sh (to say nothing of others still
more fanciful, by a host of writers), have broken down, as was to be
expected. I mention this instance because it illustrates fully the
results of superficial analysis, united with a seeming ineradicable
tendency even among those most able students who have added the most to
our stock of Maya knowledge (among whom Dr. Brinton was certainly one of
the foremost), to treat these glyphs as carelessly done, to disregard
the differences between manifest variants, or else to talk freely,
whenever a passage does not fit the explanation which is being worked
out, of scribal errors.

In the first place, _if_ these glyphs are to be interpreted primarily by
the Yucatecan Maya dialect (one in which we have most ample printed and
MS. lexicographic material), and if in that dialect no other words at
all resembling _xaman_ and _xamach_ are found, as we are told, then
(_if_ the Mayas named the north star, or the North, by a pun on a
tortilla dish) wherever this banded headdress is found, we must assume
the text to be treating either of the North, or of tortillas. That might
safely be left to break down of its own weight; but we shall also see
that the explanation is given in total disregard of manifest, important
variants. This banded headdress appears ornamenting at least
[Hieroglyphs] five separate and distinct faces; one a wholly human face,
the others with various other definite characteristics, the most
frequent and prominent of which are the monkey-like face and mouth we
see in the [Hieroglyph] glyph for the north, and a sort of bird's
plumage covering the back of the head. These two are separate, are never
combined, and must be classified rigidly apart. We have therefore three
elements, the monkey face, the plumage covering (if we may call it so),
and the banded headdress. It is obvious that while the monkey face may
be specific of the North, the bands are not specific at all, but
general.

It is with the greatest diffidence that I suggest any interpretations on
my own part as yet, but it is of course certain that the distinction of
masculine and feminine existed in the spoken language, and it must exist
somewhere in the glyphs. And it will have to be a prefix, not a postfix;
for what I may call the syntax of glyph formation must follow that of
the speech. At the bottom of Dres. 61 and 62 are seven identical
Oc-glyphs with subfix, and with prefixes. Five of these prefixes are
faces with the wo