Cib, the Day Sign Behind It

The corresponding Maya day is Kib', in Yucatec Cib, meaning wax or candle, and it is associated in the sources with the vulture and with the ancestors; the Aztec equivalent day is Cozcacuauhtli, king vulture. In modern highland practice the corresponding day is connected with debt, with forgiveness and with the offering of candles, which remains a central act of Maya ritual, and with the ancestors to whom the debt is owed. The Dreamspell reading of the questioning warrior has no relation to any of this. The candle and the vulture are both well attested and both absent from the Dreamspell version.

Cib is the sixteenth of the twenty authentic Tzolk'in day signs, its imagery the owl and the ancestors; the living K'iche' daykeeping tradition knows the corresponding day as Ajmaq, connected to sin, transgression and forgiveness before the ancestors. In the directional scheme, Cib belongs to the south and the colour yellow, closing the Tzolk'in's fourth four-sign directional set. Arguelles's Solar Seal 16, Yellow Warrior, departs sharply from Cib's own imagery: "Warrior" has no direct connection to the owl, the ancestors or Ajmaq's sense of transgression and reconciliation.