others. He answered to the day _Kan_. which was the first of the Maya
week of thirteen days.[1] The remaining Bacabs were the Red, assigned to
the East, the White, to the North, and the Black, to the West, and the
winds and rains from those directions were believed to be under the charge
of these giant caryatides.

[Footnote 1: Landa, _Relacion_, pp. 208,-211, etc. _Hobnil_ is the
ordinary word for belly, stomach, from _hobol_, hollow. Figuratively, in
these dialects it meant subsistence, life, as we use in both these senses
the word "vitals." Among the Kiches of Guatemala, a tribe of Maya stock,
we find, as terms applied to their highest divinity, _u pam uleu, u pam
cah_, literally Belly of the Earth, Belly of the Sky, meaning that by
which earth and sky exist. _Popol Vuh_, p. 332.]

Their close relation with Itzamna is evidenced, not only in the
fragmentary myth preserved by Hernandez, but quite amply in the
descriptions of the rites at the close of each year and in the various
festivals during the year, as narrated by Bishop Landa. Thus at the
termination of the year, along with the sacrifices to the Bacab of the
year were others to Itzamna, either under his surname _Canil_, which has
various meanings,[1] or as _Kinich-ahau_, Lord of the Eye of the Day,[2]
or _Yax-coc-ahmut_, the first to know and hear of events,[3] or finally as
_Uac-metun-ahau_, Lord of the Wheel of the Months.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Can_, of which the "determinative" form is _canil_, may
mean a serpent, or the yellow one, or the strong one, or he who gives
gifts, or the converser.]

[Footnote 2: _Kin_, the day; _ich_, eye; _ahau_, lord.]

[Footnote 3: _Yax_, first; _coc_, which means literally deaf, and hence
to listen attentively (whence the name Cocomes, for the ancient royal
family of Chichen Itza, an appellation correctly translated
"escuchadores") and _ah-mut_, master of the news, _mut_ meaning news, good
or bad.]

[Footnote 4: _Uac_, the months, is a rare and now obsolete form of the
plural of _u_, month, "_Uac_, i.e. _u_, por meses y habla de tiempo
pasado." _Diccionario Maya-Espanol del Convento de Motul_, MS. _Metun_
(Landa, _mitun_) is from _met_, a wheel. The calendars, both in Yucatan
and Mexico, were represented as a wheel.]

The word _bacab_ means "erected," "set up."[1] It was applied to the
Bacabs because they were imagined to be enormous giants, standing like
pillars at the four corners of the earth, supporting the heavens. In t