Note 24 — II. The Mathematical Elements.

The dictionaries give: “bolon pixan, bien adventurado;” bolon dzacab, and oxlahun dzacab, “cosa eterna.” The numeral “one,” as in English, had a superlative sense, as hun miatz, “the one scholar,” i. e., the most distinguished. Why a symbolic or superlative sense was attached to such numbers is a question too extensive to discuss here. I have touched upon it in my Native Calendar of Central America, pp. 8, 13, and in an article on “The Origin of Sacred Numbers” in The American Anthropologist, April, 1894. In another connection we find maay, odor from something burning; “bolonmayel, qualquier olor suavissimo y transcendente”—Dicc. Motul. Dr. Seler has suggested that the number 13 may refer to the thirteen heavens; but offers no evidence that the Mayas entertained the Nahuatl myth to which this refers.