Kawak (Kawoq)
The nineteenth Maya day sign, the storm: its glyph carries the clustered circles of rain. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Kawoq, from thunder, and ask on it for prosperity.
Meaning
Kawak is the nineteenth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count, written Cauac by Morley and Thompson; in K’iche’ it is Kawoq. Eric Thompson found that its names in the Maya languages “signify ‘storm,’ ‘thunder,’ ‘rain’”, and the Aztec day in the same place is Quiauitl, rain (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 Kawoq from “thunder”, “ants” and “woman”. It is the day, they write, to ask for success in projects and for prosperity on Earth.
Origin and history
Morley found the carved and painted forms very unlike. One of the two elements of the Kawak glyph, Thompson wrote, is an inverted pyramid of circles, “without the slightest doubt” the sign for rain. The day’s marks appear on the bodies of the celestial dragons, which Thompson identified as the Itzamnas, the rain gods (see Itzamna), and they also make up the glyph for the haab’, the year. He called Kawak “the day of the celestial dragons which send the rain and the storms”. Kettunen and Helmke leave the Classic Maya name blank.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsAjaw (Ajpu)The twentieth and last Maya day sign, a face: Ajaw means lord, and scholars read it as the day of the sun god. K’iche’ daykeepers call it Ajpu, the Lord Sun, the hunter.
- The same shape in Buddhist symbolsMandalaA mandala is a sacred diagram of the universe in Hindu and Buddhist tantra, usually a circle enclosing a square palace with a gate in each side and a deity at its centre. Tibetan Buddhists paint it, build it in metal and lay it out in coloured sand for initiation and meditation.
See also
Itzamna, Muluk (Toj), Kukulkan, Chaac, Maize God, Maya calendar.
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, pp. 78 and 87, “Cauac, Caoc, Chavuc, Cak”
- 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. 2, Kawoq
- 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 circles 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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