signs, which, with _kin_,
_tun_, _kal_, and a few marked variants, use up 50 numbers. Next will
come the faces, about 75 simple elements. Next the animal and bird heads
and figures, about 50 numbers. Next the hands, crosses, etc., and the
list of conventional or geometric forms, another 75. Then some 75
particles.
The cards required for the first 50 numbers, including only compounds
formed from day-signs and excluding day-signs used simply as such,
amount to practically one half of the number required for the whole
index. Certain elements, notably the _kin_, the _tun_, the monkey-face
with banded headdress, already referred to, the face with tau-eye, the
_yax_, the cross, produce a great number of compounds--a fact of note,
as it is evident that the number of compounds, having due regard to our
limited material, is an index to the relative position of the idea in
the Mayan vocabularies. Some of the day-signs produce practically no
compounds, others a great many. The compounds fall readily into a system
of primary and secondary derivatives, by which their relations may be
easily studied, and their proportions recognized.
Coming to the distinguishing of variants, one first meets the fact that
the three codices differ. The writing of the Dresden and Perez is
regular and accurate, the Perez exceedingly so. Every different variant
must here be accounted for. In Tro.-Cort. the writing is crude and
careless, so that we have many evident abbreviations which are not
genuine variants. In the next place, certain regular differences occur
in this or that glyph or particle, between the forms of the different
manuscripts. Thus the Perez uses [Hieroglyph] and the others
[Hieroglyph] and so on. A comparison of the compounds shows that these
must be the same. The regular variations between the three manuscripts
and variations of abbreviation, when well evidenced, may be eliminated.
The day-signs have many variants, mostly quite simple, and all
checked positively by the use of the form in some day-series. Ix has
many forms. There are at least three entirely different Cimi forms:
[Hieroglyphs][TN-4] There are found two different forms of the closed
eye, one of which certainly is Cimi, the other occurs regularly in
such different compounds (and I think never as a simple day-sign), as
to make it necessary to separate it; [Hieroglyph] it has probably a
different meaning entirely--perhaps that of sleep.
* * *
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