The ancient general theory of correspondences, as exemplified by the contrast between Nu-t and Kiore, and later by my urge to have two glyphs in takaure, where it would be enough with a single glyph in summer, synchronized in my mind last evening when I read the following in the last pages of Gates:

"We have on our pantry shelves pots or cans labeled 'sugar, tomatoes, fish'; whatever marks or signs represented like things to the Maya, it is to be expected that they would so mark their jars ...

Above this jar in the picture on page 35 [tzolkin 64 in Dresden] are three pots, marked as nearly all vessels in the pictures are, with the sign

apparently the same as that to which Landa gives the phonetic value u.

Now this word u has three wholly distinct meanings in Maya: it serves as the 3rd person sing. poss. pronoun before nouns with a consonant only (not a vowel); it also means the moon; also a necklace or string of beads, sarten. [The nights of the moon can be imagined as a string of beads.]

Now, climatic and like conditions have given rise to three main cultures in history, based on the food-grain of the region: wheat, rice, and corn. In each the bread-stuff is 'food' per se, and comes to be worked into the ritual and religion: the 'honorable rice', the wheat-fields of Amenti, the corn of the Indian. In Maya bread, the tortilla, is vah; to eat is vi, and eating vil. (In older texts wheat bread was always castellan-vah; in Yucatec today one asks for pan francés, as distinct from the far superior tortillas.)

I can see no necessary objection to thinking of u as the root of vah, vi, vil, though I have found no statement to that effect in the Motul or elsewhere. But I am not ready yet to see an etymological phonetic connection here with the exceedingly common, almost universal prefix

simply on Landa's calling it 'the letter U'.

That the mark appears just below the open top of a receptacle in nearly every picture through the codices, is clear; where it is absent that absence may easily be casual.

I do not think it is meaningless; I take no glyphic element as meaningless, and every time in the past I have started out as doing so, detailed comparisons have shown the contrary. The mark clearly belongs in some way, on jars; but its meaning a food-vessel is quite doubtful, for concrete reasons. That is, it is used, added to the jar outline, in places where food cannot possibly be intended. On page 74, Dresden, the old woman is pouring part of the cataclysmal flood from an upturned jar with this mark; it is wholly contrary both to Maya practice and to the principle of 'idea-incorporation' to add a food-sign in such case. We also might use a jar marked 'flour' to gather and pour out water, but we would not label a water-jar, or reservoir, 'food'."

One of the features of these two examples of the 'u-sign' is 2. The general structure looks like that of Ahau

which picture I have read as sun at bottom. The two smaller circles could be the two phases of the moon.

In the 'u-signs' the same small circles could also refer to the two phases of the moon. And in the second example the two black dots could refer to new moon, in which case the small circles could refer to full moon.

Most interesting, though, is how the 'tree' in Ahau seems to correspond to 'rabbits teeth' in the 'u-signs'. Gates again:

"As meaning necklace it has been forcibly expanded, with no support whatever, to au, so as to explain the word Ahau, lord, king, as 'he of the collar'. This violates several facts: u is in Maya a necklace, not a collar; we have no evidence that a necklace or even collar was held by the whole Mayan race as the royal insignia; the prefix ah- is used to give the occupation, status or citizenship, and is not used merely for a thing owned, possessed.

While as a fact the root of Ahau is au, av, the general word for milpa, corn-field, farm; a word almost lost in northern Maya, but very common, with many forms, in all the southern branches, including Tzeltal; the ahau is the Planter, land-owner. I have elsewhere commented at length on the false theories that have been raised on a wholly un-Maya derivation of vinal, the 20-day month period, from U, in its meaning 'moon'."

And I have elsewhere identified Vinapu with vina(l)-pu. With vinal sometimes spelled as uinal, the moon seems involved, I think. Time is measured by the moon.

The use of the 'u-sign' for 'open top of a receptacle' is a fact wich suggestsmeans 'female'. Ahau is her male, the planter (like Kuukuu).

The 'rabbits teeth' are two in number, i.e. female (like the season when sun is absent and moon rules, Takaure).

Vinapu, we can deduce, is the 20-day measure of the moon. Pu is her hole.