Page:The Annals of the Cakchiquels.djvu/36

30 To appreciate the bearing of these names, one must remember that this is a rural calendar, in which the months were designated with reference to farming and household incidents. Thus, the "winged ants" referred to, are a species that appear in March and April, shortly before the first of the rainy season; the fourth month is cloudy or misty, from the frequent rains; the first and second grandsons refer probably to the "suckers," which must be plucked from the growing corn; in the eighth month the earth is moist, and must be kept, by tillage, "soft to the hand;" the others have obvious rural allusions, down to the last, when the natives went "in the woods" to gather fuel. The names appear to be all in the Cakchiquel dialect, except the first, Tacaxepual, the resemblance of which to the name of the second Mexican month, Tlacaxipehualiztli, is too striking to be a coincidence, and perhaps the seventeenth, Itzcal, which is very like the eighteenth of the Mexican calendar, Izcalli; but if borrowed from the latter, two Cakchiquel words, of similar sound but different meaning, have been substituted for the original by the familiar linguistic principle of otosis or paronomasia.

Name.

1. Imox,

2. Iꜫ,

3. Aꜫbal,

4. Kat,

5. Can,

6. Camey,

7. Queh,

8. Kanel, 9. Toh,

10. Tzii, 11. Batz,

12. Ee,

13. Ah,

14. Yiz,

15. Tziquin,

16. Ahmac,

17. Noh,

18. Tihax,

19. Caok,

20. Hunahpu,