Variant: hand

·    Features:

o A right hand, viewed from the “outside” (i.e., not the palm side).

o The thumb and index finger touch, to form an “o”, with the fingernail of both of them visible.

o (Often) the end of the middle finger is visible, also with the fingernail, in the “o” formed by the thumb and index finger.

o There’s a partitive disc in the bottom left.

·    The head (sub-)variant:

o As often happens with Maya glyphs, this is simply the “animated form” of the common hand variant of chi. In such “conventional” animated forms, the characteristic elements of the base form are simply transferred to a generic head-outline.

o The partitive disc is moved to the centre of the floor, as the left bottom corner shows the mouth and lips.

·    MHD statistics (2025-07-04):

o A search in MHD on “blcodes contains MR4s” yields 906 hits (i.e., this glyph used as a syllabogram).

o Rounding to the closest 10 (including uncertain instances marked by a “?”), sorted by decreasing frequency:

§ t’abayich: 180 hits.

§ k’inich: 100 hits.

§ yichnal: 100 hits.

§ k’ahlajich: 40 hits.

§ ochi (spelled oochi by MHD): 30 hits.

§ tz’ihbnajich: 80 hits.

Given the very approximate nature of the statistic, because of quite a large number of question marks, rounding to the nearest 10 is no significant loss of information, in return for increased clarity.

o This CMGG entry is for the hand variant of the syllabogram chi, but it’s perhaps interesting to see the statistics for this glyph as a logogram (“blcodes contains MR4a” yields 90 hits):

§ “MANIK” (month name): 73 hits.

§ CHIJ = “deer” (spelled CHIHJ in MHD): 15 hits.

§ other: 2 hits (one of this might be a typo for MR4s anyway).

Variant: skull

·    This glyph is also logogram CHIH = “pulque”. The syllabogram usage is obviously derived from the earlier logogram usage.

·    Features – a skull with:

o Bone property marker(s) – three non-touching dots in a row.

o Nose-hole and bone-jaw (practically obligatory for any skull glyph).

o Quite a large eye.

o (Optionally) a “death eyeball” as forehead ornament.

o (Optionally) one or two fangs.

o Curiously, in the top right corner, an element which vaguely resembles a “feather” – elongated with cross hatched circles at both ends.

·    Bonn recognizes 1729st, which is obviously equivalent to MHD.SC9, but in addition has declared 1968st, which also has a “feather”-like element in the top right and bone property markers, but is slightly less skull-like (no nose-hole and bone-jaw). The eye of 1968st has a scroll, which also makes it less skull-like. Perhaps MHD.SC9.2 is meant to correspond to 1968st.

·    MSK844 (a.k.a. CLK Structure II-B Tomb 4 Plate; “objabbr = CLKT4pl”) F may or may not be a skull form of chi.

o It’s a lot less skull-like than TOK.p22.r5.c3, MHD.SC9.1, and 1729st.

o Perhaps 1968st is meant to be a canonical form of MSK844 F.

Variant: agave plant

·    The glyph-block reference for the example glyph from BPK SS5 is either H9 or I4, depending on which of the two very slightly different glyph-block labelling systems is used.

·    A skull or animal head with three long leaves on the right represents pulque because the sap of the plant (= three leaves) is buried (= skull) for the fermentation process.

o Zender-CaCiAMF.t0:21:39-22:25: […] Potentially, it’s also the logogram CHIH for “pulque” since that’s what it depicts, but there’s no doubt that there’s many contexts in Maya art from this time that use it as just a syllable. If so, then it’s a syllable that originates from the word for maguey products, specifically, in this case, pulque proper.

o Houston-PaP.p4.para3: The chi occurs in both “hand” or “agave” variants, perhaps with another conflated sign, an animal head.