Meaning
Three is the last of the low numbers that the highland reports call gentle; Bunzel's Chichicastenango is reported to say so of 1 to 3 in particular, a passage we have not yet read ourselves.
Our sentence for three is that it moves out of balance into gentle action, and recalls the three stones that Maya accounts of the creation set in place, which scholars read as a hearth in the sky. The keyword "first movement" and the sentence are ours, a reading aid and not a teaching.
Days and ceremonies
Its first day is 3 Aq'ab'al, day 3 of the 260. The sample person on our system page was born on 3 Aq'ab'al, on 19 January 1989, after sunset, so by the daykeepers' reckoning their day would already be 4 K'at.
The first thirteen days of the count carry the numbers 1 to 13 in order, so from 1 Imox to 13 Aj the day's place in the 260 and its number agree; 3 Aq'ab'al is the third of them.
The numeral
Three dots in a row. Thompson identified the Classic head for 3 as a youthful head with the Ik' sign on its cheek, matched with the god of the day Kawak.
In the count
The number 3 falls on twenty days of the 260: days 3, 16, 29, 42, 55, 68, 81, 94, 107, 120, 133, 146, 159, 172, 185, 198, 211, 224, 237 and 250, with the signs Aq'ab'al, Ajmaq, Toj, Iq', Tz'ikin, Q'anil, Imox, I'x, Kej, Ajpu, Aj, Kame, Kawoq, E, Kan, Tijax, B'atz', K'at, No'j and Tz'i' in that order. A sign comes back every twenty days and a number every thirteen, so the same pairing, such as 3 Aq'ab'al, 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
- mild; the bands and their edges are EsoTerrier's grouping, not a published scheme our construction
- Our keyword and sentence
- "first movement"; Three moves out of balance into gentle action; it recalls the three stones that Maya accounts of the creation set in place, which scholars read as a cosmic hearth. our construction
- Head variant of the numeral, after Thompson
- a youthful head with the Ik' sign on the cheek, the god he gave to the day Kawak 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 3 as three dots, or as a god's head: a youthful head with the Ik' sign on the cheek, in Thompson's identification.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- Gives each number a name of its own in a different modern count; not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- Mild in our bands; keyword "first movement". Our words, a reading aid.
Claims about it
-
The number 3 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.
-
Three 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.
