Contents
Fourteenth of the twenty. Yucatec Ix; K'iche' I'x. The Classic main sign carries jaguar-pelt markings — the spots and the tufted element that identify the jaguar wherever it appears in the script — and the head variant is the animal itself. The site's tooltip gives it as the jaguar shaman of the wild. Direction north, colour white.
The jaguar is the most loaded animal in Maya thought. It is the sun in its night passage, travelling under the world as the Jaguar God of the Underworld; it is the pelt a ruler sits on; and it is the shape a person of power is said to take. On Classic painted pottery the wahy beings — co-essences belonging to lords and to places — are frequently jaguars or jaguar hybrids.
Religion and daykeeping
In living highland practice, I'x is the earth's own force. Ethnographic accounts and Guatemalan Maya organisations describe it as the day of the mountains and of the altars set on them, of the wild places, and of a power that is often spoken of as feminine — the strength of the land itself rather than strength exercised over it. It is named as a day for the shrines, for asking the earth's permission, for physical and spiritual vigour, and for matters concerning the natural world. An ajq'ij born on I'x is spoken of as carrying unusual force with unusual reserve, effective and not easily read, and as needing the mountain. Where the altars are and what is done at them is taught inside the initiation lineage; it is described here, not prescribed, and emphasis varies between communities.
Ix is one of the four year bearers in Landa's sixteenth-century Yucatec set — K'an, Muluk, Ix, Kawak — holding the north and the colour white, exactly as the four-direction rotation through the twenty predicts. That same set governs the new-year pages of the Dresden Codex, pages 25 to 28, where each bearer appears with its direction and the rites attached to the year it opens. Those pages are Postclassic; the highland Mam set in use today is Ik', Manik', Eb', Kab'an, a different set for a different place and time.
In the Classic record, the jaguar sits at the centre of rulership: the title b'alam is common in royal names, thrones are jaguar thrones, and the Jaguar God of the Underworld appears on war shields. The Popol Vuh gives one of the Hero Twins the name Xb'alanke, in which b'alam, jaguar, is generally recognised — though the full etymology of the name is debated and the reading should not be pressed harder than that. The Madrid Codex, dominated by 260-day working almanacs, and the Dresden carry Ix as a station among the twenty.
The Aztec cognate is Ocelotl, jaguar, patron Tlazolteotl. The Zapotec piyè and the Mixtec codices hold the same position, conventionally glossed Jaguar.
Key dates
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 600–500 BCE (contested) | Earliest 260-day count glyphs, Oaxaca — San José Mogote and Monte Albán. Zapotec, not Maya. |
| 36 / 32 BCE | Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2 and Tres Zapotes Stela C, the earliest dated Long Counts. Both partly reconstructed. |
| c. 250–900 CE | Classic period: jaguar thrones, b'alam royal names, and wahy jaguars on funerary pottery. |
| 11th–12th c. CE (debated) | The Dresden Codex copy, including new-year pages 25–28 with the K'an / Muluk / Ix / Kawak bearers. |
| 1562 / 1566 | Landa burns the books at Maní, then records the twenty day names and the Yucatec year bearers. |
| 1905–1935 | The Goodman–Martínez–Thompson correlation, constant 584283. Mainstream, not unanimous. |
| 11 Aug 3114 BCE | Long Count zero under GMT 584283 (6 Sep 3114 BCE Julian); the 584285 variant gives 13 August. |
| 21 Dec 2012 | 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in — the anchor this site counts from. |
| 1995 / 1996 | Guatemala's Peace Accords recognise Maya spirituality and access to sacred places. |
In the count
Ix returns every twenty days, with a coefficient seven higher each time — twenty modulo thirteen is seven — running 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13 before repeating. Thirteen appearances, 260 days.
Upcoming in 2026, on the site's GMT anchor: 24 August (6 Ix), 13 September (13 Ix), 3 October (7 Ix).
Related
- Maya Tzolk'in — the system, the count, and what it is not.
- B'en — the day before.
- Men — the day after.
- World Zodiacs · Religion · Calendar