xtended arms with the hands curved
slightly downward. This will furnish an explanation of the strokes in
the terminal circles. The left of the two lower characters is almost
identical with the symbol for the month _Mac_ (plate LXIV, 4), omitting
the _ca_ glyph. The lower right-hand character is similar to the symbol
for the month _Chuen_. We thus obtain legitimately the sounds _ma
ma-ch_, whether we consider the parts truly phonetic or only ikonomatic.

For further illustration of the use of this symbol and evidence of
phoneticism, the reader is referred to the article in the _American
Anthropologist_ above mentioned.

The fact that a symbol is used to denote a given Maya day does not
prove, supposing it to be in any sense phonetic, that the Maya name
gives the original equivalent. It may have been adopted to represent the
older name in the Tzental, or borrowed from the Zapotec calendar and
retained in the Maya calendar for the new name given in that tongue.
However, the symbol for this first day, which has substantially the same
name in the Maya and Tzental, appears to represent the name in these
languages and to be in some degree phonetic, _m_ being the chief
phonetic element represented by it. The crosshatching in the little
circle at the top, seen in some of the older forms found in the
inscriptions, may indicate, as will later be seen, the _x_ or _ch_
sound, thus giving precisely the radical _m-x_.

It may be said, in reference to the signification of the names of the
day in different dialects, that no settled or entirely satisfactory
conclusion has been reached in regard to either.

The Cakchiquel word _imox_ is translated by the grammarian Ximenes as
"swordfish," thus corresponding with the usual interpretation of the
Mexican _cipactli_. Dr Seler thinks, however, that the Maya names were
derived, as above stated, from _im_. Nevertheless he concludes that the
primitive signification of both the Maya and Mexican symbols is the
earth, "who brings forth all things from her bosom and takes all living
things again into it." If we may judge from its use, there is no doubt
that the Mexican _cipactli_ figure is a symbol of the earth or
underworld. The usual form of the day symbol in the Mexican codices is
shown in plate LXIV, 16, and more elaborately in plate LXIV, 17. As
proof that it indicates the earth or underworld, there is shown on plate
73 of the Borgian Codex an individual, whose heart has been torn from
his b