The Maya Chronicles | Page 9

numero 45 por ejemplo dice ho tu yoxkal, cuando oxkal
ò yoxkal significa 60.
"No sé de donde tomó los fundamentos en que se apoya este sistema,
quiza en el uso de su tiempo, que no ha llegado hasta este; aunque he
visto en varios manuscritos antiguos, que los Indios de entonces como
los de ahora, usaban el sistema que indico, y espresaban las unidades
integras que numeraban, y para espresar el numero 65 dicen; Oxkal
catac hotul ù hotu oxkal, que usa el Padre Beltran por 45.[43-1]
"Mas el metodo que explico esta apoyado en el uso y aun en el curso
que se advierte en la 1ª y 2ª veintena é indican que asi deben continuar
las decenas hasta la 20ª y no formar sistemas confusos que por ser mas
ô menos análogos à la numeracion romana lo juzgaban mas ô menos
perfectos, porque la consideraban como un tipo a que debia arreglarse
cualquiera otra lengua, cuando en ellas todo lo que no este conforme
con el uso recibido y corriente, es construir castillos en el aire y hacer
reformas que por mas ingeniosas que sean, no pasan de inoficiosas."
In the face of this severe criticism of Father Beltran's system, I cannot
explain how it is that in Pio Perez's own Dictionary of the Maya, the
numerals above 40 are given according to Beltran's system; and that
this was not the work of the editors of that volume (which was
published after his death), is shown by an autographic manuscript of his
dictionary in my possession, written about 1846,[44-1] in which also
the numerals appear in Beltran's form.
Three other manuscript dictionaries in my collection, all composed
previous to 1690, affirm the system of Beltran, and I am therefore
obliged to believe that it was authentic and current among the natives
long before white scholars began to dress up their language in the
ill-fitting garments of Aryan grammar.
Proceeding to higher numbers, it is interesting to note that they also
proceed on the vigesimal system, although this has not heretofore been
distinctly shown. The ancient computation was:

20 units = one kal = 20 20 kal = one bak = 400 20 bak = one pic =
8,000 20 pic = one calab = 160,000 20 calab = one kinchil or tzotzceh =
3,200,000 20 kinchil = one alau = 64,000,000
This ancient system was obscured by the Spaniards using the word pic
to mean 1000 and kinchil to mean 1,000,000, instead of their original
significations.
The meaning of kal, I have already explained to be a fastening together,
a package, a bundle. Bak, as a verb, is to tie around and around with a
network of cords; pic is the old word for the short petticoat worn by the
women, which was occasionally used as a sac. If we remember that
grains of corn or of cacao were what were generally employed as
counters, then we may suppose these were measures of quantity. The
word kal (qal), in Kiche means a score and also specifically 20 grains
of cacao; bak in Cakchiquel means a corn-cob, and as a verb to shell an
ear of corn, but I am not clear of any connection between this and the
numeral. Other meanings of bak in Maya are "meat" and the partes
pudendas of either sex.
Calab, seems to be an instrumental form from cal, to stuff, to fill
full.[45-1] The word calam is used in the sense of excessive, overmuch.
In Cakchiquel the phrase mani hu cala, not (merely) one cala, is
synonymous with mani hu chuvi, not (merely) one bag or sack, both
meaning a countless number.[46-1] In that dialect the specific meaning
of cala is 20 loads of cacao beans.[46-2]
The term tzotzceh means deerskin, but for kinchil and alau, I have
found no satisfactory derivation that does not strain the forms of the
word too much. I would, however, suggest one possible connection of
meaning.
In kinchil, we have the word kin, day; in alau, the word u month, and in
the term for mathematical infinity, hunhablat, we find hun haab, one
year, just as in the related expression, hunhablazic, which signifies that
which lasts a whole year. If this suggestion is well grounded, then in
these highest expressions of quantity (and I am inclined to think that
originally hun hablat, one hablat
=20 alau) we have applications of the

three time periods, the day, the month, and the year, with the figurative
sense that the increase of one over the other was as the relative lengths
of these different periods.
I think it worth while to go into these etymologies, as they may throw
some light on the graphic representation of the numerals in the Maya
hieroglyphics. It is quite likely that the figures chosen to represent