Surviving
Jaredite Names in Mesoamerica
By
Bruce Warren
Editor’s
Note: The Ancient America Foundation (AAF)
is pleased to present AAF Notes: a series of
research articles by scholars of Book of Mormon
culture and history and reviewed by AAF editors.
Visit our Web site: http://www.ancientamerica.org. This section
of Bruce Warren's research identifies surviving
Jaredite names in Mesoamerica. (Blaine
M. Yorgason, Bruce W. Warren, and Harold Brown.
New Evidences of Christ in Ancient America,
Book of Mormon Research Foundation. Provo: 1999, Chaper
2, “Jaredite Connections with Mesoamerica,” pp.
17-19).
Jaredite-Olmec Connections
If the Jaredites were indeed the Olmec culture,
as we believe they were, then our knowledge
of the Olmec culture should also link the two
cultures. To show that such is the case, we
will use six personal names and three place
names from the book of Ether to make a Jaredite/land
northward connection with the cultural area
of Mesoamerica. The six personal names are Kib,
Shule, Akish, Com, Kish, and Shiblon. The
three place names are the hill Shim, the wilderness
of Akish, and the land of Heth. The following
table gives more detail on these nine names.
Jaredite Names
Used in Mesoamerica Today
|
Personal Name |
Origin |
|
Kib |
Name of the
sixth month in the Yucatec Maya calendar. |
| Shule |
Name
of the sixteenth day of the 260-day calendar
in Yucatec. |
|
Akish |
Close parallel
to the Quiche Maya Kaqix (Caquix)
of the Popol Vuh. The name combines kaq
"red" and qix "feather"
and means the scarlet macaw parrot. (Tedlock
1985: 237). (The x is pronounced
as sh in English in Mesoamerican
words and names.) |
| Com |
Tzotzil
Maya for "log stool" or "armadillo"(Laughlin
1975: 104). |
|
Kish |
Two meanings
for this word are available: (1) "kix"
in Yucatec and Chol Maya, meaning "spine,"
"thorn," and maybe "stingray
spine" (Stross 1998: e-mail) and
(2) "kix" in the Palenque hieroglyphs
"feather" (Kelley 1965, 112,
114, Figures 23,34,49-53). The glyph at
Palenque on the Tablet of the Cross is
associated with the calendar name Nine
Wind of Quetzalcoatl. Kelley's Figure
34. From Teotihuacan, Mexico, shows Quetzalcoatl
with beard and feathers and emphasizes
the serpent fangs. It could be that both
the meanings are relevant, and that the
feathers and fangs are both important. |
| Shiblon |
The
Shib or Xib part of the
name is very common inYucatec Maya--for
example, Chak-Xib-Chak, Ek-Xib-Chak, Sak-Xib-Chak,
Kan-Xib-Chak, etc. |
|
Place Name |
Origin |
| Hill
Shim |
In
Yucatec Maya and other Mayan languages
— for example, an ear of corn or kernels
of corn is ixim (Laughlin 1975:
419) In the Tuxtla Mountains of southern
Veracruz, Mexico, one of the mountains
is called Cintepec in the Aztec
language. Cintepec means "corn
hill." The Aztecs lived late in Mesoamerican
history and were glossing earlier names
with the equivalent in their own language.
In Mayan languages, it would be ixim
(as mentioned earlier, the x
becomes sh in English). |
|
Wilderness
of Akish |
As noted
above, Akish is very similar to
the Kiche Maya name Kaqix or Caquix.
This name refers to the macaw parrot.
The Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz
were glossed, by the Aztecs as Toztlan,
which means the place of the macaw parrots.
The Aztec place name glyph also depicts
a macaw parrot for these mountains (Covarrubias
1947: 26, n. 4). |
| Land
of Heth |
A
land by the east sea mentioned early in
the Jaredite account. The indirect hint
for the location of this land centers
on the meaning of the letter Heth
in Hebrew. The letter Heth relates
to the Big Dipper constellation and the
number seven (Moran and Kelley 1969: 49,
81). The Popol Vuh account of Wukub Kaqix
associates him with the Big Dipper, and
his name means "seven macaw"
Could this be the land of Heth to the
Tuxtla Mountains region of southern Veracruz?
Both the Big Dipper constellation and
the macaw parrot are tied to Wukub Kaqix.
Perhaps the land of Heth and the wilderness
of Akish are adjacent to each other. |
References
Covarrubias, Miguel.
Mexico South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1947.
Kelley, David H.
"American Parallels," In The
Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs. By
Moran and Kelley, Part II. Palo Alto: Daily
Press, 1969.
Laughlin, Robert
M. The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo
Zinacatan. Smithsonian Contributions to
Anthropology No. 19. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1975.
Stross, Brian.
E-mail correspondence with Bruce Warren, June 1998.
Tedlock, Dennis,
trans. Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition
of the Maya Book of the Dawn of Life and the
Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1985.
Editor's Note: The
personal name Kish gives us an especially intriguing
connection between the Book of Mormon Jaredites
and the Olmec culture. Bruce Warren's
discussion of this subject with figures can
be read on AAF's web site: Research Note No.
106: "KISH" A Personal Name.
Other prior notes
that draw from this interesting chapter
include the following:
AAF Note # 40:
Jaredites and Serpents;
AAF Note # 46: Ixtilxochitl's Record of
Jaredite/Olmec/Tulteca Beginnngs;
AAF Note # 111: Ancient American Writings;
AAF Note # 117: Jaredite Connections with Mesoamerica.
