Meaning
Thompson read the glyph as jade or water, took the Yucatec name Muluk to mean something collected, and gave the day to Ah Xoc, the fish. The Classic reading is unknown.
The K'iche' name Toj means to pay, and the highland reading is built on it. The Komon Tohil daykeepers derive it from offering and payment, call it the nawal of fire, and use the day to ask for strength to avoid mistakes and for hidden things to come to light; the Maya' Wuj manual adds rain and makes it a day of thanks to the Creator and to Mother Earth.
Our reading: offering and reciprocity, the setting right of what is owed, and the fire of the ceremony. People born on Toj are described as understanding cause and consequence and good at restoring balance between people. The words are ours.
In the highlands today
In Momostenango the prayer on this day, as Andrés Xiloj gave it in 2005, is that hardship may not come to oneself, one's children or one's neighbours.
Offering here means the ceremony's gifts of candles, incense and thanks, as the daykeepers describe it; our page describes the day and is not itself a ceremony.
The glyph and the old readings
Landa made Muluk the second of the four days that could open a year in Yucatan, assigned to the east. It bears no year in the highland count.
The Central Mexican day of the same position is Atl, water, close to Thompson's reading of the glyph but a different count.
In the count
Toj comes round every twentieth day, thirteen times in the 260: on days 9, 29, 49, 69, 89, 109, 129, 149, 169, 189, 209, 229 and 249, with the numbers 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13, 7, 1, 8 and 2 in that order, so 9 Toj is its first day in the count and 2 Toj its last. In the nawal cross of a person born on Toj, the day eight before (conception) falls on Imox, the day eight after (destiny) on No'j, six before (the right hand) on Aq'ab'al and six after (the left hand) on Tz'ikin, 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)
- jade or water sourced
- Presiding god of the day, after Thompson
- Ah Xoc, the fish sourced
- Old augury, Yucatan and the highlands, after Thompson
- the xoc fish (Yucatan); gradings differ between communities disputed
- The name, as the Zunil daykeepers explain it
- offering, fine, payment; also help, listen, understand sourced
- Direction and colour
- east, red (chak): Landa gives this colonial bearer its direction sourced
- Our reading
- Offering and reciprocity: a sense of cause and consequence, and a gift for restoring balance between people. our construction
How the schools read it
- Classic inscriptions (epigraphers)
- Reading of the glyph not known
- J. Eric S. Thompson, 1950
- The glyph as jade or water; the day's god Ah Xoc, the fish.
- Komon Tohil daykeepers, Zunil
- Offering, fine, payment; also help, listen, understand.
- The Maya' Wuj manual
- Rain, offering; thanks to the Creator and Former and to Mother Earth; a day to pay so that no obstacle remains.
- Momostenango (Andrés Xiloj, 2005)
- A prayer that hardship may not come to oneself, one's children or one's neighbours.
- The Central Mexican count (tonalpohualli)
- Atl, water: the day of the same position in a related but different count.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- "Red Moon" for the same position in its own count; not our name for the sign.
- EsoTerrier
- Offering and reciprocity: a sense of cause and consequence, and a gift for restoring balance between people. Our words.
Claims about it
-
Toj is a year bearer.
disputedWhat the record shows: Muluk was one of Landa's four in colonial Yucatan; the highland bearers are Iq', Kej, E and No'j.
-
Toj is the "Red Moon".
falseWhat the record shows: That is a Dreamspell name from a modern count of 1990, not the Maya day.
-
Each sign has an agreed direction and colour.
disputedWhat the record shows: Only the year-bearer days are attested. Landa gives Muluk the east as a colonial bearer; the highland tradition does not.
