glance will suffice to satisfy us that the drawing is intended to represent a woman's breast, with its nipple and areola. Any one inclined to doubt that such is the case will soon be convinced by examining the female figures portrayed in the Troano MS. [1]
Yes, imix is the breast, the bosom, called to-day simply im, the word having suffered the apocope of its desinence ix, which is a copulative conjunction and the sign of the feminine gender.
But bosom is also an enclosed place. [2] We say "the bosom of the deep," le sein de la terre, el seno de los mares. [3] It was in that sense, indeed, that the Maya sages, who invented the characters and symbols with which to give their thoughts a material form, made use of it. This fact becomes apparent if
↑Troano MS., part 1, plate xxii. See Appendix, note iii. Troano MS., part 1, plate xxiiThe reader may perhaps desire to know the meaning of this picture. Alas! it teaches us that the powers that govern nature were as indifferent to the lot of man in remote ages as they are to-day; that no creatures, whatever they be, have for them any importance beyond their acting of the rôle which they are called upon to play momentarily in the great drama of creation. The figures are anthropomorphous representations — the kneeling, supplicating female, of the "Land of Mu;" the male, of the "Lord of the Seven Fires " (volcanoes), Men kak uuc.Mu, in an imploring posture, comes to inform him that one of his volcanoes has caused the basin at the edge of her domains to rise, and has converted the country into marshy ground. She speaks thus: "Ak ha pe be be imik Kaan" (that is, "The basin has risen rapidly, and the land has become marshy") Men Kak uuc, for all consolation, replies: "Imix be Ak Mu?" ("So the basin in rising has caused the land to become marshy, Mu?") This is evidently the record of a geological event — the rising of the part of the bottom of the ocean near Mu.
