Sisimito I--Ox Witz Ha
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Marking is guarding an opponent.
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Overhead volley, also known as a bicycle kick, is a volley in which the player upends himself and kicks the ball with his legs scissor- ing overhead. A volley is kicking a ball in midair, before a bounce.
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Bully is a mad scramble for a loose ball by both sides in front of a goal.
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T’u’ul is Maya for ‘rabbit’. The word imul is also used.
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Banana Pass is to kick the ball off-center to impart it with a spin, which produces a curving or ‘banana’ trajectory. Also known as a banana kick, bending the ball, or curling the ball.
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The story of Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu is from the Popol Vuh, the Maya story of creation. They are two brothers who are avid ball players. They are summoned to Xibalba, the Place of fright, or Underworld, by its two rulers who covet their sporting gear and intend to steal it. The harassed brothers wind up tortured and are put to death. Hun Hunahpu’s corpse is decapitated and his head hung on a barren calabash tree that instantly bears fruit. “Let no one come to pick this fruit,” the rulers command. But a young woman, drawn to the tree, plucks a gourd. As she does so, Hun Hunahpu’s head, now reduced to a skull, dribbles spittle into her palm, causing her to become pregnant. Leaving the underworld, she goes to live in the house of Hun Hunahpu’s mother and there gives birth to twin boys, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.
Like Hun Hunahpu and his brother, the twins are summoned to Xibalba to participate in a ball game. Cleverer by far than their father and uncle, they manage to avoid the tortures and pitfalls intended for them and defeat their antagonists roundly. But victory does not assure their release. Having angered the men of Xibalba, they un- dergo various hair-raising experiences; then, using magic, they let themselves be murdered. The Xibalbans grind the twins’ bones to powder and toss the remains into a river. “But the bones did not go very far,” the Popol Vuh relates, “for settling themselves down at once on the bottom of the river, they were changed back into handsome boys.”
Returning to Xibalba in disguise, the twins perform a series of tricks– including one sacrificing and then resurrecting the other. Entranced, the two Lords of Xibalba ask for similar treatment, and the twins consent, up to a point: they dispatch the duped leaders, but do not bring them back to life. Having vanquished evil, the hero Twins, as they came to be called, ascend into the sky, where they take up positions as the sun and the moon. The Popol Vuh continues that Hun Hunahpu, regarded by the Maya as the corn god, is resurrected by his sons.
The above is taken from The Magnificent Maya.
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Labret or lip-plug was an ornament worn below the lower lip.
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Chert is a flintlike form of quartz composed of chalcedony, e.g. onyx, agate, tiger’s eye, etc.
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Haah is Maya for ‘yes’.
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Star-War: The star-war is interpreted to be the most important kind of warfare event represented in the iconographic record. It represents a major war resulting in the defeat of one site by another. This represents the installation of a new dynastic line of rulers at a site, complete dominion of one site over another, or a successful war of independence by a formerly dominated site.
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T’oit’ik-jolom is Maya for a renowned warrior, soldier, one that has achieved great esteem, regardless of rank.
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Chay-abaj is Ke’kchi for ‘obsidian’. Some sources state chay alone for obsidian and abaj for stone or pebble. In the Sisimito Series, obsidian will be referred to as chay.
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U-yeh is Maya for ‘blade’.
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Maquahuitl: This weapon was a war club used to crush the enemy. The end was sometimes fitted with pieces of sharp obsidian. The maquahuitl was widely used.
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Cuxtal is a colorful braided pouch-like cultural bag used by the Maya.
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K’uutz is Maya for ‘marijuana’.
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Huuh is the Maya word for a ‘large lizard’. It is used for the iguana, Iguana iguana, a large lizard of the family Iguanidae, having a dorsal crest and throat appendages. In this case, it is the name given to the courier.
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A kohaw is a war helmet made of stone as pyrite and worn only by ajaws and kaloonte’s. The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral’s metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool’s gold be- cause of its superficial resemblance to gold. The color has also led to the nicknames brass, brazzle and Brazil, primarily used to refer to pyrite found in coal.
An Ajaw is a lord, ruler, king or leader who also performs religious activities.
A Kaloonte’ is an elite warrior associated with the jaguar. He may be a hunter or nacom (officer) or a batab (war chief).
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Kish is a Maya male name meaning ‘feathered’.
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Ch’ahb is the name given to the ‘Blood-letting Ceremony’. It literarily means ‘pennance’.
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Tzitz is Maya for ‘blood-letting instrument’.
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Acan is the Maya god of wine and intoxication. His name means ‘belch’. He is identified with the local brew, balche’, made from fermented honey to which the bark of the balche’ tree has been added.
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In the Sisimito Series, on U Wach Ulew, the Surface World, the Maya name ‘Kiche’ is used for the village of Santa Cruz, Toledo District, Belize. Santa Cruz del Quiché is actually a city in Guatemala, near the ruins of Q’umarkaj. It serves as the capital of El Quiché Department and the municipal seat of Santa Cruz del Quiché municipality. Santa Cruz del Quiché was founded by Pedro de Alvarado, a companion and second in-command of conquistador Hernán Cortés, after he burned down the nearby Maya capital city of Q’umarkaj (or Utatlán, in the Nahuatl language). The oldest buildings, including a large cathedral and clock tower in the central plaza, were constructed out of the stones of the Q’umarkaj ruins by the Dominicans. Some think it likely that it was in Santa Cruz where a group of anonymous K’iche’ nobles of the Nim Ch’okoj class transcribed the Popol Vuh, the sacred text of the Maya.
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Wonon is Maya for ‘bumblebee’.
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Fino is the Spanish word for ‘fine’ or ‘okay’.
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Maydn is Kriol for ‘virginity’.
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Ixtama’al is Ke’kchi for tamales.
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Haaleb is the Maya word for paca or gibnut, a large rodent, Agouti pa-ca. The Lacandon Maya word is ha’ale.
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Bollos: Corn and cassava bollos are an indigenous food of the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Panama, but eaten throughout Central America. The ‘bun’ is boiled in banana or the thick waxy waha leaves, Heliconia rostrata.
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Pooch is a tortilla (kua) rolled and wrapped in a waha leaf and cooked on the fire or boiled in a pot.
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Ch’ukcua is a sweet tortilla made on special occasions and served with coffee or cocoa sweetened to taste.
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Iik is Maya for ‘pepper, chili’.
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Q’än-jal is Maya for ‘yellow corn on the cob’.
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Tiáálinbil is a thick stew with meat seasoned with traditional herbal ingredients.
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Kitam is the White Collared Peccary, a wild pig: Pecari tajacu.
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Hach-k’ek’en is the Lacandon Maya word for ‘waari’, the White-Lipped Peccary, Tayassu pecari.
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K’ambul is the Great Curassow: Crax rubra. It is also known as Hoco
faisán or Bolonchan.
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Ah-cox is the Crested Guan: Penelope purpurascens. It is also known as Pava Cojolita.
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Kolol (Ke’kchi Maya) is known in Belize as the Partridge. It is the Great Tinamou, Tinamus major. It is also known as Tinamú Grande, Nom, Ix-Mancolol, and Ixkolool (Mopan Maya).
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Co’oc is the Ke’kchi word for ‘coconut’. The coconut palm is toni’co’oc.
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Metate is the corn grinding stone. They are made from volcanic stones and white sandstones. They last a lifetime and are commonly found in the earth, abandoned by the ancient Maya.
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Tenleb is a mortar, a chalice-shaped hollow log, about thirty inches in height, used for threshing rice grain or coffee beans. The grain is pounded with a pestle, a three-foot wooden bar shaped like a drumstick, usually made from mahogany or cedar.
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K’ah is ‘cornsham (roasted corn grain)’. It can be used to make a beverage in the same manner of coffee and cocoa. It can also be sprinkled with sugar and eaten as a gritty powder. Cornsham can be boiled until thick and served as a lab, a type of corn beverage, sweetened to taste. This is called pinol in Mopan and k’ah in Ke’kchi.
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Chelas: Spanish speaking Belizeans often refer to beers as chelas.
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Ceiba tree, Ceiba pentandra. The Maya cosmovision conceives Earth as flat and the universe as a multi-tiered square surrounded by the body of a crocodile. Within this cosmic square are three levels: the Sky is Kaán, the Earth is Cab, and the underworld is Xibalba. From the center of the Earth emerges the Yaxché, the sacred Maya Ceiba tree. Its branches support the Sky and it is in Heaven where the main god sits; the trunk rests on the Earth in the Upperworld; its roots reach down to the underworld. Mayas believed that 122 deities live in the Yaxché, divided into two groups, the 13 heavens of Oxlahuntikú, and the nine underworlds of Bolontikú. It is also thought that there is a connection between humans and the Yaxché, like a mother gives life. If the tree dies, the human also perishes.
The Ceiba, or Yaxché, also represents the four cardinal points and center of the cosmic square totaling five cardinal points, each with its own color. The center point of the cosmic square is green and from it grows the Yaxché. The North is white, South is yellow, West is black, and East is red. The latter is of utmost importance, for this is where the sun rises. Each of the cardinal points is supported by a Bacab, the Atlantean go who also see to it that the stars and all the celestial planets remain in place for eternity.
In representations made of the Yaxché it is not unusual that the lower part is swollen, like the belly of a pregnant woman. In the Yaxché, the predecessors of the ancestral Maya culture reside, the gods and, it is said, some supernatural beings.
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Guaro: Spanish speaking Belizeans often refer to rum as guaro.
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Cususa is a crude cane liquor.
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Spudi is potato wine, a favorite home-made wine in Belize.
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Matz is a sweet corn lab and is seasoned with beans to taste.
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Chicha is the traditional drink made from corn and used when the Maya elders do a ceremony for the sun when summer begins. Chichiatl is the Nahuatl name for chicha.