Dog. Ch'orti': Tzi'; Quiche: Tzi; Yucatec: Ok; Aztec: Itzcuintli. This sign means dog in all four languages so there is not much doubt about its meaning. Why a day sign sign was named dog takes a little more analysis. New research indicates a strong possibility that dogs were first domesticated in China about 32,000 years ago. Considering that the Taiwanese indigenous came from China and were the source for the migration to South America that resulted in the Maya, one must ask if there dogs on Taiwan and if they made the journey to the Americas in about 12,800 BCE. In addition, perhaps the Taiwanese indigenous share the heritage of the Chinese indigenous who first domesticated the dog.
In this hemisphere, it was the only domesticated animal until the Maya domesticated the parrot in 8400 BCE - it was the earliest companion to humans.
This day sign also seems to relate to the star Sirius since Sirius is the dog star for most early cultures and the Mayans as well. The name for Sirius may derive from tzi', the word for dog. The similar sounding sir, probable root of Sirius, means a lifting or a raising, associating Sirius as a rising star. When Venus is not visible, it is the brightest object in sky, aside from the sun and moon. This day sign is opposite (10 days apart) the sun sign, Ahchuk (Ahau), showing that Sirius was considered an opposite or a counter to the sun. For the last two thousand years, Sirius disappears from the sky in April and reappears in the early morning sky in June, in Mesoamerica. Its reappearance would have been an indicator to plant, just after the rainy season had started.
Tracking Sirius, the Dog star, through the elliptic, the pre-Maya were able to predict precession of the solar system through the galactic elliptic. It appears that they were tracking Sirius by 8500 BCE. At that time it was a rising star during the time of the spring equinox. When Mars turned retrograde close to the spring equinox, usually every 17 years, its retrograde station occurred near the black hole at the center of the galaxy. If this occurred near to the galactic void, it could mark the changing of the Mars long-count calendar. Then over thousands of years they noticed Sirius' rising was no longer occurring at the spring equinox. In this way they were able to measure exactly how much precession there was over time.
The word tzi' in Ch'orti' is very similar to the word tz'ihn, which means yuca or manioc. Many day signs are associated with one or more early crops. In addition, tz'ihk is pottery and tz'ok' is snapping in two, sometimes shortened to 'ok or k'o, an onomatopoeia. There is a ritual on this day sign among some Mayans of breaking a piece of pottery in two. In Yucatecan Mayan, ok means dog, and we are back full circle. One word for leg in Ch'orti' is ok, so that uyok etzi is dog's paw, which also likely had an astronomical meaning. Also, tz'ik means left and tz'ik ikar is north wind. Finally, dog or tzi' is spelled both tz'i' and tzi', which means it could pre-date the split in these two sounds, sometime prior to 9000 BCE.
Tzi' 13-day week
1 Tzi', Friday, June 14 Dog
2 B'atz, Saturday, June 15 Sterile
3 B'i'r, Sunday, June 16 Ocean course
4 B'ahk', Monday, June 17 Cultivation
5 B'ahram, Tuesday, June 18 Tamed jaguar
6 Tz'ikin, Wednesday, June 19 Clay and sticks
7 Ahmok, Thursday, June 20 The sick one
8 Noj, Friday, June 21 Greatness9 Etz'nab', Saturday, June 22 Study or forget
10 Kawe't, Sunday, June 23 Our companions
11 Ahchuk, Monday, June 24 The observer (of nature)
12 Imi'x, Tuesday, June 25 Cutting motion
13 Ik'ar, Wednesday, June 26 Wind
Comments