Note 20-* — Contents.

Father Lara, in his Vocabulario Tzendal MS. (in my possession), gives for medical (medico), ghpoxil, for medicine (medicinal cosa), pox, xpoxtacoghbil; for physician (medico), ghpoxta vinic (the form vanegh, person, is also correct). The Tzendal pox (pronounced pōsh) is another form of the Quiche-Cakchiquel pūz, a word which Father Ximenes, in his Vocabulario Cakchiquel MS (in my possession), gives in the compound puz naual, with the meaning, enchanter, wizard. Both these, I take it, are derived from the Maya puz, which means to blow the dust, etc., off of something (soplar el polvo de la ropa ó otra cosa. Dicc. de la Lengua Maya del Convento de Motul, MS. The dictionary edited by Pio Perez does not give this meaning). The act of blowing was the essential feature in the treatment of these medicine men. It symbolized the transfer and exercise of spiritual power. When Votan built his underground shrine he did it à soplos, by blowing (Nuñez de la Vega, Constitut. Diocesan, p. 10). The natives did not regard the comet’s tail as behind it but in front of it, blown from its mouth. The Nahuatl word in the text, tzihuizin, is the Pipil form of xihuitzin, the reverential of xihuitl, which means a leaf, a season, a year, or a comet. Apparently it refers to the Nahuatl divinity Xiuhté cutli, described by Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, Lib. i, cap. 13, as god of fire, etc.