A new proposal for the transcription of the a-k'u-na/a-k'u-HUN-na title ALFONSO LACADENA Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas The a-k'u-na compound (Fig. 1a-c) was identified in the last decade by several epigraphers as a title borne by subordinates. A first transcription of the signs as a[h] k'u na offered interesting translations: «he of the temple» (Ringle, 1988: 9-11), «mason» (Schele, 1994: 42 related it with the tzotzil entry jch'ul na, «mason») and some kind of «oficial» (Houston and Stuart n.d. related it with postclassic yucatec ah k'ul). Subsequent research independently held by Houston (personal communication) and Martin and Grube (in Schele and Grube, 1995: 19-20) showed that a HUN logogram was often involved in the glyphic compound (Fig. 1de). lt became clear that the glyphic compound a-k'una was but an abbreviated form of a larger expression, a-k'u-HUN-na. From this evidence, a better transcription and a new morphological interpretation was reached: a-k'u-na/a-k'u-HUN-na, ah k'u hun, «he of the divine book(s)». As it has been pointed out, the relation explicited in the title with some activity concerning books and writing is also clear attending to the iconographic representations of such ah k'u huns, mainly on pottery. Those representations display the ah k'u huns with scribe headdresses or with folds of bark paper and pencils tied in their heads (Fig. 2). As other noble titles, the ah k'u hun title is also borne by women. ln those cases, as usually, a NA'/IX female head sign prefixes the compound (Fig. 3a-d). Nevertheless, as it was noticed (Houston and Stuart n.d.), when women bear the title, «the ah male agentive prefiX is often not deleted but remains between the female head and the k'u sign» (Schele and Grube, 1995: 19). The problem with the morphological analysis and translation of ah k'u hun as «he of the divine book(s)» arises precisely from those cases in which the title is borne by women. The glyphic compound with na7ix retains the a sign, putative a[h], but, as gender agen- tives, the ah male agentive and the na7ix female agentives are mutually exclusive A single a sign is usually employed in the glyphic grammar to render the male agentive ah, as in a-ts'iba, a[h] tsib, «scribe», a-ba-ki, a[h] bak, «he of the captive(s)» or a-CHAK-HA', a[h] Chakha', «he from Chakha'» 2 . The abnormal retention of the a sign in the female titles (NA'/IX-a-k'u-na) must move us to look for another possible transcription -and consequently another morphological explanation- that might overcome the linguistic anomaly. So if we start with the premise that the presence of the a sign in the female title rejects the a sign as an abbreviation of the ah male agentive, the compound a-k'u-na/a-k'u-HUNna should be transcribed not as a[h] k'u [hu]n, but as ak'hun, often abbreviated as akrhJun. Most interestingly, there is an entry in Chol, ac'jun, with the meaning of «mensajero» (messenger) (Aulie and Aulie, 1978: 27), literally, «(he who) gives/bears book(s), paper(s)». Classic ak'(h)un and present-day Chol ac'jun share a linguistic peculiarity: seemingly, the ah male agentive is absent of the compound, only becoming explicit the ak verbal root, «give, carry», and the (h)un noun, «book, paper». Nevertheless, I propose that the required ah male agentive is present, but contracted in a single a with the initial a- of ak'hun. We may prove that the contraction of the male agentive is certain attending to the ways in which the two Chol dialects, that of Tumbala and Sabanilla, present this form. ln Tumbala Chol dialect, where the male agentive is x, the attested form of messenger is x'ac'jun (Aulie and Aulie, 1978: 136); in Sabanilla Chol dialect, where the male agentive is aj, the attested form is ac'jun: the required aj male agentive has been contracted: aj-ac'jun> ac'jun 3. The contraction is surely concerned with morphophonemics. Fought (1967: 112-113) documents a simi- 1 The a sign in the first examples of Figure 3 may functions as a phonetic complement of NA' (NA'-a), but the last example shows clearly that the a sign is not working as a phonetic complement, function done by T23 na. Interestingly, only in context of female a-k'u-nas -and not in other female titles-, an a sign is present in the spelling. 2 I do not consider that T12 a is also ah or AH, as it is usually accepted. As in other examples of the glyphic grammar, in some environments, not all the sounds of a word are explicited by glyphs. As in other writing systems, sometimes readers must supply some sounds in uncomplete transcriptions. 3 Compare Tumbala Chol e'tyel, «trabajoi, («workii), xe'tyel, «trabajado pi pworker»), and Sabanilla Chol toñel, «trabajo>i (i(work»), ajtoñel, “trabajadorii («worker»)(Warkentin and Scott, 1980: 19). 47 ALFONSO LACADENA • • ""'" Figure 1. a-k'u-na spellings: a= K-4340 (Kerr: 1992: 474); b= Tonina, M. 110, N (Becquelin and Baudez 1982: fig. 135); c= Vase of unkown provenance. K-1606 (Kerr 1989: 101); a-k'u-HUN-na spellings: d= K-1728 (Kerr 1989: 105); Figure 2. a= K-1728 (Kerr 1989: 105); K-2695 (Kerr 1990: 255); c= K-4340 (Kerr 1992: 474). lar phenomenon in Chorti, in which the /h/ sound of the ah agentive is lost before an a (the /h/ sound is also lost between vowels in other environments, besides its position before or after a morphological boundary): Basic Alternants Phonemic shapes Glosses AH AT ER 'a?a"ter bather I propose the same process AH AT ER 'a7a"ter 48 MAYAB Figure 3. NA'//X-a-k'u-na, NA'/IX-a-k'u-HUN spellings: aStokes Panel, B9 (Houston 1989: fig. 5b); b= Yaxchilan, Lintel 53, G2 (Graham 1979); c= Yaxchilan, Lintel 32, K1-K2 (Graham 1979); d= Yaxchilan, Stela 11 (Schele and Miller 1986: fig. V.5a). for ak'hun: ah ak'hun > a'ak'hun, having been written a'a (probably even contracted in aa) with a single a sign. When the title is possesed, the contraction is often broken, then becoming explicit the ah male agentive (Fig. 4): aleu-na, ak'(h)un, «book(s) bearer»; ya-hak'u-na, y ah ak'(h)un, «his book(s)-bearer» 4 . lt may be that the y possesive pronoun reinforces in some way the /h/ sound. Regrettably, I have not found any example of ac'jun in a possesed form in Sabanilla Chol to compare with the classic possesed form, nor any example of possesed agentives before a- initial stems. The alternative analysis here proposed -ak'hun instead of ah k'u hun, «(he who) gives/carries book(s), paper(s)» or rather «book(s) bearer» instead of «he of the divine book(s)»- does not imply any change in the social and political role suggested for the bearers of the title. Ak'huns maintain their relation with books and writing -also explicited in the title ak'hun, as former ah k'u hun-, and they surely have other functions derived from the importance of their high status: Figure 4. ya-ha-k'u-na spellings: a= Palenque, Tablet of the Slaves, H1 (after drawing by L. Schele); b= K-4340 (Kerr: 1992: 474). besides their relation with books and writing, ak'huns participate in lord-dressing (see K-1454 and K-2695), a honorable activity supposedly of great confidence and privacy; and if present-day chol ac'jun, «mensajero», has retained at least one of the classic functions, perhaps they were concerned with some kind of ambassadorship too. The folds of bark paper and pencils often worn in the head by the ak'(h)uns (see Fig. 2), may have an occasional paralelism in Postclassic times: there is some evidence which points that messengers used to carry the letters wrapped in their hair. The passage is from Landa's Relación, when Cortes sent a letter to the shipwrecked Spaniards 5: «Que Cortés supo alli que unos hombres barbados estaban camino de seis soles en poder de un señor y que persuadió a los indios que los fuesen a Ilamar, y que halló quién fuese, aunque con dificultad, porque tenán miedo al señor de los barbados. Y escribióles esta carta:(.../...). Que los indios Ilevaron esta carta envuelta en el cabello y la dieron a Aguilar (...)» 6 (Landa, 1985: 46-47). REFERENCES AULIE, Wilbur and Evelyn AULIE. 1978. Diccionario Ch'ol-Español, Español-Ch'ot Serie de Vocabularios y Diccionarios Indigenas Mariano Silva y Aceves, n ^ m. 21, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, México D.F. FOUGHT, John. 1967. Chorti (Mayan). Phonology, Morphophonemics, and Morphology. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University. GRAHAM, lan. 1979. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, vol. 3, Part 2: Yaxchilán. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, Cambridge. As far as I know, the glyphic explicitation of the /h/ sound of the ah male agentive is restricted to the a-k'u-na title; other possesed titles based on ah male agentives are written with a ya sign; thus, “his scribe», is written ya-ts'i-bi, ya[h] ts'ib, without making explicit by glyphs the /h/ sound of the ah male agentive. s I am grateful to J. José Batalla, who pointed out to me this passage. 6 «Cortes knew there that some bearded men were six days away in the hands of a lord and he convinced the indians to go to call them, and he found who went, but with difficulty, because they were afraid of the bearded men's lord. And he wrote them this letter (.../...). The indians carried this letter wrapped in their hairand they gave it to Aguilar ALFONSO LACADENA 49 HOUSTON, Stephen. 1989. «Archaeology and Maya Writing», Journal of World Prehistory, vol. 3 (1): 1-32. — and David STUART. n.d.«A Title of Subordinates at Classic Maya Courts», Nashville Notes in Glyphology, N.° 1. KERR, Justin. 1989. The Maya Vase Book, A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases, vol. 1. Kerr Associates, New York. —. 1990. The Maya Vase Book, A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases, vol. 2. Kerr Associates, New York. —. 1992. The Maya Vase Book, A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases, vol. 3. Kerr Associates, New York. LANDA, Diego de. 1985. Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. Cránicas de América. Ed. Historia 16, Madrid. RINGLE, William. 1988. Of Mice and Monkeys: the Value and Meaning of T1016, the God C Hieroglyph. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, N.° 18. Center for Maya Research, Washington D.C. SCHELE, Linda and Nikolai GRUBE. 1994. Notebook for the XVIllth Hieroglyphic Workshop at Texas. The University of Texas at Austin. —. 1995. Notebook for the XIXth Hieroglyphic Workshop at Texas. The University of Texas at Austin. WARKENTIN, Viola and Ruby SCOTT. 1980. Gramática Ch'oZ Serie de Gramáticas de Lenguas Indigenas de México, N.° 3. Instituto Lingüistico de Verano, México D.F.