Manik, the Day Sign Behind It

The corresponding Maya day is Manik', whose glyph is a hand in the gesture of grasping, and which is generally associated with the deer; the Aztec equivalent day is Mazatl, deer, which supports the identification. In the colonial Yucatec sources it is a day connected with hunting and with the forest, and in some highland readings with strength and with the four points that hold the world. The Dreamspell reading of knowing, accomplishment and healing draws on the hand glyph and sets the deer aside entirely. That is a fair summary of how the system works: the Maya sign supplies an image, and the meaning attached to it is Arguelles's.

Manik is the seventh of the twenty authentic Tzolk'in day signs, its imagery the deer and, by extension, the hand as an instrument of skilled work and healing; the living K'iche' daykeeping tradition knows the corresponding day as Kej, the K'iche' word for deer. In the directional scheme, Manik belongs to the west and the colour black. Arguelles's Solar Seal 7, Blue Hand, borrows only the hand half of Manik's paired imagery, dropping the deer association entirely, another example of how the Dreamspell selectively adapts rather than translates the Tzolk'in day-sign meanings it draws on.