The following comes from:
Helen Neuenswander, “Vestiges
of Early Maya Time Concepts in a Contemporary Maya (Cubulco Achi) Community:
Implications for Epigraphy,” Presented at 77th Annual Meeting,
American Anthropoligcal Association, Los Angeles, California, November 14-18,
1978, repr. Estudios de Cultural Maya 13 (1981): 132-33:
Significantly, the 5-day period and the 7-day period may
be conjugated differently than are other periods of days: ho'ob 'ih "five days"
is referred to as hobix when thought of as a future period, or as hobixir when
thought of as a past period. Wuqub 'ih "seven day." Is referred to as
wuqubix "a week from today" or wuqbixir "last week" (h
often becomes x in final position or when a terminal suffix is added e.g.,
tzukuk "to seek for", tzukuxik "to (his) seeking).
The wuqubix "7-day period" mentioned above fits
so perfectly the concept of the 7-day week (referred to as ocho dias
"eight days" in Spanish) that it is only by going back to the glyphs
that the authentic- ity of the concepi, as being Mayan, is maintained. Thompson
cleverly
identified a glyph which occurs with 7-day and 5-day
periods, which called the "bix" glyph and which he felt
"corresponds to the numerical classifier bix ... and may indicate the
intervals between markets" (Thompson, 1950: 179). Judging from the way the
7-day cycle is used in Cubulco to calculate phases of the moon, and recognizing
that the cognitive validity of the 5-day cycle was based on its utilitarian
function of dividing the 20-day month, I would like to recognize Thompson's
acuity in isolating the glyph and in associating it with the 5- and 7-day
periods but, on the basis of Achi data, reject his conjectures regarding the
linguistic derivation of bix and the sig-nificance of the associated time
periods. It seems obvious that, for the Achi at least, bix is derived from the
final -b of the numeral plus the 'ih morpheme for day and the -x affix
mentioned above.
In providing examples to demonstrate the importance of
these 7-day periods to the Achi, the main obscurant is the switch from Achi to Spanish
when dealing with numbers of five and over. This tends to suggest that the
concept as well as the form is borrowed,-a suspicion which I feel is definitely
unwarranted. The importance of the 7-day period will be again stressed in the
section dealing with the moon; the Spanish form for "week" semana is
sometimes substituted for wuqu- bix "seven-days". When the period takes
in two 7-day periods, quince dias "15 days" is used; three weeks is
spoken of as either veinte dias "20 days" or veintidos dias "22
days":
Wuqubix kwartah panoq, pa quince dias ka k'iso "In 7
days begins the fiesta, in 15 days it will finish" ("seven-days-ahead
it-is-slept over-there" is an ancient frozen expression for first night of
ritual).
Ocho dias xik'aw i alaxbal xwilo pa q'isbal re
"Eight days having-passed the birth-time (Christmas Eve) I saw-it for
last-time of-it (last time)."
Chupam i seman ka k'unik, kwil tan chik i wik'il "In
the week that comes, I-well-see again the my-month."
Wuqubxir, rth, i qatit, xk'is i oxib ik' "Last week
when our grand- mother was old, made three months" ("seven-days-ago,
old the our-grandmother, it-finished the three months").
The Achi, while not having adopted the Gregorian month
names into their system of "counting days", have taken full advantage
of the names of the week days as convenient time-dividers within the lunar cycle:
Ka k'is i oxib ik' chupam i martes ka k'unik "It
will be three months on this coming Tuesday." ("It finishes the three
months during the Tuesday it-is coming".)
Some young girls have grown indolent about watching their
grand-mother's activities and count time by the week only:
Xin koh ta retalil wach xo'on qatit, xa pa semana weta'am
chi ya xk'is i kahib, ch'apom chik i ho'ob "I put not attention-to what she-did
our-grandmother, only by weeks I-know that already it-finished the four
(months) and has-grabbed already the five (months)."
Na'be semana chupam ocho meses are xin tzaqik "It
was the first week of my eighth month when I aborted" ("First week
during eight months when I fell").
Ya ka k'is kahib semana pa lunes wukubix ka k'unik
"Four weeks will be up on a week from this coming Monday".
("Already it finishes four weeks on Menday seven-days it comes.")
The following image is found
on p. 162:
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