lyph figure 84, in which there is indicated the bearing of a
burden on the back, the element cauac is to be understood simply as
the expression of the weight, the burden. In the peculiar cases
where we see the gods holding a board provided with the elements of
the character cauac, or where a board is placed before the gods,
furnished with a plaited handle whose side bears the element cauac,
the latter seems to relate to a sounding board, for the
accompanying hieroglyphs seem to signify music. Finally, there can
be found a direct homology between the element cauac and the
element tun. This is seen in the hieroglyph of the hunting god of
figure 83, whose distinguishing mark is usually an eye or the
element tun (i. e., a precious stone), which he hears in the front
of the headdress. The hieroglyph of this god is written sometimes
as in figure 81, sometimes as figure 82. And that the element here,
which in figure 82 replaces the element cauac, is to be understood
in fact as tun or "stone, precious stone," is evident, on the one
hand from the application of the precious stone in the headdress
(tun, "piedra, piedra preciosa"), and, on the other hand, from its
use as the base of the pole on which Mam, the Uayeyab demon, is set
up during the xma kaba kin (Cod. Dres. 25c). Now, it is true that a
connection of ideas can be established with considerable certainty
between clouds, rain, and stone, for in that region every rain was
a thunderstorm. But at the same time it will be found
comprehensible that a barrier of doubt was removed when I
discovered in the course of my Zapotec studies that in Zapotec the
same word was used for "rain" and "stone," namely, _quia_, _quie_.

[Illustration: PL. LXVIII COPIES OF GLYPHS FROM THE CODICES]

According to the explanation I have given above, the chief phonetic
element of the character is the guttural sound _k_, _ks_ (or _x_), and
_ch_. As additional evidence tending to confirm this conclusion, the
following examples are given:

Symbols 61, LXV, from Tro. 22*a, and 62, from Dres. 1 (42), have already
been explained, the first as signifying _kutz_ or _cutz_, "the turkey,"
and the second _tzac_, the name of a certain fish found in the senotes.
In the first (61) the first or left-hand character is our _Cauac_ symbol
and has the _k_ sound, and the same symbol forms the righ