Meaning
Nine closes our middle band. Thompson's survey found nine counted very bad at Santa Eulalia, which is exactly why we read no fortune into a number: the gradings belong to towns, not to the count.
Our sentence makes nine a middle number of patient, sustaining strength, with the keyword "life, patience": EsoTerrier's aid, not the tradition's teaching.
Days and ceremonies
Its first day is 9 Toj, day 9 of the 260. 9 E follows 8 B'atz', and on it the Momostenango daykeepers ask for a good road and a good work, the pair of words that means destiny, as Andrés Xiloj explained in 2005.
The Classic inscriptions also counted a separate cycle of nine days, the Lords of the Night (Glyph G); it runs on its own and has nothing to do with the number of the day.
The numeral
One bar and four dots. Thompson identified the Classic head for 9 as a god with spots or hair on his chin, the god he gave to the day Chikchan.
Nine is the largest number written with a single bar: four dots above one bar, before ten needs a second.
In the count
The number 9 falls on twenty days of the 260: days 9, 22, 35, 48, 61, 74, 87, 100, 113, 126, 139, 152, 165, 178, 191, 204, 217, 230, 243 and 256, with the signs Toj, Iq', Tz'ikin, Q'anil, Imox, I'x, Kej, Ajpu, Aj, Kame, Kawoq, E, Kan, Tijax, B'atz', K'at, No'j, Tz'i', Aq'ab'al and Ajmaq in that order. A sign comes back every twenty days and a number every thirteen, so the same pairing, such as 9 Toj, 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
- "life, patience"; Nine is a middle number of patient, sustaining strength; in Momostenango 9 E, the day after 8 B'atz', is a day to ask for a good road. our construction
- Head variant of the numeral, after Thompson
- the Chikchan god, with spots or hair on his chin, the god he gave to the day Chikchan 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 9 as one bar and four dots, or as a god's head: the Chikchan god, with spots or hair on his chin, 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 "life, patience". Our words, a reading aid.
Claims about it
-
The number 9 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.
-
Nine 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.
-
The nine Lords of the Night have known Maya names and belong to the number nine.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: Their Maya names are not known; Thompson's labels G1 to G9 and any likeness to the Central Mexican nine are analogy. The cycle is separate from the day's number.
