The hand with 3 fingers can be imagined as Sun, Moon, and Mars, because spring corresponds to the beginning of the 'week'. The form of the body suggests a water container, and it evidently is being refilled (the kai gesture). The strong rays of Spring Sun evaporates water from the ground and lifts it up into the sky.

'The rays drink up the little waters of the earth, the shallow pools, making them rise, and then descend again in rain.' Then, leaving aside the question of water, he summed up his argument: 'To draw up and then return what one had drawn - that is the life of the world.'

Morning is the time when Sun is growing and kai ('eating') probably was used as a sign also for that purpose - without eating no growth. The opposite of rising Sun is descending Sun, and ultimately he will disappear at the horizon in the west.

Evening is the opposite of morning and the Maya sign for what happens at the horizon in the west (chikin) incorporates the element manik ('the grasping hand':


kai	manik	chikin

I have here reversed manik and chikin in order to locate the front side of the glyphs at right. This operation results in the 3 bent curves between the 4 fingers being oriented oppositely to the 3 'fingers' of kai.

Manik has 3 bent curves inside and kai has them out in the open, so to say. Manik is the 7th Mayan day sign out of 20 such and 7 is the position of Saturn in the week, the day of darkness. It is also the day when a new fire must be created, and thus we should not be surprised to find manik involved in this process:

Manik is here the female component, the 'sandal', of the action:

They walked in crowds when they arrived at Tulan, and there was no fire. Only those with Tohil had it: this was the tribe whose god was first to generate fire. How it was generated is not clear. Their fire was already burning when Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night first saw it: 'Alas! Fire has not yet become ours. We'll die from the cold', they said. And then Tohil spoke: 'Do not grieve. You will have your own even when the fire you're talking about has been lost', Tohil told them.

'Aren't you a true god! Our sustenance and our support! Our god!' they said when they gave thanks for what Tohil had said. 'Very well, in truth, I am your god: so be it. I am your lord: so be it,' the penitents and sacrificers were told by Tohil. And this was the warming of the tribes. They were pleased by their fire.

After that a great downpour began, which cut short the fire of the tribes. And hail fell thickly on all the tribes, and their fires were put out by the hail. Their fires didn't start up again. So then Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night asked for their fire again: 'Tohil, we'll be finished off by the cold', they told Tohil. 'Well, do not grive', said Tohil. Then he started a fire. He pivoted inside his sandal.