Mayan Astrology Calculator LogoMayan Astrology CalculatorDiscover Your Ancient Wisdom

Lamat (Q'anil): The Star Day, Eighth 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. Lamat is the eighth of the 20 day signs in the 260-day Maya calendar; in K'iche' it is Q'anil. The Lamat glyph is the Maya sign for the planet Venus, a "star". In the highlands, Q'anil is read as "yellowness", the color of ripe maize, and 8 Q'anil is a day of thanksgiving for food and land. The common English label "Rabbit" is borrowed from the Aztec day Tochtli. Dreamspell calls this slot "Yellow Star". [1][4][5][6]

Is Lamat your day sign? Enter your birth date

Lamat at a glance
Position in the 20-day cycle 8 of 20 [1]
How often it returns Every 20 days; a pairing such as 8 Lamat returns every 260 days [2]
Yucatec name Lamat (same in 16th-century and modern spelling) [1]
Possible Classic-period reading Lamaht? (tentative) [1]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche') Q'anil; Kanel, εanil, Canil, Kanil in colonial calendars [3]
Meaning in K'iche' "Yellowness", the yellow of ripe maize [6]
What the glyph depicts The sign for the planet Venus [4]
Central Mexican counterpart Tochtli, "rabbit" [4]
Haab' days it can share Only day 1, 6, 11 or 16 of a Haab' month [1]
How we calculate it GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [8]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987) "Yellow Star", seal 8; a separate system with a different count [9][10]

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 Lamat sits in the 260-day count

Lamat follows Manik' and precedes Muluk; 7 Manik' is followed by 8 Lamat. [1] Over 260 days it meets every number once. [2] In the 365-day Haab' it can only fall on positions 1, 6, 11 or 16 of a month, which it shares with Ak'bal, Ben and Etz'nab. [1]

The glyph: a Venus sign

J. Eric S. Thompson stated it directly in 1950: "The glyph for Lamat is the sign for the planet Venus." In the head variants, he wrote, "the celestial dragon with Venus symbols on his body is clearly recognizable." [4] The name itself is harder. Thompson noted that "the day names Lamat and Lambat have no obvious connection with Venus". [4] Kettunen and Helmke give Lamaht? as a possible Classic reading, with a question mark. [1]

David Stuart has pointed out that Lamat is one of several day signs abbreviated to a deity's eye, the same scribal shorthand that reduced other days to a single feature. [7] The "star" form most people recognize is that abbreviation.

Where does "Rabbit" come from?

From Central Mexico. The Aztec day in the same position was Tochtli, "rabbit". [4] Thompson found a thin link: rabbits were a symbol of drunkenness on the Mexican plateau, and the Maya Venus god was described in the colonial Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel as walking abroad "like one drunk". He called this "a tenuous connection". [4]

Many websites, including earlier versions of this one, label Lamat "Rabbit". On this site we treat it as a cross-cultural alias. The Maya glyph shows a star, and the highland name refers to the color of ripe maize.

Lamat in ancient texts

Lamat is one of the more common days on Classic monuments. Thompson counted 37 occurrences in his sample of non-period-ending dates, fourth after Ajaw, Imix and Kaban. [4] Part of that comes from repetition: Palenque's inscriptions return again and again to the date 5 Lamat 1 Mol, a habit Thompson flagged as "over-weighting" his count. [4]

Q'anil: ripe maize and thanksgiving

The highland name has a different story. Thompson suggested that Kanil and Khanil came from K'anal, "star", in several Chiapas languages, and that once this origin was forgotten, diviners heard in it a word for ripeness. [4] That was his reconstruction. K'iche' speakers today hear q'an, "yellow", in the name, and Estrada Peña reports that this is why Q'anil is the nawal of the south, whose color is yellow. [5]

The documented highland meanings are consistent and positive:

  • 1854 manuscript. Vicente Hernández Spina calls Q'anil a "good day, sacred to the spirits of agriculture", when people ask for all that sustains human life. [3]
  • 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), describe it as "symbolic of the regeneration of the earth, of rebirth after death, and seen in the growth of corn. It is the day of the milpa." [3]
  • 8 Q'anil. Christenson's Popol Vuh notes quote Bunzel: "it is obligatory for all people to give thanks for their food and their land on the day 8 qanil." [6]
  • "The face of the earth becomes yellow." Barbara Tedlock reported this phrase as a Momostenango daykeeper's mnemonic for Q'anil, meaning harvest. [6]

These are records of community practice. They are not forecasts for anyone born on Lamat. We are not daykeepers. Our reports draw on the image of a ripening field and a morning star as modern reflective writing.

Traditional Lamat vs Dreamspell "Yellow Star"

"Yellow Star" is seal 8 in the Dreamspell, a modern system begun by José and Lloydine Argüelles in 1987 and published as a kit in 1990. [10] Dreamspell gives it the keywords Elegance, Beautifies and Art. [9] The "star" name happens to match the Maya glyph, but the keywords are Dreamspell's own.

The counts differ. Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [10][11] 17 Oct 2026 is 8 Lamat in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 52, Yellow Cosmic Human. The next Dreamspell "Yellow Star" day, 13 Oct 2026 (Kin 48, Yellow Solar Star), is 4 K'an in the traditional count. [Link: Dreamspell vs traditional converter → /dreamspell-vs-traditional-maya-calendar]

Colors, directions and "elements"

Lamat is the one day sign where the old pattern and today's K'iche' practice agree:

  • Direction: south. Prehispanic calendars assigned the days to east, north, west and south in turn, which places the eighth day in the south. Contemporary K'iche' daykeepers also place Q'anil in the south. Estrada Peña notes that of the four days he examined, it is the only one in the same place under both systems. [5]
  • Color: yellow. The south is yellow in colonial Yucatec texts, and K'iche' ceremonies set yellow candles on the south side. [5][12] Dreamspell also colors this seal yellow. [9]
  • Element. Some charts, including earlier versions of this site, give Lamat the element "water". We found no traditional source for Greek-style elements on day signs; on this site it appears only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Lamat days

Calculated with the GMT 584283 correlation, the same method as our calculator, as of 10 October 2026: [8]

Gregorian date Tzolk'in (traditional) Haab' Dreamspell, for comparison only
17 Oct 2026 8 Lamat 1 Sak' Kin 52, Yellow Cosmic Human
6 Nov 2026 2 Lamat 1 Keh Kin 72, Yellow Resonant Human
26 Nov 2026 9 Lamat 1 Mak Kin 92, Yellow Magnetic Human
16 Dec 2026 3 Lamat 1 K'ank'in Kin 112, Yellow Galactic Human
5 Jan 2027 10 Lamat 1 Muwan Kin 132, Yellow Lunar Human
25 Jan 2027 4 Lamat 1 Pax Kin 152, Yellow Solar Human
14 Feb 2027 11 Lamat 1 K'ayab Kin 172, Yellow Electric Human

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 1 of its Haab' month, one of the four positions (1, 6, 11, 16) open to Lamat. [1]

Lamat with each of the 13 numbers

Each number links to its page; the anchors let number pages link back here. 8 Lamat (8 Q'anil) is the highland thanksgiving day described above.

Lamat 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) that reads your day sign and number together.

Calculate my Maya signatureSee a full sample report first →

Comparing two people? See the sample pair report →

FAQ

Are Lamat and Q'anil the same day? Yes. Lamat is the Yucatec name and Q'anil (older Kanil) the K'iche' name for the eighth day. [1][3]

Is Lamat the rabbit sign? Only by analogy. "Rabbit" translates the Aztec day Tochtli. The Maya glyph is a Venus sign. [4]

What does Lamat mean? The Yucatec word is unexplained; the glyph is the sign for Venus. The K'iche' name Q'anil means "yellowness", the yellow of ripe maize. [4][6]

Is "Yellow Star" the same as Lamat? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list, but Dreamspell's count differs, so a "Yellow Star" birthday is usually not a Lamat day. [9][10]

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. [8][13]

Is Lamat 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), 14. https://www.upcolorado.com/media/acfupload/9780870819969.pdf
  4. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, pp. 77, 88, 91–92.
  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. 201–203. 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, p. 123, n. 312 (quoting Bunzel 1952 and B. Tedlock). https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf
  7. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Muluc / Toj." Maya Decipherment, 6 Sep 2026. https://mayadecipherment.com/2026/09/06/day-sign-notes-muluc-toj/
  8. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
  9. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
  10. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (citing Argüelles & Argüelles, Dreamspell kit, 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
  11. Argüelles, José. Rinri Project Newsletter II.2.1. Foundation for the Law of Time. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
  12. 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/
  13. 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