above himself. The persons or officers who attended at his court were
called _Lolmay_, _Atzivinac_, _Galel_, _Ah-uchan_. They were factors,
auditors and treasurers. Our titles correspond to yours."[38-2]

The name here applied to the ruler of the Tzutuhils, _Atziquinahay_,
recurs in Xahila's _Annals_. It was his family name, and in its proper
form, _Ah [c,]iquin-i-hay_, means "he who is a member of the bird
family;"[38-3] the bird being the totemic symbol of the ruling house.

While the nobles were distinguished by titles such as these, the mass of
the people were divided into well defined classes or castes. The
warriors were called _ah-labal_, from _labal_, war; and they were
distinguished from the general male population, who were known as
_achi_, men, _viri_. These were independent freemen, engaged in peaceful
avocations, but, of course, ready to take up arms on occasion. They were
broadly distinguished from the tributaries, called _ah-patan_; the
latter word meaning tax or tribute; and still more sharply from the
slaves, known as _vinakitz_, "mean men," or by the still more
significant word _mun_, hungry (Guzman, _Compendio_). The less
cultivated tribes speaking other tongues, adjoining the Cakchiquels,
were promiscuously stigmatized with the name _chicop_, brutes or beasts.

A well developed system of tribute seems to have prevailed, and it is
often referred to by Xahila. The articles delivered to the collectors
were gold, silver, plain and worked, feathers, cacao, engraved stones,
and what appear as singular, garlands (_[c]ubul_) and songs, painted
apparently on skins or paper.

_Religious Notions._

The deities worshiped by these nations, the meaning and origin of their
titles, and the myths connected with them, have been the subject of an
examination by me in an earlier work.[39-1] Here, therefore, it will be
needless to repeat what I have there said, further than to add a few
remarks explanatory of the Cakchiquel religion in particular.

According to the _Popol Vuh_, "the chief god of the Cakchiquels was
_Chamalcan_, and his image was a bat."[40-1] Brasseur endeavored to
trace this to a Nahuatl etymology,[40-2] but there is little doubt it
refers, as do so many of the Cakchiquel proper names, to their calendar.
_Can_ is the fifth day of their week, and its sign was a serpent;[40-3]
_chamal_ is a slightly abbreviated form of _chaomal_, which the lexicons
translate "beauty" and "fruitfulness," connected w