Night. Aq'ab'al (Quiche), Ak'bal (Yucatec), Calli (Aztec). The tzolk'in day sign of 1 Ak'bar (in Ch'orti') provides the tone for the next 13 days. Ak'bar was one of the eight great founders of the Mayan people and considered the greatest of them all. The Ak'bar lineage consisted of Ak'bar on the male side and Chomija on the female side. Ak'bar is the name of the leader of the flotilla of four rafts that made the journey from South America to Central America in about 8900 BCE. Ak'bar means "night" and the name corresponds to Ak'bar taking the night shift of the leading the rafts - the most difficult and arduous shift.
The Ak'bar lineage eventually settled at Lake Guija on the Guatemala and El Salvador border and then became the source lineage for most of the Mayan settlements and Classic-era sites. The Ch'orti', Huasteca, and Yucatec Mayan peoples are some of the Mayan ethnicities that come from the Ak'bar lineage.
The Ak'bar lineage was also called Nijayib' in the Popol Vuh. This means "shaking fast" in Ch'orti' and describes the state of the members of the Ak'bar lineage in the midst of the fasts that they would make. This daysign has the most Saturn overtones of the daysigns: providing compassionate leadership based on self-discipline and self-sacrifice. Somehow European models of Saturn leave out the compassion.
Any discussion of the Ak'bar daysign can not leave out Chomija, named as the female partner of Ak'bar in the Popul Vuh. Certainly on the raft ride to Central America, Chomija played an equal or nearly equal part as Ak'bar, since sleep was due to both. But the female energy of the Maya really came alive on Isla Tigre. It was the women who first began to domesticate animals - first the macaw parrot and then the puma and jaguar, according to the Popol Vuh. Chomija's name means "puma housecat". Chomija is the bridge which gets us to the Aztec Nahuat name for this sign: Calli or "house". Ak'bar is also know as Ak'bar Bajram or Night Jaguar. It was Chomija who tamed the jaguar and made it into a house creature, Calli.
Ak'bar and Chomija, "Night and Puma Cat", the great ones.
The origin of Ak'bar in the Ch'orti' language comes from ak' - "covering" - and bar - "weight" or "heaviness". Night is like a heavy covering.
There will never be an eclipse during an Ak'bar week, in our era. Mars always stations direct in Ak'bar or the previous 13-day week, in our era. The Mars retrograde long-count date that corresponds to 1 Ak'bar: 2500 BCE.
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