·    No glyphs given in K&H (but meanings given in textual explanation).

·    The only examples I’ve seen are the “tobacco” or “gift” meaning, none with the literal meaning of “deer” or “deer hoof”.

·    MHD search on “blcodes contains AVB” gives 24 hits, but I haven’t looked at any besides the examples given here (none of which have the literal meaning).

·    Do not confuse this with one of the variants of CHIJ = “deer” (visually slightly similar and semantically related):

o CHIJ has more than just the hoof (it includes the haunch) whereas MAY shows the hoof only.

o CHIJ shows the leg bound (presumably to stop the deer from escaping), whereas MAY has no binding at all (as there is no haunch to bind anyway).

·    MAY = “deer”, “deer hoof” is used as a rebus for writing the homonym may = “tobacco”.

o A snuff bottle gives: yotoot umay <X> = “(the) container of tobacco of <X>” = “(the) snuff bottle of <X>”.

o It is also used as a rebus for writing the homonym “gift”, perhaps via the “tobacco” meaning (or completely independently of it). See also mayij = “gifting (blood sacrifice)”.

·    Epigraphers’ opinions as to the literal meaning of MAY (i.e., when not used as a rebus) have evolved very slightly in the course of time:

o JM.p169.#3 (2002): “deer hoof”.

o M&L.p85.#4.AV7 (2003): “hoof?”.

o EB.p129.pdfp134.#1 (2009): “deer”.

o TOK.p30.pdfp30.r1.c4 (2017): TOK does not give meanings.

o K&L.p12.pdfp12.#5 (2018): ‘deer, (deer) hoof’ ‘pezuña’; Specifically the Red Brocket Deer (Mazama americana).

o BMM9.p111.pdfp45 (2019): same as K&L because it’s citing from the same work.

o 25EMC.pdfp42.#3 (2020): „deer, deer hoof”.

o K&H.p111.pdfp113 (2020): same as K&L because it’s citing from the same work.

Summary:

o JM & M&L (2002 & 2003) give only “(deer) hoof”, not “deer”; EB (2009) gives only “deer”, not “deer hoof”; K&L, BMM9, 25EMC, K&H (from 2017 onwards) all give both “deer” and “deer hoof”.

o Apparently, this glyph doesn’t occur often enough for us to work out for sure its literal meaning and we can only infer it from the iconography (i.e. the look) of the glyph. If we had a sentence like (say) *uwe’ew cha’ may ajaw = “the ruler ate two may” with some iconography showing a ruler eating, then we could perhaps more confidently infer that may means “deer” rather than “deer hoof” (or “hoof” in general). Some cultures eat the feet of certain animals (chicken feet or pigs trotters), but probably no culture would eat the actual hoof of an animal.

o The entry in the MHD Catalog (2022 to present, dynamically updatable) for MHD.AV8 gives in the English field: “tobacco”; “gift”, “offering”. I.e., it lists only the meanings when used as a rebus, apparently deliberately omitting the “deer” or “(deer) hoof” meanings. The only connection to “deer” is in the Picture field having the value “deer hoof”, recording the iconographic origin of the glyph. This indeed supports the idea that this glyph is not found in the inscriptions with the literal meaning.