Chikchan (Kan)
The fifth Maya day sign, the day of the serpent. Its glyph shows a snake’s crosshatched markings; K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Kan, the feathered serpent.
Meaning
Chikchan is the fifth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count, written Chicchan by Morley and Thompson; in K’iche’ it is Kan. Chicchan, Eric Thompson explained, is the Ch’orti’ Maya name for a group of serpent gods: four of them live in the sky at the four directions and send the rain, and thunder is one Chicchan shouting to another. The Ixil and K’iche’ also give the day the meaning of snake, as does Coatl, the Aztec day in the same place (see Aztec day signs). The K’iche’ daykeepers of Komon Tohil, in Zunil, Guatemala, in an account of the days that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian reproduces on its Living Maya Time site, derive Kan from “feathered serpent” and call it the Framer and Shaper of the Universe, the day of justice, truth and peace. People ask on it for strength, good health and work, and it is a day to be rid of anger.
Origin and history
In the codices the day’s sign is mostly a crosshatched panel. Seler showed that the crosshatching is the markings of a snake, and it is also the mark of the snake god Schellhas lettered God H. On the monuments, Morley found, the day is rare, and when it appears it is a grotesque head, very different from the codex form. Thompson called Chikchan “the day of the snake deities who send the rains”. Kettunen and Helmke leave its Classic Maya name blank: it is not known. The feathered serpent of Chichén Itzá, Kukulkan, has a page of its own.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsKimi (Kame)The sixth Maya day sign, the day of death, drawn as the skull of the death god. K’iche’ daykeepers call it Kame and say it holds both the good and the bad.
- The day of the serpent; the glyph shows a snake’s markingsSnake symbolismIn Genesis the serpent tempts Eve, and Moses raises a bronze serpent on a staff; in Roman legend the god Aesculapius, “the restorer of health” in Ovid's words, comes to Rome as a serpent; in Norse myth the Midgard serpent circles the world biting its own tail. The Cherokee regard snakes as supernatural beings, to be neither killed nor named carelessly.
See also
Kukulkan, Chaac, Itzamna, Maize God, Maya calendar, Maya numerals (bar and dot).
Sources
- Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction (J. Eric S. Thompson, 1950), J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 589 (Washington, 1950), chapter 3, “The cycle of 260 days”; Internet Archive full text, Internet Archive, p. 75, “Chicchan, Abac, Can”
- An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs (Sylvanus G. Morley, 1915), Sylvanus Griswold Morley, An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57 (Smithsonian Institution, 1915), chapter III and figs. 16–17; Project Gutenberg eBook 43491, Project Gutenberg, chapter III, Table I; p. 40
- The Meaning of the Days in the Maya Sacred Calendar (Komon Tohil, Living Maya Time), Group of K’iche’ Day Keepers Komon Tohil, Zunil, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, “The Meaning of the Days in the Maya Sacred Calendar”, reproduced with permission in Living Maya Time, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (PDF), National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, p. 3, Kan
- Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke, Mesoweb, 2020), Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke, Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th revised edition (Wayeb and Mesoweb, 2020), Appendices, Tables X–XI, “Day names in the Tzolk’in calendar”, Mesoweb, Table X
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from lines or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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