1 - Histomesoamericana

THE SEVENTH CENTURY
•••• LtZ ^Bg>
From 692 to 751, then the
East priest Bi Ton arrived, the Uaxac Ahau* 8 Anau » 6 ^h
Uac Ahau
6 A* 1311 1 711 )'
(Can Ahau)* (4 Ahau)(731),
Caa Ahau 2 Ahau (751).
Kuchc i is Then arrived
Chac Na Bi Ton* The East priest Bi Ton,
(note continued from preceding page)
begin with 8 Ahau rather than 6 Ahau but otherwise agree with the Xiu. The
beginning date is thus the end of katun 8 Ahau on 9.13.0.0.0 8 Ahau 8 Uo,
March 18, 692.
11. The count now repeats.
13. 4 Ahau has been omitted.
16. Chac Na Bi Ton: the East priest (Chac) and chief of the Toltec Xiu. The
prefix Na 'mother' commonly introduces the matronymic, in this case Bi 'roll',
and the patronymic comes last: Ton 'lame'. Barrera 1948: 59 and Brinton 1882:
144 consider this a place-name.
The place-names of Yucatan are difficult to identify and often difficult to locate
(see Roys 1935). Frequently they are introduced by the locative ti 'at', and the
names of many of the smaller towns follow this with Ix 'little'. A few towns have
monosyllabic names; more commonly the name is inflected or compounded, and
names of four or more elements are not unknown (ti Ix Peton Cah, ti Ix Kil Itzam
Pech). Numeral prefixes of unknown significance occur occasionally: Hun Uc Ma,
Cabil Neb A, Ox Cum, Can Uat Horn, Ho Tzuc Chakan, Uuc y Ab Nal, Uaxac
Tun, Bolon Ch'och', Lahun Chab Le, and Ox Lahun Zuyua. Numbers above 13 do
not seem to occur. Otherwise, since there appear to have been eighteen provinces
(see note 777), I would be tempted to guess that they were numbered in relation
to the uinals. The numeral prefix is invariant over time for any one town.
Classificatory elements are common in place-names: A or Ha 'water', Cab or
Luum 'lands', Hoi Tun 'water hole', Tun 'rock', Cah 'town', Ch'een 'well', Puc
'hill', and Tz'onot 'cenote'. Animal and plant names are frequent descriptive
elements: snail, deer, turkey, iguana, alligator, puma, squirrel, bat, rabbit, dove,
and skunk in the first category, gourdroot, balche, guano palm, caoba, custard
apple, banana, chile, nance, corn, and ceiba in the second. Construction features
occur occasionally: mounds, walls, ovens, and plazas. Color names with directional
associations are frequent. There is a surprising dearth of Náhuatl placenames.
I have found only five: Tizimin [Tzimentian], Mayapan, Yucatan \Yucatlan),
Valladolid [Zaciapan], and Zuyua.
The interpretation of personal names presents several difficulties (Roys 1940).
While it seems likely that calendrical names were used even after the conquest,
they are extremely rare. Examples are 7 Eb and 5 Xóchitl. Numeral elements are
sometimes prefixed to surnames without any accompanying day name, as in 8 Ol
Kauil, 11 Ch'ab Tan, or 7 Sat Ay. I believe these to be priestly titles. Occasionally
a numeral appears to be used as a surname, as in Lahun Chan, Cab Bech', or Hun
Pic. The typical naming system is binomial, and most commonly both names are
monosyllabic, the first being a matronym and the second a patronym, as in Yax
Cutz, Can UI, Kak Mo, or Can Ek. Often the matronym is preceded by Na—Na
Pot Xiu, Na Ahau Pech, or Na Puc Tun—but this appears to be optional. Sometimes
the name is preceded by Ah, as in Ah Muzen Cab or Ah Kin Chil, implying
priesthood or a collective: the man and his family. Women's names may very
occasionally be identified by the prefix Ix, as in Ix Tab or Ix Kalem, but I believe that
this element is far more commonly the simple conjunction 'and'. Both Roys and
Barrera have in my opinion provided us with an entirely excessive list of goddesses.
Very commonly either surname may take the suffix -il or -VI, an abstractive,
again with collective meaning, but this is also optional: Chac Hub, Chac Hubil or
Ul Ahau, Ulil Ahau. Additional elements may precede or follow the name, apparently
for differentiating people of similar names. These may be prefix titles, such
(note continued on following page)