Chapter 26: Ri Cholq'ij - the Sacred Calendar and Ceremony

Starting point#

A baby has been born in the family: Ix'ey, the little girl you met at the end of Chapter 24, born in the house of ma Kawoq's sister. The family follows costumbre, the Maya spiritual tradition, so xta Ixchel goes to see an ajq'ij, a daykeeper, in Tecpán: nan Ixq'anil, an elderly woman respected throughout the town.

IXCHEL: Xseqër, nan Ixq'anil. ¿La ütz awäch?
Good morning, nan Ixq'anil. How are you?

IXQ'ANIL: Xseqër, matyöx. Katok pe, katz'uye'. ¿Achike nik'atzin chawe?
Good morning, thank you. Come in, sit down. What do you need?

IXCHEL: Takuyu' numak, nan. Ninwajo' nink'utuj jun utzil chawe.
Forgive my intrusion, ma'am. I would like to ask a favor of you.

IXQ'ANIL: Ütz k'a. Tab'ij pe chwe.
Very well. Tell me.

IXCHEL: Xaläx jun ti ne'y pa rochoch ri rana' ri nutata'; Ix'ey rub'i'. Xaläx pa ri q'ij Kaji' Ey. Nqajo' nqetamaj achike rub'anikil ri ruq'ij.
A little baby was born in my father's sister's house; her name is Ix'ey. She was born on the day Four Ey. We want to know the character of her day.

IXQ'ANIL: Jeb'ël. Ri Ey jun ütz q'ij: k'o ruchuq'a', k'o rajawal, k'o runawal. Chuqa' ja ri Ey jun chike ri kaji' q'ij ri yetikïr nkejqaj ri juna'.
Beautiful. Ey is a good day: it has its strength, its lord, its nawal. And Ey is one of the four days that can carry the year.

IXCHEL: ¿Achike ri runawal?
What is its nawal?

IXQ'ANIL: Ronojel q'ij ruk'wan jun chiköp: ja ri' ri runawal. Ri runawal ri Ey ja ri xiwan. Chuqa' Ix'ey jun ütz b'i': ja ri rub'i' ri ruq'ij.
Every day carries an animal: that is its nawal. The nawal of Ey is the wildcat. And Ix'ey is a good name: it is the name of her day.

IXCHEL: ¿Achike ruch'umilal ri ti Ix'ey? ¿Achike xtub'än töq xtinimär?
What is little Ix'ey's destiny? What will she do when she grows up?

IXQ'ANIL: E k'o oxi' retal ruk'aslem jun winäq: ri ruxe' ralaxik, ri ruq'ij ralaxik, chuqa' ri ruch'umilal. Xtinwajilaj ri taq q'ij pa ri cholq'ij; k'a ri' xtinb'ij chawe.
There are three signs of a person's life: the day of conception, the day of birth, and the destiny day. I will count out the days in the Cholq'ij; then I will tell you.

IXCHEL: ¿Ruk'amon chi nqab'än jun kotz'i'j?
Is it fitting for us to hold a ceremony?

IXQ'ANIL: Ja', ruk'amon chi ri ach'alal nkimatyoxij ruk'aslem ri ne'y chre ri Ajaw. Man ruk'amon ta chi nqamestaj ri qati't qamama'.
Yes, it is fitting that the family give thanks for the baby's life to the Lord. It is not fitting that we forget our grandmothers, our grandfathers.

IXCHEL: ¿Jampe' xtiqab'än?
When will we hold it?

IXQ'ANIL: Xtintz'ët pa ri cholq'ij; xtincha' jun ütz q'ij, k'a ri' xtinya' rutzijol chiwe. Ri rajawal ri q'ij Ey xtuchajij ri ruk'aslem ri ti Ix'ey.
I will look in the calendar; I will choose a good day, and then I will send you word. The lord of the day Ey will watch over little Ix'ey's life.

IXCHEL: Matyöx chawe, nan. Xtiqoyob'ej ri atzij.
Thank you, ma'am. We will await your word.

Look at what carries this conversation. The pair qati't qamama' "our grandmothers, our grandfathers" stands for all the ancestors: a couplet. Ruk'amon chi and man ruk'amon ta chi measure the conversation against what is proper. The possessed nouns rajawal, runawal, ruch'umilal hang the day's qualities on k'o and Set A (ergative) prefixes you have known since Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. And the whole plan for the ceremony runs in the potential: xtinwajilaj, xtincha', xtiqab'än, xtiqoyob'ej. Nothing in the verb morphology is new; what is new is the register, and that is what this chapter teaches.

How it works#

The Cholq'ij in a life#

Chapter 9 introduced the mechanics: the Cholq'ij ("ordering of days", from chol- "set in order" and q'ij "day") interlocks a count of thirteen numbers with a cycle of twenty day names, so that the same number-and-day pair returns every 13 x 20 = 260 days. What Chapter 9 could not yet show is what the count is for. The Cholq'ij is not a way of writing dates; it is a way of reading lives.

Each of the twenty days is spoken of as a being with possessions, and the grammar of talking about a day is simply the possession grammar of Chapter 4 hung on k'o (Chapter 5):

Rajawal is the day's lord, the owner-spirit of the day (the same word names the rajawal juyu', the spirit owner of a mountain; you met the root in Ajaw "Lord" in Chapter 21). Nawal is the day's guardian, embodied in an animal counterpart. Two further possessions go with the animal: rujaleb'al, the animal form that, in the old accounts, a powerful person born on that day could take, and ruk'exel, the "replacement" or namesake that links a person to those who carried the day before them. The Annals of the Kaqchikels (Kiwujil Xajila', the chronicle you read in Chapter 25) tells how warriors escaping a defeat took their animal forms, one becoming a macaw, one a grasshopper, one a mole; the sequel to our main source retells that passage when it introduces the calendar (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 17). The full list of the twenty days with their nawal animals is in the Reference table under Vocabulary.

A person's relationship to the count rests on three signs. Here is how the source book states them, in a sentence worth taking apart because you can now read every word of it:

Wi jun winäq xaläx pa ri q'ij Ajpu', ruxe' ralaxik ja ri Ey, ruch'umilal ja ri Q'anil. (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 18)

"If a person was born on the day Ajpu', the root of their birth is Ey, and their destiny is Q'anil." The three terms:

Ruch'umilal is the abstract -al noun (Chapter 7) built on ch'umil "star": your destiny is, literally, your "star-ness". A fourth helper joins these three: the ejqanel, the year-bearer of the year in which you were born. Ejqanel is the agentive of -ejqaj "carry on the back", the verb of a load carried with a tumpline; the year is pictured as a load, and only four of the twenty days are strong enough to shoulder it:

...xa xe e kaji' yetikïr nkejqaj ri juna'. Ja ri' Na'oj, Iq', Kej, Ey. (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 17)

"...only four can carry the years. They are No'j, Iq', Kej, Ey." (On the spelling Na'oj ~ No'j, see the usage notes.) A year is named for its bearer together with its number: 2020, for instance, was rujuna' Waqxaqi' Ey, "the year Eight Ey". Little Ix'ey, born on an Ey day, was born under a bearer day, which is why nan Ixq'anil calls it jun ütz q'ij.

Reading these signs is the work of the ajq'ij (plural ajq'ija'), the daykeeper: literally "one of the days", with the aj- prefix of Chapter 7. An ajq'ij counts the days (-ajilaj "count"), consults the calendar for undertakings, conducts ceremonies, and untangles (-söl "untie, resolve") troubles whose cause is not visible: a fright taken in the mountains, a persistent cold felt on the back, a life that has stalled (nyoke', "it is blocked, it does not advance"). The tools of divination differ from one daykeeper to another; among those the source names are ri loq'oläj ya' "the sacred water", ri tz'ite' "the red divining seeds", ri q'aq' "the fire", and ri ixim "the corn kernels". The calling itself is read from a person's own signs: one is born to the work, and accepting it brings obligation, ejqalem, "a charge carried".

One more fact belongs here, stated plainly because the reality is plain. Kaqchikel communities today hold several faiths. The source book is direct about it: many Maya people use the Cholq'ij in their lives; some combine it with another faith, Catholic or Evangelical; some keep it alone; and some count their days only by the Western calendar, the kaxlan cholb'äl q'ij (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 17). The Catholic Rochoch Ajaw ("House of the Lord") with its cofradía service, which you met in Chapter 24's culture note, and the Evangelical congregations (Ewanjeliko'i') are part of the same towns and often the same families. In this book, ma Kawoq's family follows costumbre; their neighbors may not; the language for all of it is Kaqchikel.

Speaking in pairs: couplets and parallelism#

Now the first new grammar point, and the deepest one. Formal Kaqchikel, above all the choloj, the ritual speech of a ceremony, is built out of couplets: two phrases with the same syntax, whose paired key words come from one semantic domain and together name something larger than either. Linguists call a fixed pair of this kind a merism. English has traces of the pattern ("kith and kin", "flesh and blood"); in Kaqchikel and the other Mayan languages it is not a decoration but a productive way of building meaning, three thousand years old and still alive.

Start with the lexicalized pairs, which function as single vocabulary items. Both of our sources list them (¿La ütz awäch? p. 201; Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 292):

Notice what the grammar is doing. Each half is a complete, well-formed phrase of a kind you already command: a possessed noun (qati't, qamama'), a non-verbal predicate with plural e (e chaj chik), an adjective plus possessed noun (säq kiwi'). The couplet adds no new morphology at all. What it adds is a frame: say the structure twice, changing only the paired word, and the two together mean the whole domain. That is why the most common name of the divine in ceremony is itself a couplet, which can grow into a chain:

Ruk'u'x Kaj, Ruk'u'x Ulew
ru-k'u'x kaj, ru-k'u'x ulew
3sA-heart sky, 3sA-heart earth
"Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth" = the divine

In full ritual speech the chain extends: Ruk'u'x Kaj, Ruk'u'x Ulew, Ruk'u'x Kaq'ïq', Ruk'u'x Jöb', Ruk'u'x K'aslemal "Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth, Heart of Wind, Heart of Rain, Heart of Life" (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 292). The frame Ruk'u'x ___ repeats; only the slot changes. Verbs run in the same frames. The polite apology you have used since Chapter 2, takuyu' numak "forgive my fault", has a full ceremonial form with two imperatives sharing one object:

ta-kuy-u'    ta-sach-a'    nu-mak
IMP.2sA-forgive-IMP  IMP.2sA-lose-IMP  1sA-fault
"forgive, lose my fault" = forgive me

And parallel frames need not stop at two. The sequel describes the purpose of kneeling in ceremony with a triplet of first-person plural intransitives: yojxuke', yojchame', yojmeje' "we kneel, we bow down, we lower our heads" (draft, p. 24). Our main source shows a negative frame doubled: man kan ta k'iy nqaya' chawe, man kan ta k'iy nqasüj chawe "we do not give you very much, we do not offer you very much" (¿La ütz awäch? p. 201), the ritual modesty of an offering.

How do you, a learner, use this productively? Three rules of thumb:

1. Same syntax in both halves. If the first half is verb + object, the second is verb + object; if the first is possessed noun, so is the second. Nqamatyoxij ri qaway, nqamatyoxij ri quk'ya'. "We give thanks for our food, we give thanks for our drink."
2. Change exactly one slot. Either the verb changes and the rest stays (takuyu' numak, tasacha' numak), or the noun changes and the frame stays (Ruk'u'x Kaj, Ruk'u'x Ulew).
3. Choose conventional partners. The paired words are not free: sky pairs with earth, grandmother with grandfather, tortilla with beverage, mountain with valley. Learn the pairs in the table as vocabulary; do not invent new ones until you have heard many.

Couplets are not confined to ceremony. Everyday speech reaches for them at any moment of weight: condolences (e chaj chik, e poqolaj chik), advice from elders, public thanks, even the market seller's praise of her wares. When you hear a Kaqchikel speaker repeat a sentence with one word changed, nothing has gone wrong; you are hearing the language's oldest formal register at work.

Ruk'amon chi: what is fitting#

The second new point is small, frequent, and unmistakably of this register. To say that something is proper, appropriate, called for, Kaqchikel uses ruk'amon chi followed by a full clause; to say it is improper, man ruk'amon ta chi:

The form is worth a moment, because you can parse it with Chapter 15. -K'äm is the root transitive "take, receive, carry" (you have used its imperative since Chapter 21: tak'ama' pe "bring it"). Ruk'amon is its transitive perfect: ru-k'am-on, "it has taken it, it carries it". From "the situation carries it" comes "it is called for, it is fitting"; the perfect's stative meaning (Chapter 15: a state resulting from an event) is exactly why the idiom feels settled rather than momentary. The literal perfect is still alive beside the idiom: the sequel's translation of an English rhyme says a child born on Tuesday ruk'amon pe rusipanik Ajaw, "carries with it a gift of God" (draft, p. 30). And the source states the moral norm of the calendar with the negative:

Man ruk'amon ta chi ntzaq qa pa retzelal. (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 17)

"It is not fitting that one fall into its harm": a person must seek the good road of their day, not its dark side. Note the frame: man ruk'amon ta, with the irrealis ta closing after the predicate exactly as in every negation you have built since Chapter 19, and then chi + clause, the same clause-linking chi as in Chapter 22.

Grammatically, ruk'amon chi joins a family you already know, the impersonal predicates that take a chi-clause or a bare verb chain:

The differences matter in this domain. K'o chi nab'än jun kotz'i'j "you must hold a ceremony" is an obligation, perhaps urgent; ruk'amon chi nab'än jun kotz'i'j "it is fitting that you hold a ceremony" appeals to what respect and custom call for. Ceremony talk prefers ruk'amon.

Two further uses round out the picture. Ruk'amon takes a plain noun phrase subject: ¿La ruk'amon re sipanïk re'? "Is this offering appropriate?" And the bare adjective k'amon "appropriate, suitable" exists beside it, as does the reflexive verb -k'äm -i' "to fit, to suit each other". Answering a La ruk'amon...? question, you can simply say Ja', ruk'amon or Man ruk'amon ta.

Beings and things: the animate plural at work#

Chapter 7 told you, almost in passing, that ch'umil "star" has two plurals: taq ch'umil when stars are lights in the sky, ch'umila' when they are beings tied to human destinies. In this chapter's register that footnote becomes a working rule, because ceremony talk is precisely the register in which the world's beings are addressed as beings.

Recall the machinery (Chapter 7): the suffixes -a' / -i' pluralize nouns high on the animacy scale; the particle taq pluralizes the rest; and plural verb agreement (e, ye-) follows animacy too. What is new is that for a whole set of nouns, both options are live, and the choice is a statement of stance. Maxwell's grammar in the sequel makes the point with a pair of sentences about stars: in an astronomy frame, taq ch'umil with no suffix; but

Ri ch'umila' nkijäq ri q'anab'ey, ri saqab'ey chi qawäch. (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 297)

"The stars open the yellow road, the white road before us." Suffixed ch'umila', plural Set A agreement nkijäq "they open", and, fittingly, a couplet (q'anab'ey, saqab'ey, the yellow road and the white road, the good paths of a life). The suffix says: these are actors in our lives, not objects.

The same doubling runs through the spiritual vocabulary:

Original examples, with the agreement that goes with each choice:

One honest caution: this is a choice of stance, not a mechanical rule, and speakers vary. The sequel's own ceremony texts happily say ri taq nawal "the nawals" with taq, in fully spiritual contexts, a few lines after treating the same beings as animate agents. Treat the suffixed plural as a resource of respect that the spiritual register makes available, not as a box to tick. What stays fixed is the direction: you will never hear taq used to raise animacy, and using -a' / -i' on a noun this register treats as a being will never be wrong.

A day for a name#

The fourth point brings the calendar into everyday introductions. Since Guatemala's 1985 Constitution it has been legal to register Maya names, and many families now name children from the Cholq'ij. The traditional pattern, as Maxwell's grammar lays it out (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, pp. 234-235), is beautifully asymmetric:

• A man's calendar name is the full birth date: numeral coefficient plus day name. Jun No'j "One No'j", Wuqu' Aq'ab'al "Seven Aq'ab'al", Oxlajuj Ajpu' "Thirteen Ajpu'". Thirteen numbers times twenty days gives 260 possible men's names.
• A woman's calendar name is the prefix Ix- plus the day name, without the number: Ixno'j, Ixkamey, Ix'aq'ab'al. Twenty possible names.

You know the pieces. The numbers are Chapter 9's one to thirteen; Ix- is the female prefix you met on Ixchel and Ixk'at in Chapter 7. One spelling detail: when the day name begins with a vowel, the glottal stop that is never written word-initially (Chapter 1) surfaces after the prefix and is written: Ix + Ey > Ix'ey, Ix + Aq'ab'al > Ix'aq'ab'al, Ix + Ajpub' > Ix'ajpub'. That is why the baby's name has an apostrophe in the middle.

In practice the system is looser than the scheme. Bare day names serve as names, especially as the everyday short form: our ma Kawoq and a Tz'ikin carry day names without coefficients, as do many real people. Other Maya names come from history and tradition, Pakal B'alam (a Classic-period ruler), Kanek (an eighteenth-century resistance leader), Ixmukane' (the grandmother of the Hero Twins), and Ixchel, the moon spirit and patroness of weaving, which makes our market vendor the namesake of the weavers' own patroness. Still others are trait names taken from nature: Ixch'umil "star", Ixsu'm "sunflower", Ixtuktuk "woodpecker", Kot "eagle".

One day name calls for a light touch. Tz'ikin is the day of the bird, and tz'ikin is the ordinary word for "bird"; but in everyday talk the word has picked up a second, off-color meaning (it is a common slang term for the penis), so polite conversation about birds uses the phrase ajxik' chiköp, "winged animal", instead. For the same reason, families whose child is born on a Tz'ikin day often base the name on a particular bird species or on some other attribute rather than on the day name itself (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 293). Established personal names, like our a Tz'ikin's, are simply names and are used without a flicker; the delicacy attaches to the common noun, not to a person.

Finally, the titles. You have used ma, te, a and xta since Chapter 2. The respect titles nan (for an elder woman) and tat (for an elder man) are the ones used for people with a spiritual charge: a midwife (iyom), a daykeeper, an elder of the cofradía. Beyond them stands tetata', a title for someone who has served the town through its civil and religious offices; in some communities it is used for women and men alike, in others the parallel female title Yawate' is used. Two grammatical habits carry over from Chapter 2: in ordinary sentences the whole name phrase takes ri (Xb'e rik'in ri nan Ixq'anil "She went to see nan Ixq'anil"), but in direct address the ri drops (Nan Ixq'anil, matyöx chawe "Nan Ixq'anil, thank you").

Planning a ceremony: materials, measures, and the potential#

A Maya ceremony is called xukulem, literally "kneeling" (from -xuke' "kneel", with the -lem/-lemal abstract ending you know from k'aslemal), or kotz'i'j, literally "flowers"; the couplet mejlem xukulem "bowing, kneeling" names the whole practice. Holding one is spoken of with -b'än: nqab'än jun kotz'i'j "we hold a ceremony". At its heart the ceremony is a toj, a payment: debts of gratitude (k'as "debt", the same word as a market debt from Chapter 23) are paid (-töj) with offerings, faults (mak) are forgiven (-küy), and the sacred fire carries the words. Preparing one is therefore, in part, a shopping trip, and the language of planning is the potential aspect of Chapter 12 plus the numbers and measure words of Chapter 9.

The materials (samajib'äl, the same "tools, equipment" word you know from work contexts) have their own vocabulary, and each is counted in its own measure:

Pom is copal incense, and it comes in named kinds: ixim pom ("corn incense", frankincense-like pearls), q'anapom (yellow tear-shaped drops), k'olok'äq pom (balls), läq pom (little plates), wakal pom (cups). With them go chäj (pine needles and ocote kindling; the white pine spread, säq chäj, carpets the altar), chij (candles; the word is literally "wool, thread", from the wick), kab' (sugar, used to draw the day sign), tzam (liquor), may (tobacco; the same word is also an old unit of twenty years, a coincidence that helps it stick), kakaw (cacao), ruya'al kotz'i'j ("flower water", the Florida water cologne), and the wuqu' ruwäch q'ayïs, the "seven kinds of herbs" (rue, rosemary, chamomile and their companions). Notice how much of this is Chapter 4 possession grammar frozen into names: ruya'al kotz'i'j "its-water of flowers", wuqu' ruwäch q'ayïs "seven its-kinds of herbs", ruq'olil chäj "its-resin of pine".

Planning talk puts it all in the potential, with nik'atzin carrying the list:

That last line recycles Chapter 9's vigesimal money counting: lajk'al "ten twenties" = 200, and manq'uq', the male quetzal, is the everyday name of the currency. A ceremony is a real expense, and saying so is not impolite; the sources' own ceremony dialogues are full of price talk, because the payment is the point: an offering that costs nothing pays nothing.

The altar (xukulb'äl, "place of kneeling") is dressed (-wëq "adorn, arrange"), the candles are laid out by color, the fire is lit (-tzïj), and when the incense begins to give off its fragrance (-jub'ulin), the ajq'ij takes up the choloj, the spoken invocation, built of exactly the couplets you learned above. The fire itself is a participant: the family watches it, because a fire that swells and brightens (ninimär ri q'aq') as the prayers are spoken is an answer, a sign (retal) that the offering has been received, and the ajq'ij reads its movements as speech. Everyone kneels through the ceremony, on pine needles, on earth; knees ache, and the ache is part of the payment.

Reading: Ri kotz'i'j pa Iximche'#

Ma Kawoq keeps his word to the new baby.

Ri ma Kawoq nrajo' nub'än jun kotz'i'j pa Iximche': nrajo' numatyoxij ri ruk'aslem ri ti Ix'ey, chuqa' ri tiko'n, roma xk'ol yan ronojel. Nab'ey xb'e pa k'ayb'äl rik'in ri te Ixk'at. Xkilöq' ri samajib'äl: juk'al raqän pom, lajuj b'oraj chij, kaji' k'olok'äq pom, ka'i' pisaj kakaw, oxlajuj rutza'n may, jun paj xilon che', chuqa' ri wuqu' ruwäch q'ayïs. Man xkimestaj ta ri kab', ri tzam, ri ruya'al kotz'i'j. Nim rajil ronojel, po ri ma Kawoq nub'ij: "Rik'in re' nqatöj ri qak'as, nqamatyoxij ri qak'aslem."

Ri ajq'ij, ri tat Waqi' Kej, xucha' jun ütz q'ij. Pa nimaq'a' xeb'e pa Iximche': ri ma Kawoq, ri te Ixk'at, ri xta Ixchel, chuqa' ri a Tz'ikin. Ri ajq'ij xuwëq ri xukulb'äl: xuya' ri säq chäj, xucholajij ri jalajöj rub'onil chij, xuya' ri pom, ri kakaw, ri may chuwäch. K'a ri' xutzïj ri q'aq'. Töq xjub'ulin ri pom, ri ajq'ij xuchäp ri choloj: xerusik'ij ri rajawal ri q'ij, ri Ruk'u'x Kaj, ri Ruk'u'x Ulew, ri qati't qamama'. Konojel xexuke', xemeje'. Ri ma Kawoq xumatyoxij ri rulew, ri rutiko'n; xuk'utuj jun utziläj b'ey richin ri ti Ix'ey. Xnimär ri q'aq': jun ütz retal. Chi rij ri xukulem xetzolin pa rochoch; xewa', xetzijon, xekiköt.

Ma Kawoq wants to hold a ceremony at Iximche': he wants to give thanks for little Ix'ey's life, and for the crops, because everything has now been gathered in. First he went to the market with te Ixk'at. They bought the materials: twenty strings of incense, ten bundles of candles, four balls of incense, two packets of cacao, thirteen twists of tobacco, one measure of storax, and the seven kinds of herbs. They did not forget the sugar, the liquor, and the flower water. It all cost a great deal, but ma Kawoq says: "With this we pay our debt, we give thanks for our life."

The daykeeper, tat Waqi' Kej, chose a good day. Early in the morning they went to Iximche': ma Kawoq, te Ixk'at, xta Ixchel, and a Tz'ikin. The daykeeper dressed the altar: he laid down the white pine, arranged the candles of different colors, and set out the incense, the cacao, the tobacco before it. Then he lit the fire. When the incense gave off its fragrance, the daykeeper began the invocation: he called on the lord of the day, the Heart of Sky, the Heart of Earth, the grandmothers and grandfathers. Everyone knelt and bowed. Ma Kawoq gave thanks for his land and his crops; he asked a good road for little Ix'ey. The fire swelled: a good sign. After the ceremony they returned home; they ate, they talked, they were glad.

Patterns at a glance#

Fixed couplets

The propriety frame

One noun, two plurals

Calendar names and titles

Ceremony measures

Vocabulary#

Reference: the twenty days and their nawal animals#

The order of the count, with each day's animal counterpart as the source gives them (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 28). Year-bearers are marked YB.

Usage and dialect notes#

• No'j ~ Na'oj; Ajpub' ~ Ajpu'. Day names, like all words, have drifted over the centuries, and modern sources spell some of them differently. Our main source and this book write No'j and Ajpub'; the sequel's essays write Na'oj (the day is the same word as na'oj "thought, wisdom") and Ajpu'. The sequel also notes that the day now called Tijax was once named for chay, obsidian. Read all of these as the same days.
• Quoting the sequel. The quoted lines in this chapter keep that book's spellings exactly (wakamïn, yetikïr, chke); in our own prose we keep this book's forms (wakami, chike), as always.
• xukulem, kotz'i'j, mejlem xukulem. All three name the ceremony. Kotz'i'j "flowers" is the everyday word and also still means literal flowers; context decides. The couplet is the formal name.
• taq nawal beside rajawala'. The animate plural is a stance, not a spelling rule; the same text may say ri taq nawal and treat the nawals as acting persons. When in doubt, the suffixed plural (ch'umila', rajawala') is the respectful choice, and agent nouns in -el and aj- always take it (ajq'ija', ejqanela').
• Asking is an imposition. In Kaqchikel etiquette a question makes a demand on another person's will, so real questions, especially to an elder or an ajq'ij, are softened: takuyu' numak "forgive my fault" before an inquiry, or tab'ana' utzil, tab'ij pe chwe "please, tell me". The habit is strong; the sequel notes that thirty-five years of language teaching have not worn it away (draft, p. 297).
• tz'ikin. Remember the delicacy from the names section: for the animal, polite speech prefers ajxik' chiköp; the day name and people's names are unaffected.
• Money in ceremony. Talking prices for offerings is normal and expected; the offering is a toj, a payment. Manq'uq' "male quetzal" is the everyday word for the currency, counted in twenties like everything else (juk'al manq'uq' "twenty quetzals").
• Faiths side by side. Use nimab'äl k'u'x "faith, spirituality" for all of them: ri Maya' nimab'äl k'u'x, ri nimab'äl k'u'x katolika', kichin ri Ewanjeliko'i'. Rochoch Ajaw "House of the Lord" is the Catholic church building (and is said of some Protestant churches too). Many families combine practices; many keep one. Asking which a person follows is, again, a question, so let people tell you.

Pitfalls for English speakers

1. Treating ruk'amon as a personal verb: there is no yiruk'amon "I am fitting". The subject is the situation (or a plain noun): ruk'amon chi yib'e "it is fitting that I go".
2. Dropping ta in the negative: "it is not proper" is man ruk'amon ta chi ..., with the frame of Chapter 19 intact.
3. "Trimming" couplets as redundancy. Qati't qamama' is not wordy for "grandparents"; it means the ancestors. Translate the pair as the whole it names.
4. Using taq with beings you mean to honor: taq ch'umil is fine for astronomy, but in a blessing say ch'umila'.
5. Building a woman's calendar name with a number: the coefficient belongs to men's names. Ix'ey, not Kaji' Ix'ey.
6. Forgetting the glottal stop in Ix- names before vowels: Ix'ey, Ix'aq'ab'al, not Ixey, Ixaq'ab'al.

Looking back and ahead#

Everything new in this chapter stood on old foundations: the couplet is Chapter 3's non-verbal predicates and Chapter 4's possession run twice through one frame; ruk'amon is Chapter 15's perfect frozen into a modal beside Chapter 16's k'o chi and nik'atzin; the animate plural sharpens Chapter 7; calendar names combine Chapter 9's numbers with Chapter 7's Ix-; and the whole ceremony ran on Chapter 12's potential. The Annals passage behind jaleb'äl connects to the reading you did in Chapter 25. The chapters ahead continue Part II's tour of Kaqchikel life, each pairing a domain with the grammar that lives in it; keep the couplet in your ear, because formal speech will return every time the domain turns solemn.