Meaning
Six has no ceremony of its own that our sources record. It is a middle number in the reported scale, and the place of each number in our bands, mild, middle and strong, is EsoTerrier's grouping.
Our sentence calls six a number of ordinary, even strength, movement that keeps its balance, with the keyword "steady flow". These are our words, a reading aid; fixed personalities for the numbers are modern, whoever writes them.
Days and ceremonies
Its first day is 6 Kame, day 6 of the 260. Among the highland year bearers, 6 Kej bore the year that opened in February 2018, and 6 E bears the one that opens in February 2031.
Its first day joins a middle number to the sign of death and renewal. The daykeepers' reading of Kame as the ancestors holds on every Kame day, whatever its number; the number tells how strongly the day is felt, not what it is.
The numeral
One bar with a dot above it. Thompson identified the Classic head for 6 as a god with an axe in his eye, and since God B carries an axe he matched it with the day Ik'.
In the count
The number 6 falls on twenty days of the 260: days 6, 19, 32, 45, 58, 71, 84, 97, 110, 123, 136, 149, 162, 175, 188, 201, 214, 227, 240 and 253, with the signs Kame, Kawoq, E, Kan, Tijax, B'atz', K'at, No'j, Tz'i', Aq'ab'al, Ajmaq, Toj, Iq', Tz'ikin, Q'anil, Imox, I'x, Kej, Ajpu and Aj in that order. A sign comes back every twenty days and a number every thirteen, so the same pairing, such as 6 Kame, 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
- middle; the bands and their edges are EsoTerrier's grouping, not a published scheme our construction
- Our keyword and sentence
- "steady flow"; Six is a middle number of ordinary, even strength, movement that keeps its balance. our construction
- Head variant of the numeral, after Thompson
- a god with an axe in his eye (God B carries an axe), the god he gave to the day Ik' 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 6 as one bar and one dot, or as a god's head: a god with an axe in his eye (God B carries an axe), in Thompson's identification.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- Gives each number a name of its own in a different modern count; not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- Middle in our bands; keyword "steady flow". Our words, a reading aid.
Claims about it
-
The number 6 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.
-
Six 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.
