Self-Existing

This is the fourth of the thirteen numbers, or tones, that combine with the twenty day signs to build the 260-day Tzolk'in. In living Maya daykeeping the coefficient is simply the number four, kajib', a number of special weight, for four is the number of the directions, the corners of the world, and the pillars that hold up the sky. The name recorded here, Self-Existing, and its keyword of definition and form belong to the modern Dreamspell system of Jose Arguelles, a New Age overlay from the 1980s distinct from traditional Maya practice; the daykeepers reckon by the number itself. The authentic element is the coefficient four and its place in pairing thirteen numbers with twenty signs to produce the 260 distinct days that structure Maya ceremonial life.

The fourth of the thirteen numbers that combine with the twenty day signs to generate the Tzolk'in's 260-day count, marking the fourth day of its trecena. Four carries broader numerical significance across Maya and wider Mesoamerican cosmology generally, corresponding to the four cardinal directions and their associated colours, east and red, north and white, west and black, south and yellow, the same four-part scheme that assigns each of the twenty day signs its own direction and colour in the cycle recorded on this site's Tzolk'in day-sign pages. The Dreamspell system's own name for this position, "Self-Existing," again reflects Jose Arguelles's 1987 invented vocabulary rather than a term used by contemporary Maya daykeepers, who count in their own languages without this overlay.

Sources Time and the Highland MayaBarbara Tedlock with Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013Jose Arguelles

Four is written as four dots, the largest number the dot notation carries before the bar takes over at five. Four has a wider significance in Maya thought that is independent of the day count: the world has four sides and four corners, the directional colours are four with a fifth at the centre, and the Year Bearers are four.

Those four Year Bearers are a consequence of arithmetic rather than of symbolism, since a 365-day year advances the day sign by five places and four signs spaced five apart exhaust the twenty. It is a fair example of how difficult it is to separate the structural from the symbolic in this material: the number four arrives in the calendar by division, and it arrives in the cosmology independently, and the tradition treats them as the same four.

Maya numerals are written with a dot for one and a bar for five, and the coefficient of a day is written in exactly that way in the inscriptions, set beside the day sign in its cartouche. The system is positional and includes a sign for zero, which is why the Long Count can be written as a string of places, but within the 260-day count no number above thirteen ever occurs and the notation stays simple.

The term Self-Existing, applied to this coefficient in contemporary popular sources, belongs to Jose Arguelles's Dreamspell system of 1987 rather than to Maya tradition, and the atlas records it as such wherever the two are likely to be confused.

Sources Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An IntroductionJ. Eric S. Thompson with Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013Jose Arguelles