Muluk (Toj)
The ninth Maya day sign, a disc of jade that stood for water. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Toj, the offering, and the nawal of fire.
Meaning
Muluk is the ninth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count, written Muluc by Morley and Thompson; in K’iche’ it is Toj. The Aztec day in the same place is Atl, water (see Aztec day signs), and Eric Thompson read Muluk as a water day: its plain form is the sign for jade, which stood for water, and its head form the xoc, a great mythical fish. 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 Toj from “offering”, “fine” and “payment”, and also from “help”, “socialize”, “listen” and “understand”. They call it the nawal of fire. On Toj, they write, people ask for strength to avoid mistakes, for an end to their sufferings, and for dark things to come out into the light.
Origin and history
Morley found the day rare on the monuments, where one of its two forms is close to the codex form, a small ringed disc. Beyer identified that disc as the sign for jade, and Thompson accepted it, since jade stood for water on the Mexican plateau and in the Maya area. In 1944 Thompson showed that the head form, where it heads the glyphs for the directions, is a fish, which he identified as the xoc, a mythical fish taken for both the shark and the whale. The highland name Toj he also tied to water: Brasseur de Bourbourg translated it “shower”, and Tohil was the K’iche’ god of thunder. Kettunen and Helmke leave the Classic Maya name blank.
Water in the glyph, fire in the highlands
The two readings sit far apart. To Thompson the day was water, from the jade disc to the shower in Brasseur’s translation of Toj. The Komon Tohil daykeepers call Toj the nawal of fire and the day of offering and payment.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsOk (Tz’i’)The tenth Maya day sign, the dog. The codices draw it as a dog’s ear with two black spots; K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Tz’i’ and make it the nawal of justice.
- 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
Kawak (Kawoq), Kukulkan, Chaac, Itzamna, 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. 77–78, “Muluc, Mulu, Toh, Tcho”
- 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, Toj
- 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 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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