rosny, who has shown that it is a consistent vigesimal method.[40-1]

It might be asked, and the question is pertinent, and is left unanswered by Prof. Leon de Rosny, why _hun tu kal_ means "one to the score," and _hun tu can kal_ is translated, "one on the fourth score." This important shade of meaning may be given, I think, by the possessive _u_ which originally belonged in the phrase, but suffered elision. Properly it should be,

Hun tu u can kal.

This seems apparent from other numbers where it has not suffered elision, but merely incorporation, as:--

Hun tu yox kal=hun tu u ox kal, 41.
Hu tu yokal=hun tu u ho kal, 81.

This system of numeration, advanced by Beltran, appears to have been adopted by all of the later writers, who may have learned the Maya largely from his Grammar. Thus, in the translation of the Gospel of St. John, published by the Baptist Bible Translation Society, chap. II, v. 20; _Xupan uactuyoxkal hab utial u mental letile kulnaa_, "forty and six years was this temple in building;"[41-1] and in that of the Gospel of St. Luke, said to have been the work of Father Joaquin Ruz, the same system is followed.[41-2]

Nevertheless, Beltran's method has been severely criticised by Don Juan Pio Perez, who ranks among the ablest Yucatecan linguists of this century. He has pronounced it artificial, not in accordance with either the past or present use of the natives themselves, and built up out of an effort to assimilate the Maya to the Latin numeral system.

I give his words in the original, from his unpublished essay on Maya grammar.[42-1]

"Los Indios de Yucatan cuentan por veintenas, que llaman _kal_ y en cierto modo tienen diez y nueve unidades hasta completar la primera veintena que es _hunkal_ aunque en el curso de esta solo se encuentran once numeros simples, pues los nombres de los restantes se forman de los de la primera decena.

"Para contar de una a otra veintena los numeros fraccionarios o las diez y nueve unidades, terminadas por la particula _tul_ o su sincopa _tu_,[42-2] se juntan antepuestas a la veintena espresada; por exemplo, _hunkal_, 20; _huntukal_, 21; _catukal_, 22; y _huntucakal_, 41; _catucakal_, 42; _oxtucankal_, 83; _cantuhokal_, 140, etc.

"El Padre Fr. Beltran de Santa Rosa, como puede verse en su _Arte de Lengua Maya_, formo un sistema distinto a este desde la 2ª veintena hasta la ultima, pues para espresar las unidades entre este y la 3ª veintena pone a esta terminandolas y por consiguiente rebajandole su valor por solo su anteposicion a dichas unidades fraccionarias, y asi para espresar el numero 45 por ejemplo dice _ho tu yoxkal_, cuando _oxkal_ o _yoxkal_ significa 60.

"No se de donde tomo los fundamentos en que se apoya este sistema, quiza en el uso de su tiempo, que no ha llegado hasta este; aunque he visto en varios manuscritos antiguos, que los Indios de entonces como los de ahora, usaban el sistema que indico, y espresaban las unidades integras que numeraban, y para espresar el numero 65 dicen; _Oxkal catac hotul_ u _hotu oxkal_, que usa el Padre Beltran por 45.[43-1]

"Mas el metodo que explico esta apoyado en el uso y aun en el curso que se advierte en la 1ª y 2ª veintena e indican que asi deben continuar las decenas hasta la 20ª y no formar sistemas confusos que por ser mas o menos analogos a la numeracion romana lo juzgaban mas o menos perfectos, porque la consideraban como un tipo a que debia arreglarse cualquiera otra lengua, cuando en ellas todo lo que no este conforme con el uso recibido y corriente, es construir castillos en el aire y hacer reformas que por mas ingeniosas que sean, no pasan de inoficiosas."

In the face of this severe criticism of Father Beltran's system, I cannot explain how it is that in Pio Perez's own Dictionary of the Maya, the numerals above 40 are given according to Beltran's system; and that this was not the work of the editors of that volume (which was published after his death), is shown by an autographic manuscript of his dictionary in my possession, written about 1846,[44-1] in which also the numerals appear in Beltran's form.

Three other manuscript dictionaries in my collection, all composed previous to 1690, affirm the system of Beltran, and I am therefore obliged to believe that it was authentic and current among the natives long before white scholars began to dress up their language in the ill-fitting garments of Aryan grammar.

Proceeding to higher numbers, it is interesting to note that they also proceed on the vigesimal system, although this has not heretofore been distinctly shown. The ancient computation was:

20 units = one _kal_ = 20
20 kal = one _bak_ = 400
20 bak = one _pic_ = 8,000
20 pic = one _calab_ = 160,000
20 calab = one _kinchil_ or _tzotzceh_ = 3,200,000
20 kinchil = one _alau_ = 64,000,000

This ancient system was obscured by the Spaniards using the word _pic_ to mean 1000 and _kinchil_ to mean 1,000,000, instead of their original significations.

The meaning of _kal_, I have already explained to be a fastening together, a package, a bundle. _Bak_, as a verb, is to tie around and around with a network of cords; _pic_ is the old word for the short petticoat worn by the women, which was occasionally used as a sac. If we remember that grains of corn or of cacao were what were generally employed as counters, then we may suppose these were measures of quantity. The word _kal_ (_qal_), in Kiche means a score and also specifically 20 grains of cacao; _bak_ in Cakchiquel means a corn-cob, and as a verb to shell an ear of corn, but I am not clear of any connection between this and the numeral. Other meanings of _bak_ in Maya are "meat" and the _partes pudendas_ of either sex.

_Calab_, seems to be an instrumental form from _cal_, to stuff, to fill full.[45-1] The word _calam_ is used in the sense of excessive, overmuch. In Cakchiquel the phrase _mani hu cala_, not (merely) one _cala_, is synonymous with _mani hu chuvi_, not (merely) one bag or sack, both meaning a countless number.[46-1] In that dialect the specific meaning of _cala_ is 20 loads of cacao beans.[46-2]

The term _tzotzceh_ means deerskin, but for _kinchil_ and _alau_, I have found no satisfactory derivation that does not strain the forms of the word too much. I would, however, suggest one possible connection of meaning.

In _kinchil_, we have the word _kin_, day; in _alau_, the word _u_ month, and in the term for mathematical infinity, _hunhablat_, we find _hun haab_, one year, just as in the related expression, _hunhablazic_, which signifies that which lasts a whole year. If this suggestion is well grounded, then in these highest expressions of quantity (and I am inclined to think that originally _hun hablat_, one _hablat_=20 _alau_) we have applications of the three time periods, the day, the month, and the year, with the figurative sense that the increase of one over the other was as the relative lengths of these different periods.

I think it worth while to go into these etymologies, as they may throw some light on the graphic representation of the numerals in the Maya hieroglyphics. It is quite likely that the figures chosen to represent the different higher units would resemble the objects which their names literally signify. The first nineteen numerals were written by a combination of dots and lines, examples of which we find in abundance in the Codex Troano and other manuscripts. The following explanation of it is from the pen of a native writer in the last century:--

"Yantac thun yetel paiche tu pachob, he hunppel thune hunppel bin haabe, uaix cappele cappel bin haabe, uaix oxppel thuun, ua canppel thuune, canppel binbe, uaix oxppel thuun baixan; he paichee yan yokol xane, ua hunppel paichee, hoppel haab bin; ua cappel paichee lahunppiz bin; uaix hunppel paichee yan yokol xane, ua yan hunppel thuune uacppel bin be; uaix cappel thuune yan yokol paichee uucppel bin be; ua oxppel thuun yan yokole, uaxppel binbe; uaixcanppel thun yan yokole paichee (bolonppel binbe); yanix thun yokol (cappel) paichee buluc piz; uaix cappel thune lahcapiz; ua oxppel thuun, oxlahunpiz."

"They (our ancestors) used (for numerals in their calendars) dots and lines back of them; one dot for one year, two dots for two years, three dots for three, four dots for four, and so on; in addition to these they used a line; one line meant five years, two lines ten years; if one line and above it one dot, six years; if two dots above the line, seven years; if three dots above, eight; if four dots above the line, nine; a dot above two lines, eleven; if two dots, twelve; if three dots, thirteen."[48-1]

The plan of using the numerals in Maya differs somewhat from that in English.

In the first place, they are rarely named without the addition of a _numeral particle_, which is suffixed. These particles indicate the character or class of the objects which are, or are about to be, enumerated. When they are uttered, the hearer at once knows what kind of objects are to be spoken of. Many of them can be traced to a meaning which has a definite application to a class, and they have analogues in European tongues. Thus I may say "seven head of"--and the hearer knows that I am going to speak of cattle, or sheep, or cabbages, or similar objects usually counted by heads. So in Maya _ac_ means a turtle or a turtle shell; hence it is used as a particle in counting canoes, houses, stools, vases, pits, caves, altars, and troughs, and some general appropriateness can be seen; but when it is applied also to cornfields, the analogy seems remote.

Of these numeral particles, not less than _seventy-six_ are given by Beltran, in his Grammar, and he does not exhaust the list. Of these _piz_ and _pel_, both of which mean, single, singly, are used in counting years, and will frequently recur in the annals I present in this volume.

By their aid another method of numeration was in vogue for counting time. For "eighty-one years," they did not say _hutuyokal haab_, but _can kal haab catac hunpel haab_, literally, "four score years and one year." The copulative _catac_ is also used in adding a smaller number to a _bak_, or 400, as for 450, _hun bak catac lahuyoxkal_, "one _bak_ and ten toward the third score." _Catac_ is a compound of _ca tac_, _ca_ meaning "then" or "and," and _tac_, which Dr. Berendt considered to be an irregular future of _talel_, to come, "then will come fifty," but which may be the imperative of _tac_ (_tacah_, _tace_, third conjugation), which means to put something under another, as in the phrase _tac ex che yalan cum_, put you wood under the pot.

It will be seen that the latter method is by addition, the former by subtraction. Another variety of the latter is found in the annals. For instance, "ninety-nine years" is not expressed by _bolonlahutuyokal haab_, nor yet by _cankal haab catac bolonlahunpel haab_, but by _hunpel haab minan ti hokal haab_, "one single year lacking from five score years."

Sec. 7. _The Calendar._

The system of computing time adopted by the Mayas is a subject too extensive to be treated here in detail, but it is indispensable, for the proper understanding of their annals, that the outlines of their chronological scheme be explained.

The year, _haab_, was intended to begin on the day of the transit of the sun by the zenith, and was counted from July 16th. It was divided into eighteen months, _u_ (_u_, month, moon), of twenty days, _kin_ (sun, day, time), each. The days were divided into groups of five, as follows:--

1. _Kan._ 6. _Muluc._ 11. _Ix._ 16. _Cauac._
2. Chicchan. 7. Oc. 12. Men. 17. Ahau.
3. Cimi. 8. Chuen. 13. Cib. 18. Imix.
4. Manik. 9. Eb. 14. Caban. 19. Ik.
5. Lamat. 10. Ben. 15. E[c]nab. 20. Akbal.

The months, in their order, were:--

1. Pop.
2. Uo.
3. Zip.
4. Zo[c].
5. Zeec.
6. Xul.
7. [C]e-yaxkin.
8. Mol.
9. Chen.
10. Yaax.
11. Zac.
12. Ceh.
13. Mac.
14. Kankin.
15. Moan.
16. Pax.
17. Kayab.
18. Cumku.

As the Maya year was of 365 days, and as 18 months of 20 days each counted only 360 days, there were five days intervening between the last of the month Cumku and the first day of the following year. These were called "days without names," _xma kaba kin_ (_xma_, without, _kaba_, names, _kin_, days), an expression not quite correct, as they were named in regular order, only they were not counted in any month.

It will be seen, by glancing at the list of days, that this arrangement brought at the beginning of each year, the days Kan, Muluc, Ix and Cauac in turn, and that no other days could begin the year. These days were therefore called _cuch haab_, "the bearers of the years" (_cuch_, to bear, carry, _haab_, year), and years were distinguished as "a year Kan," "a year Muluc," etc., as they began with one or another of these "year bearers."

But the calendar was not so simple as this. The days were not counted from one to twenty, and then beginning at one again, and so on, but by periods of 13 days each. Thus, in the first month, beginning with 1 Kan, the 14th day of that month begins a new "week," as it has been called, and is named 1 Caban. Twenty-eight of these weeks make 364 days, thus leaving one day to complete the year. When the number of these odd days amounted to 13, in other words when thirteen years had elapsed, this formed a period which was called "the _katun_ of days," _kin katun_, and by Spanish writers an "indiction."

It will be readily observed by an inspection of the following table, that four of these indictions, in other words 52 years, will elapse before a "year bearer" of the same name and number recommences a year.

___________________________________________________________
_1st year._ | _14th year._ | _27th year._ | _40th year_[TN-5]
-----------------------------------------------------------
1 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac
2 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan
3 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc
4 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix
5 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac
6 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan
7 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc
8 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix
9 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac
10 | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | Kan
11 | Ix | Cauac | Kan | Muluc
12 | Cauac | Kan | Muluc | Ix
13 | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac.
-----------------------------------------------------------

A cycle of 52 years was thus obtained in a manner almost identical with that of the Aztecs, Tarascos and other nations.

But the Mayas took an important step in advance of all their contemporaries in arranging a much longer cycle.

This long cycle was an application of the vigesimal system to their reckoning of time. Twenty days were a month, _u_ or _uinal_; twenty years was a cycle, _katun_. To ask one's age the question was put _haypel u katunil_? How many katuns have you? And the answer was, _hunpel katun_, one katun (twenty years), or, _hopel in katunil_, I am five katuns, or a hundred years old, as the case might be.

The division of the katuns was on the principle of the Beltran system of numeration (see page 40), as,

_xel u ca katun_, thirty years.
_xel u yox katun_, fifty years.

Literally these expressions are, "dividing the second katun," "dividing the third katun," _xel_ meaning to cut in pieces, to divide as with a knife. They may be compared to the German _dritthalb_, two and a half, or "the third a half."[54-1]

The Katun of 20 years was divided into five lesser divisions of 4 years each, called _tzuc_, a word with a signification something like the English "bunch," and which came to be used as a numeral particle in counting parts, divisions, paragraphs, reasons, groups of towns, etc.[54-2]

These _tzuc_ were called by the Spaniards _lustros_, from the Latin _lustrum_, although that was a period _five_ years. Cogolludo says: "They counted their eras and ages, which they entered in their books, by periods of 20 years each, and by _lustros_ of four years each. The first year they placed in the East [that is, on the Katun-wheel, and in the figures in their books], calling it _cuch haab_; the second in the West, called _Hijx_; the third in the South, _Cavac_; and the fourth, Muluc, in the North, and this served them for the Dominical letter. When five of the _lustros_ had passed, that is 20 years, they called it a _Katun_, and they placed one carved stone upon another, cemented with lime and sand, in the walls of their temples, or in the houses of their priests."[55-1]

The historian is wrong in saying that the first year was called _cuchhaab_; that was the name applied to all the Dominical days, and as I have said, means "year bearer." The first year was called _Kan_, from the first day of its first month.

This is but one of many illustrations of how cautious we must be in accepting any statement of the early Spanish writers about the usages of the natives.

There is, however, some obscurity about the length of the _Katun_. All the older Spanish writers, without exception, and most of the native manuscripts, speak of it distinctly as a period of twenty years. Yet there are three manuscripts of high authority in the Maya which state that it embraced twenty-four years, although the last four were not reckoned. This theory was adopted and warmly advocated by Pio Perez, in his essay on the ancient chronology of Yucatan, and is also borne out by calculations which have been made on the hieroglyphic Codex Troano, by M. Delaporte, in France, and Professor Cyrus Thomas, in the United States.[56-1]

This discrepancy may arise from the custom of counting the katuns by two different systems, ground for which supposition is furnished by various manuscripts; but for purposes of chronology and ordinary life, it will be evident that the writers of the annals in the present volume adopted the Katun of twenty years' length; while on the other hand the native Pech, in his History of the Conquest, which is the last piece in the volume, gives for the beginning and the end of the Katun the years 1517-1541, and therefore must have had in mind one of twenty-four years' duration. The solution of these contradictions is not yet at hand.

This great cycle of 13 x 20=260 years was called an _ahau Katun_ collectively, and each period in it bore the same name.

This name, _ahau Katun_, deserves careful analysis. _Ahau_ is the ordinary word for chief, king, ruler. It is probably a compound of _ah_, which is the male prefix and sign of the _nomen agentis_, and _u_, collar, a collar of gold or other precious substance, distinguishing the chiefs. _Katun_ has been variously analyzed. Don Pio Perez supposed it was a compound of _kat_, to ask, and _tun_, a stone, because at the close of these periods they set up the sculptured stone, which was afterwards referred to in order to fix the dates of occurrences.[57-1] This, however, would certainly require that _kat_ be in the passive, _katal_ or _kataan_, and would give _katantun_. Beltran in his Grammar treats the word as an adjective, meaning very long, perpetual.[57-2] But this is a later, secondary sense. Its usual signification is a body or batallion[TN-7] of warriors engaged in action. As a verb, it is to fight, to give battle, and thus seems related to the Cakchiquel _[k]at_, to cut, or wound, to make prisoner.[58-1] The series of years, ordered and arranged under a controlling day and date, were like a row of soldiers commanded by a chief, and hence the name _ahau katun_.

Each of these _ahaus_ or chiefs of the Katuns was represented in the native calendars by the picture or portrait of a particular personage who in some way was identified with the Katun, and his name was given to it. This has not been dwelt upon nor even mentioned by previous writers on the subject, but I have copies of various native manuscripts which illustrate it, and give the names of each of the rulers of the Katuns.

The thirteen _ahau katuns_ were not numbered from 1 upward, but beginning at the 13th, by the alternate numbers, in the following order:--

13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2

Various reasons have been assigned for this arrangement. It would be foreign to my purpose to discuss them here, and I shall merely quote the following, from a paper I wrote on the subject, printed in the _American Naturalist_, Sept., 1881:--

"Gallatin explained them as the numerical characters of the days
"Ahau" following the first day of each year called Cauac; Dr.
Valentini thinks they refer to the numbers of the various idols
worshiped in the different Ahaus; Professor Thomas that they are
the number of the year (in the indiction of 52 years) on which the
Ahau begins. Each of these statements is true in itself, but each
fails to show any practical use of the series; and of the last
mentioned it is to be observed that the objection applies to it
that at the commencement of an Ahau Katun the numbers would run 1,
12, 10, 8, etc., whereas we know positively that the numbers of the
Ahaus began with 13 and continued 11, 9, 7, 5, etc.

"The explanation which I offer is that the number of the Ahau was
taken from the last day Cauac preceding the Kan with which the
first year of each Ahau began--for, as 24 is divisible by 4, the
first year of each Ahau necessarily began with the day Kan. This
number was the "ruling number" of the Ahau, and not for any
mystical or ceremonial purpose, but for the practical one of at
once and easily converting any year designated in the Ahau into its
equivalent in the current Kin Katun, or 52 year cycle. All that is
necessary to do this is, to _add the number of the year in the Ahau
to the number of the year Cauac corresponding to this "ruling
number." When the sum exceeds 52, subtract that number._

"Take an example: To what year in the Kin Katun does 10 Ahau XI
(the 10th year of the 11th Ahau) correspond?