Chuen is the eleventh of the twenty day signs of the Tzolk'in, the 260-day sacred count of the Maya, still kept by highland daykeepers and reconstructed for the Classic period. Recorded here by its Yucatec name, Chuen, it corresponds to the day B'atz', the monkey, in the living K'iche' tradition. Its imagery is the monkey, the artisan and patron of the arts, play, and craft, and the thread, for B'atz' is the day of the weaver and of the unspooling of time itself; it is among the most important days in K'iche' practice, when new daykeepers are often initiated. In the directional scheme that runs through the twenty signs it belongs to the west and the colour black. These are the meanings the Maya calendrical tradition carries for the day.
Chuen is the eleventh of the twenty Tzolk'in day signs; the living K'iche' tradition knows the corresponding day as B'atz', meaning thread or monkey, and it is B'atz' that opens the 260-day count in the K'iche' calendar's own conventional starting sequence, giving it particular ceremonial importance among contemporary daykeepers distinct from Imix's role as the first sign in the Yucatec ordering recorded here. Chuen's imagery, the monkey, is linked in Maya art and myth to skilled craft, particularly weaving, writing and artistic work generally, an association reflected in the Classic-period Howler Monkey Gods, patrons of scribes and artists depicted in Maya vase painting. In the directional scheme, Chuen belongs to the west and the colour black.