bernard Wrote:
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> Dennis Tedlock. 1996. Popol Vuh. The Definitive
> Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and
> the Glories of Gods and Kings NY: Simon &
> Schuster.
>
> I though it would be useful for now and perhaps to
> you in the future to put this in
>
> p. 201. “Words from the Mayan languages of
> Guatemala, when they appear in italics are written
> in the new alphabets of the Academia de las
> Lenguas Maya de Guatemala (1988), except that the
> vowels have been reduced to the five found in both
> hieroglyphic texts and early alphabetic documents.
> With the following exceptions, consonants may be
> pronounced as in English: j is like Spanish j,
> with the tongue farther back than for English h; l
> is like Welsh ll with the tongue forward than for
> English; and q is like Hebrew qoph, with the
> tongue farther back than for English k. Two other
> Mayan sounds are found in English but are spelled
> differently: tz is like ts in English “bats,” and
> x is like English sh. The glottal stop, equivalent
> to tt in the Scottish pronunciation of “bottle,”
> is indicated by ‘; when it follows a consonant, it
> is pronounced simultaneously with that consonant.
> Vowels are approximately like those of Spanish or
> Italian. Stress is nearly always on the final
> syllable of a word. In most cases words in italics
> from Mayan languages outside of Guatemala or from
> Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, retain the
> orthographies of the sources consulted.
> In the Popol Vuh and other early alphabetic
> documents in Quiche
> and other Quichean languages, vowels followed by
> glottal stops were written aa, ee, ii, oo, uu; in
> the new spellings these become a’,e’,i’,o’,u’.
> Among the glottalized consonants, b becomes b’, tt
> becomes t’, 4h becomes ch’ and 4, becomes tz’.
> Among k sounds, the plain front variety formerly
> written c or qu is now k, while the plain back
> variety formerly written k is now q. The
> glottalized forms formerly written 4 and 3 are now
> k’ and q’respectively. And finally, h becomes j,
> while z and ç become s.”
>
> p. 220 (notes to pp. 63-64) “the fourfold siding,
> fourfold cornering/ measuring, fourfold staking,/
> halving the cord. Stretching the cord/ in the sky,
> on the earth,/ the four sides, the four corners:
> “Siding” and “side” are tz’ukuxik and tz’uk : TC
> cites a prior dictionary as giving “side” for
> tz’uk, which is also the translation suggested by
> Andres Xiloj: “Cornering” and “corner” translate
> xukutaxik and xukut; Xiloj uses the latter word in
> his prayers, saying kaj xukut kaj, kaj xukut ulew,
> “four corners of sky, four corners of earth,.” The
> “fourfold stalking” is ukaj che’xik, which he
> understood to be four sticks or poles driven into
> the ground at the four corners. The “measuring” is
> retaxik, literally “its-being measured,”
> translated on the basis of etaj, “to measure, to
> mark out” (D, and the reading offered by Xiloj.
> The unit of measurement in question, still used by
> the Quiches, is the k’a’m or “cord”, a length of
> rope about twenty yards (or paces) long. Xiloj was
> familiar with the phrasing used here, umej
> k’amaxik . “its-folded cording,” and uyuq
> k’a’maxik . “its-stretched cording.” He explained
> that the “folded” measurement is done with the
> cord doubled back on itself to have its length,
> while the “stretched” measurement is done with the
> cord pulled out to its full length. His reading of
> k’a’maxik (which has a passive ending) is
> confirmed by an entry in DB, k’a’maj (with an
> active ending), “to measure land.” He observed
> that the PV describes the measurement of sky and
> earth as if a cornfield were being laid out for
> cultivation; house and loom construction are also
> suggested by this passage (B. Tedlock and D.
> Tedlock 1985). In the Book of Chilam Balam of
> Chumayel, the measurement of the world is
> described in terms of twenty footsteps (equal to a
> cord) that span the twenty day names of the
> divinatory calendar (Roys 1967: 116-18). The same
> source refers to a celestial cord (Ibid: 1555);
> according to Yucatec Mayas living near Valladolid,
> a cord suspended I the sky once linked Tulum and
> Coba with Chichen Itza and Uxmal (Tozzer 1907:
> 153).”
> %%%%
>
> From Duncan’s post- quote: “Land division itself
> is accomplished by using the “ahe”. A cord with
> measurements punctuated by knots. And here is a
> curious similarity to another usage three thousand
> miles to the east. In the Popol Vuh, the Mayan
> Book of Council, “ah” is the active ending meaning
> “to measure lands” (Tedlock).”
>
> That is not correct, as you can see, Tedlock says
> that “k’a’maj” means “to measure land.” The word
> deriving from two words etaj “to measure” and
> k’a’m “cord.” This in no way resembles “ahe” (the
> Quiche j is pronounced like Spanish j and there
> are 2 glottal stops a sound that I don’t believe
> exist in Hawaiian). The meaning of the compound
> word (where the active and the passive endings are
> not really relevant to the claim of parallelism
> to Hawaiian) is confirmed by the “folded”
> measurement of land and the “stretched”
> measurement of land in both cases “measurement of
> land” is k’a’maxik “cord” + “measure” in the
> passive suffix ending.
>
> Just as a check you can see this.

Thanks so much for this. I really appreciate your input. My copy of Tedlock is so worn that I can't determine which edition it is. I know that it must be pre 1996, because I've had it much longer than that as well as the title of your edition sounding more expansive.
I am still struggling with English, let alone Quiche' which seems very alien what with the glottal stops and abundant passive endings. In my version of the Popul Vuh, and on page 244, Tedlock gets into a lengthy discussion of the parallel verse structure in which he apeaks of the triplets and quatrains of the vertical prose "strongly modifies the vertical movement of parallelism." Which probably has no bearing on our discussion, but I note that it wasn't mentioned at all in your post. Apparently, he was at odds with Edmonson as the latter presented the PV entirely in couplets. I was completely unaware of the idea that there is a both horizontal and vertical structure, let alone that one modifies the other.

>
>
> on line
> Allen J. Christensen, (nd) K’iche’-English
> Dictionary and Guide to Pronunciation of the
> K’iche’-Maya Alphabet.
>
> p. 35 etaj (v) to measure something
> p. 35 etabal k’am string for measuring
> P. 51 k’a’m (n) cord, hammock, burlap, vine.
> p. 52 k’am cord, string, bird trap
> %%%%%%%
> Point number two
>
> Nowhere does Tedlock say that the k’a’maxik or
> k’a’maj have any knots so that, too, is not a
> parallel to the Hawaiian “ahe”. What is actually
> more significant is that the length of the
> “stretched out” cord is the basic Mesoamerican
> unit = 20. Not the base number for Hawaiian (or
> Peruvian, for that matter). The reference to the
> Chilam Balam ties the measurement to this number
> and to the number of Maya day names. Again, not a
> Hawaiian resemblance.

Of that I am not entirely sure. I leave for Hawaii tomorrow, my mother being over there and recovering from a bypass, so I want to look into that. I'll be going to the Bishop Museum as well as the University of Hawaii. So the Mesoamerican cord was halved and stretched with no markings? And what was it twenty of? Was there a more basic unit of measure?



> %%%%%
> point number 3.
>
> This applies to both the reference to the Chilam
> Balam and to the Tozzer citation. The Chilam Balam
> of Chumayel should be taken critically and
> confirmed through other sources. These colonial
> documents are quite contaminated with Christian
> beliefs. For example, at the beginning of the
> passage in question
>
> R.L. Roys. 1967. The Book of Chilam Balam of
> Chumayel. Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press
>
> p. 116 “Thus it was recorded <by> the first
> sage, Melchise<dek>,.. .” the note at the
> foot says “Written Merchise in the Maya text. The
> presence of an r indicates a European word or
> name, but it does not follow that it was an r in
> Spanish. R and l sounded alike to the Maya ear,
> and in native documents we find the name Melchor
> written Merchor. We have already seen Bible names
> piously interpolated in native legends. The last
> syllable is here supplied by the translator.

...or I doubt that there was a Melchizadek in Maya. Aren't there a great many Old Testament allusions in the Popul Vuh? The Red Sea comes to mind.
>
>
> Re the Tozzer. Actually, this belief is a modern
> Maya myth retrospectively applied by them. There
> is no evidence, from this, that the Maya believed
> this pre-columbus. I know from my Aztec background
> that modern some crazy things are attributed to
> the Aztecs by guides, Chicanos, and natives that
> we KNOW are wrong because we really know a lot
> about what pre-Columbian beliefs were among the
> Aztecs (not true about the Maya.)
>
> Bernard

That threw me, too. The linking of the sky cords with the whole act of measurement seemed
out of place because I associated the sky cords with the umbilicus and the sacbees. I don't recall Schele or Stuart making the association with measurement.
Anyway, thanks a lot for this feedback. I had to throw it out there prematurely to show that the khipu had analogs and that I wasn't solely relying on a literary reference (which sounds kind of new agey to begin with).
>