Mayan Astrology Calculator LogoMayan Astrology CalculatorDiscover Your Ancient Wisdom

Chuwen (B'atz'): The Monkey Day, Eleventh Sign of the Maya Calendar

Prepared by the Mayan Astrology Calculator editors · Sources below · Reviewed 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1

Quick answer. Chuwen is the eleventh of the 20 day signs in the 260-day Maya calendar; in K'iche' it is B'atz'. Both names point to the howler monkey, and Yucatec aj chuen means "artisan". In the Popol Vuh, the brothers One Batz and One Chouen, named after this day, were musicians, writers and sculptors. David Stuart traces the glyph to a portrait of the scribal monkey god. In highland Guatemala, 8 B'atz' marks the renewal of the 260-day cycle. Dreamspell calls this slot "Blue Monkey". [1][2][4][6][7]

Is Chuwen your day sign? Enter your birth date

Chuwen at a glance
Position in the 20-day cycle 11 of 20 [1]
How often it returns Every 20 days; a pairing such as 11 Chuwen returns every 260 days [2]
Yucatec name Chuwen (16th-century spelling Chuen) [1]
Classic-period reading Unknown [1]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche') B'atz'; Batz, Ba4 in colonial calendars [3]
Meaning Howler monkey; Yucatec aj chuen, "artisan" [4][6]
Central Mexican counterpart Ozomatli, "monkey" [4]
What the glyph depicts In origin, the eye of the scribal monkey deity [7]
Haab' days it can share Only day 4, 9, 14 or 19 of a Haab' month [1]
Highland role 8 B'atz' (Wajxaqib' B'atz') opens the new 260-day cycle [2]
How we calculate it GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [9]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987) "Blue Monkey", seal 11; a separate system with a different count [10][11]

Your day sign is only half of your birth signature. The number from 1 to 13 is the other half.

Calculate my Maya signatureSee a full sample report first →

Where Chuwen sits in the 260-day count

Chuwen follows Ok and precedes Eb; 10 Ok is followed by 11 Chuwen. [1] In the 365-day Haab' it shares its possible positions (4, 9, 14 and 19 of a month) with Imix, Kimi and Kib. [1]

Its place in the count matters more in the highlands than elsewhere. K'iche' lists of the 20 days often begin with B'atz' rather than with Imox. [5] And daykeepers celebrate the Wajxaqib' B'atz' (8 B'atz') ceremony every 260 days to mark a new cycle, the Smithsonian notes. [2]

What the names mean

Both names point to the same animal. Allen Christenson writes that b'atz' "is the Quiché word for the howler monkey", and that Chouen "is derived from the Yucatec Maya word chuen, meaning 'howler monkey'". [6] Christenson's dictionary lists batz', "monkey", and the near-identical bätz', "thread", along with words for spinning. [8] The resemblance between monkey and thread is a sound pattern in the dictionary; we have not found a source that links the two meanings for this day.

The Yucatec word also carries a craft meaning. Thompson quoted the colonial Motul dictionary: ah chuen, "artificer, craftsman of some art", and with other words "metal-smith", "potter" and "iron-smith". [4] Christenson notes that aj chuen is a title meaning "artisan", "consistent with the artistic nature" of the Popol Vuh twins. [6] The Aztec day in this position was Ozomatli, "monkey", and Sahagún reported that children born on it were expected to become singers, dancers, painters or craftsmen. [4]

One Batz and One Chouen in the Popol Vuh

The Popol Vuh tells of two brothers, One Batz and One Chouen, sons of One Hunahpu and half-brothers of the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Christenson's translation says they "became flautists and singers, writers and sculptors, jade workers and precious metalsmiths". [6] Jealous of their younger brothers, they were tricked into climbing a tree and turned into monkeys. [4] Christenson adds that "twin monkey scribes appear frequently in Classic Maya art as patrons of writing". [6]

The brothers' names are calendar names. Like many K'iche' people in colonial times, they carry the name of a day in the 260-day count. [3][4]

The glyph

Thompson found the symbolic form of the glyph "too stylized to yield any meaning", though the head variants "probably represent monkeys". [4] Stuart now explains why. He writes that "the day sign for Chuen was first a portrait of the scribal monkey deity, and its eye came to be used as its standard shorthand representation". [7] Over time, he argues, complex portraits of gods were simplified "through expediency and convention" into the abstract shapes we see in the codices. [7] The same process turned the Ix jaguar into an eye and the Imix serpent into a flower.

B'atz' in highland tradition

The 260-day count is still kept in highland Guatemala by Ajq'ijab' (daykeepers). [2] The records show two faces of B'atz':

  • 1854 manuscript. Vicente Hernández Spina's calendar lists B'atz' as a "bad day" on which illness was prayed upon enemies. [3]
  • 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), describe it instead as a "good day, symbolic of continuity with the past or ancestors". [3]
  • Craft and learning. Thompson noted that in Schultze Jena's K'iche' list it is a good day for prayers about household furnishings, and a Chichicastenango informant called it good for learning. [4]
  • New cycle. 8 B'atz' (Wajxaqib' B'atz') is the occasion for the ceremony that opens a new 260-day cycle. [2]

These records describe community practice. They are not forecasts for anyone born on Chuwen. We are not daykeepers. Our reports draw on the image of the artisan, the scribe and the thread as modern reflective writing.

Traditional Chuwen vs Dreamspell "Blue Monkey"

"Blue Monkey" is seal 11 in the Dreamspell, a modern system begun by José and Lloydine Argüelles in 1987 and published as a kit in 1990. [11] Dreamspell gives it the keywords Magic, Plays and Illusion. [10] The animal matches the Maya day, but those keywords are Dreamspell's, not the artisan and scribe themes of Maya sources.

The counts also differ: Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [11][12] 20 Oct 2026 is 11 Chuwen in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 55, Blue Electric Eagle. The next Dreamspell "Blue Monkey" day, 16 Oct 2026 (Kin 51, Blue Crystal Monkey), is 7 Manik' in the traditional count. [Link: Dreamspell vs traditional converter → /dreamspell-vs-traditional-maya-calendar]

Colors, directions and "elements"

  • Direction. Prehispanic calendars assigned the days to east, north, west and south in turn, which places the eleventh day in the west. [5] Contemporary K'iche' practice ties the west to Kame instead. [5]
  • Color. Colonial Yucatec texts pair the west with black. [13] "Blue", shown on earlier versions of this site, is Dreamspell's color for this seal. [10]
  • Element. Some charts give Chuwen the element "air". We found no traditional source for Greek-style elements on day signs; on this site it appears only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Chuwen days

Calculated with the GMT 584283 correlation, the same method as our calculator, as of 10 October 2026: [9]

Gregorian date Tzolk'in (traditional) Haab' Dreamspell, for comparison only
20 Oct 2026 11 Chuwen 4 Sak' Kin 55, Blue Electric Eagle
9 Nov 2026 5 Chuwen 4 Keh Kin 75, Blue Planetary Eagle
29 Nov 2026 12 Chuwen 4 Mak Kin 95, Blue Self-Existing Eagle
19 Dec 2026 6 Chuwen 4 K'ank'in Kin 115, Blue Spectral Eagle
8 Jan 2027 13 Chuwen 4 Muwan Kin 135, Blue Overtone Eagle
28 Jan 2027 7 Chuwen 4 Pax Kin 155, Blue Crystal Eagle
17 Feb 2027 1 Chuwen 4 K'ayab Kin 175, Blue Rhythmic Eagle

The date tables use your local date when JavaScript is available. Without it, they stay at the 10 October 2026 snapshot.

Each falls on day 4 of its Haab' month, one of the four positions (4, 9, 14, 19) open to Chuwen. [1]

Chuwen with each of the 13 numbers

Each number links to its page. 8 Chuwen is 8 B'atz', the highland new-cycle day; 1 Chuwen is the day name of One Chouen.

Chuwen and relationships

Our compatibility tool compares two full birth signatures with a modern reflective method, not a documented historical Maya formula. [Compare two birth dates → /compatibility]

Read your own signature in depth

Calculate your full signature free, with no sign-up. Under the result you can add an 11-page personal PDF report ($7, one-time).

Calculate my Maya signatureSee a full sample report first →

Comparing two people? See the sample pair report →

FAQ

Are Chuwen, Chuen and B'atz' the same day? Yes. Chuen is the colonial Yucatec spelling, Chuwen the revised one, and B'atz' the K'iche' name. [1][3]

Is Chuwen the monkey sign? Yes. Both chuen and b'atz' name the howler monkey, and the glyph began as a portrait of the monkey scribe god. [6][7]

What is Wajxaqib' B'atz'? The day 8 B'atz', on which K'iche' daykeepers hold the ceremony that opens a new 260-day cycle. [2]

Is "Blue Monkey" the same as Chuwen? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list, but Dreamspell's count differs, so a "Blue Monkey" birthday is usually not a Chuwen day. [10][11]

Why does another calculator give me a different day sign? It may use the Dreamspell count, or a correlation constant other than 584283, which shifts results by a day or two. [9][14]

Is Chuwen a zodiac sign? No. It names a day that recurs every 20 days. → How we calculate

Sources

  1. Kettunen, Harri, and Christophe Helmke. Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th rev. ed. Wayeb, 2020, pp. 49, 51, 56. https://www.mesoweb.org/resources/handbook/IMH2020.pdf
  2. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. "The Calendar System." Living Maya Time. https://maya.nmai.si.edu/calendar/calendar-system
  3. Weeks, John M., Frauke Sachse, and Christian M. Prager. Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 3 (Table 1.1), 12, 14. https://www.upcolorado.com/media/acfupload/9780870819969.pdf
  4. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, p. 80.
  5. Estrada Peña, Canek. "Anima' ri cho, anima' ri plo: Imox y el agua entre los k'iche'." Estudios de Cultura Maya 45 (2015): 191–224, pp. 193, 202–203. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2813/281336894007.pdf
  6. Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. Electronic edition, Mesoweb, 2007, pp. 99 (nn. 224–225), 100. https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf
  7. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Caban." Maya Decipherment, 12 Aug 2024. https://mayadecipherment.com/2024/08/12/day-sign-notes-caban/
  8. Christenson, Allen J. K'iche'–English Dictionary. FAMSI, s.v. "Batz'", "batz'", "bätz'". https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf
  9. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
  10. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
  11. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (citing Argüelles & Argüelles, Dreamspell kit, 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
  12. Argüelles, José. Rinri Project Newsletter II.2.1. Foundation for the Law of Time. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
  13. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Imix / Imox." Maya Decipherment, 14 Aug 2025 (on the colors of the imix che' world trees). https://mayadecipherment.com/2025/08/14/day-sign-notes-imix-imox/
  14. Van Stone, Mark. "2012 FAQ." FAMSI. https://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html

Reviewed: 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1 · Corrections: contact us