Meaning
The glyph is a pressure-flaked blade, and scholars gloss the Yucatec Etz'nab' as flint. Thompson gave the day to the god of sacrifices, with the bleeder as its Yucatec augury and tearing flesh as its highland one. The Classic reading is unknown.
The K'iche' name Tijax keeps the blade, and the highland tradition turns it to protection: the Komon Tohil daykeepers gloss it as destiny and the obsidian knife and make it the day of those who heal and of protection against wrongdoing; the Maya' Wuj manual calls it the day of intelligence and a day to cut away enmity.
Our reading: cutting through and decisiveness, with conflict as the risk of an unguarded edge. People born on Tijax are described as quick and direct. The words are ours.
In the highlands today
The Zunil daykeepers use Tijax to ask for protection against wrongdoing in the community and in one's own life. In Momostenango the day's reminder is speech, the cutting edge of the tongue, as Andrés Xiloj put it.
The blade here is the daykeepers' image for what cuts away harm.
The glyph and the old readings
Etz'nab' was one of the four year bearers of Late Classic Campeche; it bears no year in the highlands. Morley's figure of 1915 spells it Eznab.
The Central Mexican day of the same position is Tecpatl, the flint knife: the same object in a different count.
In the count
Tijax comes round every twentieth day, thirteen times in the 260: on days 18, 38, 58, 78, 98, 118, 138, 158, 178, 198, 218, 238 and 258, with the numbers 5, 12, 6, 13, 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4 and 11 in that order, so 5 Tijax is its first day in the count and 11 Tijax its last. In the nawal cross of a person born on Tijax, the day eight before (conception) falls on Tz'i', the day eight after (destiny) on Kame, six before (the right hand) on E and six after (the left hand) on K'at, each with its own number.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Thompson's reading of the glyph (1950)
- knife blade (uncertain) sourced
- Presiding god of the day, after Thompson
- the god of sacrifices sourced
- Old augury, Yucatan and the highlands, after Thompson
- bleeder (Yucatan); tearing flesh (highlands); gradings differ between communities disputed
- The name, as the Zunil daykeepers explain it
- destiny, obsidian knife, sudden temptation sourced
- Direction and colour
- north, white (sak): read off the four-direction cycle; not attested for this day itself, and not shown on our chart unverified
- Our reading
- Cutting through and decisiveness: quick and direct, with conflict as the risk of an unguarded edge. our construction
How the schools read it
- Classic inscriptions (epigraphers)
- Reading of the glyph not known
- J. Eric S. Thompson, 1950
- The glyph as knife blade (uncertain); the day's god the god of sacrifices.
- Komon Tohil daykeepers, Zunil
- Destiny, obsidian knife, sudden temptation.
- The Maya' Wuj manual
- Flint; the energy that opens the doors to the rain; the day of intelligence and of those who heal; a day to cut away enmity.
- Momostenango (Andrés Xiloj, 2005)
- Speaking, talking, our speech.
- The Central Mexican count (tonalpohualli)
- Tecpatl, flint knife: the day of the same position in a related but different count.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- "White Mirror" for the same position in its own count; not our name for the sign.
- EsoTerrier
- Cutting through and decisiveness: quick and direct, with conflict as the risk of an unguarded edge. Our words.
Claims about it
-
Tijax is the "White Mirror".
falseWhat the record shows: That is a Dreamspell name from a modern count of 1990, not the Maya day.
-
Tijax is a day of bad fortune.
disputedWhat the record shows: The old gradings differ between communities, and the daykeepers today use it to ask for protection. We read no fortune into it.
-
Tijax has its own colour, gemstone and guardian animal.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: No Maya source gives these; Western sites added them.
