Meaning
Eleven is one of the strong numbers in the highland reports. Our sources record no ceremony tied to eleven itself, and no traditional character for it; the band we place it in is our own grouping.
Our sentence: eleven is strong and restless, suited to change and to dealing with what is out of balance; the keyword is "strong, unsettled force". These are ours, not the daykeepers'.
Days and ceremonies
Its first day is 11 B'atz', day 11 of the 260. Among the highland year bearers, 11 E bore the year that opened in February 2023, and 11 No'j bears the one that opens in February 2036.
11 B'atz' shares its sign with 8 B'atz', the day that renews the count, which falls 140 days later in every round; the daykeepers' great day is the pairing of number and sign, not the sign alone.
The numeral
Two bars and one dot. Thompson identified the Classic head for 11 as an earth god marked with the Kab'an sign, matched with the day Manik'.
From eleven on, the numeral has two bars, and the dots begin again above them.
In the count
The number 11 falls on twenty days of the 260: days 11, 24, 37, 50, 63, 76, 89, 102, 115, 128, 141, 154, 167, 180, 193, 206, 219, 232, 245 and 258, with the signs B'atz', K'at, No'j, Tz'i', Aq'ab'al, Ajmaq, Toj, Iq', Tz'ikin, Q'anil, Imox, I'x, Kej, Ajpu, Aj, Kame, Kawoq, E, Kan and Tijax in that order. A sign comes back every twenty days and a number every thirteen, so the same pairing, such as 11 B'atz', returns only after 260 days. Each year the highland year bearer's number rises by one, because 365 days are 28 runs of thirteen and one day more.
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.
- Strength, in the highland reports
- The number gives the day its force: low numbers gentle, high numbers strong (Tedlock at Momostenango and Bunzel at Chichicastenango, as reported) sourced
- Our band
- strong; the bands and their edges are EsoTerrier's grouping, not a published scheme our construction
- Our keyword and sentence
- "strong, unsettled force"; Eleven is a strong, restless number, suited to change and to dealing with what is out of balance. our construction
- Head variant of the numeral, after Thompson
- an earth god with the Kab'an sign, the god he gave to the day Manik' sourced
- A fixed character for the number
- None established; which numbers are good differs from town to town disputed
How the schools read it
- Highland ethnography, as reported
- The number is the strength of the day, gentle in the low numbers and strong in the high.
- Thompson's survey of highland towns
- Which numbers count as good or bad differs from town to town.
- Classic scribes
- Wrote 11 as two bars and one dot, or as a god's head: an earth god with the Kab'an sign, in Thompson's identification.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- Gives each number a name of its own in a different modern count; not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- Strong in our bands; keyword "strong, unsettled force". Our words, a reading aid.
Claims about it
-
The number 11 has a fixed traditional character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: The highland reports give the numbers strength, low gentle and high strong; fixed characters per number are modern, and our own keyword is labelled as ours.
-
Eleven is one of thirteen cosmic "tones" with a Maya name.
falseWhat the record shows: The tone names are Dreamspell's, from 1990. The Maya count has numbers 1 to 13.
