Kab’an (No’j)
The seventeenth Maya day sign, a curl like a question mark: the earth, and the lock of hair of the young moon goddess. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day No’j, wisdom and thought.
Meaning
Kab’an is the seventeenth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count, written Caban by Morley and Thompson; in K’iche’ it is No’j. Eric Thompson found “fair unanimity” in connecting the day with the earth or earthquakes: Kab’an and the Chuj Kixcab contain cab, earth, and the Aztec day in the same place is Ollin, movement and earthquake (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 No’j from “wisdom”, “criterion”, “reason” and “thought”. It is the day to come to agreement with the Creator, they write, to join ideas, give advice and cultivate science.
Origin and history
The sign is a curl like a question mark, and Morley found the carved and painted forms satisfactorily alike. Seler first identified the curl as the lock of hair worn by the goddess of the codices known as Goddess I, and most specialists agreed; Thompson called it confirmed when the full-figure glyph for Kab’an on Stela D at Quiriguá was read, a young goddess with the corkscrew lock beside her face. He made Kab’an “the day of the young goddess of the earth, the moon, and the maize”, and noted that the K’iche’ count it a good day to ask a girl’s parents for her hand. Kettunen and Helmke give the Classic Maya name, with question marks, as Chab or Kab.
One of the four year bearers
Kab’an is one of the four days that can begin a year: Morley lists them as Ik, Manik, Eb and Caban (Ik’, Manik’, Eb’ and Kab’an). Wagley, cited by Thompson, recorded the year bearers at the Mam village of Santiago Chimaltenango as Ik, Cheh, Ek and Noh; Noh is the highland name of this day.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsEtz’nab’ (Tijax)The eighteenth Maya day sign, a pressure-flaked blade of flint or obsidian. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Tijax, the obsidian knife, and ask on it for protection against wrongdoing.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
See also
Eb’ (E), Ik’ (Iq’), Kukulkan, Chaac, Itzamna, Maize God.
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. 86, “Caban, Kixcab, Noh, Chic”
- 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; pp. 40 and 53
- 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. 2, No’j
- 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 XI
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves 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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