Ok (Tz'i'): The Dog Day, Tenth 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. Ok is the tenth of the 20 day signs in the 260-day Maya calendar; in K'iche' it is Tz'i', the ordinary word for "dog". The glyph is the head of an animal, probably a dog, and across Mesoamerica the matching day is "Dog". In Maya and Mexican belief, dogs guided the dead to the underworld, and J. Eric S. Thompson linked the Yucatec name to ocol, "to enter", used of the setting sun. Dreamspell calls this slot "White Dog". [1][3][4][5]

Ok at a glance

Position in the 20-day cycle	10 of 20 [1]
How often it returns	Every 20 days; a pairing such as 10 Ok returns every 260 days [2]
Yucatec name	Ok (16th-century spelling Oc) [1]
Possible Classic-period reading	Ook? (tentative) [1]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche')	Tz'i'; Tzij, 4'ij, Tzii in colonial calendars [3]
Other names	Elab, Elac (Chiapas, Chuj) [4]
Meaning	Dog [4][5]
Central Mexican counterpart	Itzcuintli, "dog" [4]
What the glyph depicts	An animal head, probably a dog; in the codices often just its ragged ear [4]
Haab' days it can share	Only day 3, 8, 13 or 18 of a Haab' month [1]
How we calculate it	GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [8]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987)	"White Dog", seal 10; 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.

Where Ok sits in the 260-day count

Ok follows Muluk and precedes Chuwen; 9 Muluk is followed by 10 Ok. [1] It is the midpoint of the 20 names, and over 260 days it meets every number once. [2] In the 365-day Haab' it can only fall on positions 3, 8, 13 or 18 of a month, the same set as Chikchan, Men and Ajaw. [1]

The names: Ok, Tz'i' and Elab

The highland name is transparent. Christenson's K'iche' dictionary lists Tz'i' as the day and tz'i' as "dog". [5] Thompson observed that tz'i or chi is the usual word for dog "in all other Maya languages and dialects" except a few, while Yucatec uses quite different words (pek, among others). [4] That makes the Yucatec name Ok the odd one out.

Thompson offered two leads. A Ch'ol word list gives ok for dog in Palenque Ch'ol. And Yucatec oc is the root of ocol, "to enter", used for sunset (ocol kin), when the sun entered the earth. [4] Kaua divinatory lists contain the phrase Ah ocencab, which Thompson read as "he who descends, and enters the earth", "precisely the role of the dog". [4] A third name, Elab, used in Chiapas and by the Chuj, may come from a Yucatec root for burning, which Thompson connected with stories of the dog bringing fire to people. [4] He presented all three as possibilities, not proof.

Kettunen and Helmke give Ook? as a tentative Classic reading. [1]

The glyph and the dog of the underworld

The day sign is the head of an animal "which may well be that of a dog". [4] In the codices, Thompson noted, the ear alone often replaces the whole head, and the darkness sign set above a dog's eye suggests a connection with the underworld. [4]

That connection is documented in several places. In Central Mexican belief, a dog sacrificed at its master's death guided the soul to Mictlan, the land of the dead, helping it across a wide stretch of water. Thompson gathered Maya parallels: the Lacandon placed small palm-leaf dogs at the corners of a grave to accompany the soul; dog remains were found in tombs at Kaminaljuyu; the Tzeltal of Tenejapa said dogs should be treated well because they lead the souls of the dead; people at Chenalhó believed dogs help their masters cross the river of the dead. [4] The Central Mexican dog god Xolotl, who guided the sun into the underworld at evening, was in Thompson's view the counterpart of the Maya patron of this day, whose own name is unknown. [4]

Thompson also noted that a dog's head, marked with crossed bones, sometimes replaces the usual "day" sign in the Lunar Series, which he read as the night sun. [4] That is his interpretation from 1950.

Tz'i' in highland tradition

The 260-day count is still kept in highland Guatemala by Ajq'ijab' (daykeepers). [2] The highland records of Tz'i' are among the least favorable:

• 1854 manuscript. Vicente Hernández Spina's calendar lists Tz'i' as a "bad day". [3]
• 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), say Tz'i' "symbolizes sin", and that there were no ceremonies on the day. [3]
• A sequence of days. Bunzel's collaborator, quoted in Christenson's Popol Vuh notes, read 7 Q'anil, 8 Toj, 9 Tz'i' together as a sequence; in it, "ts'i', 'dog'" stands for "some shameless act". [6]
• Other senses of the word. Christenson's dictionary also lists the adjective tz'i', "foolish; disobedient (child)". [5]

These are records of how some communities read the day. They are not statements about people born on Ok. We are not daykeepers. Our reports draw on the dog as companion and guide, the one who knows the way through the dark, as modern reflective writing.

Traditional Ok vs Dreamspell "White Dog"

"White Dog" is seal 10 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 Heart, Loves and Loyalty. [9] The animal matches the Maya day; the keywords are Dreamspell's.

The counts differ. Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [10][11] 19 Oct 2026 is 10 Ok in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 54, White Lunar Wizard. The next Dreamspell "White Dog" day, 15 Oct 2026 (Kin 50, White Spectral Dog), is 6 Kimi 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 tenth day in the north. [7] Contemporary K'iche' practice gives the north to Imox instead. [7]
• Color. "White" follows the north–white pairing of colonial Yucatec texts; assigning it to one day is a modern reconstruction. [12] Dreamspell also colors this seal white. [9]
• Element. Some charts, including earlier versions of this site, give Ok the element "earth". We found no traditional source for Greek-style elements on day signs; on this site it appears only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Ok 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
19 Oct 2026	10 Ok	3 Sak'	Kin 54, White Lunar Wizard
8 Nov 2026	4 Ok	3 Keh	Kin 74, White Solar Wizard
28 Nov 2026	11 Ok	3 Mak	Kin 94, White Electric Wizard
18 Dec 2026	5 Ok	3 K'ank'in	Kin 114, White Planetary Wizard
7 Jan 2027	12 Ok	3 Muwan	Kin 134, White Self-Existing Wizard
27 Jan 2027	6 Ok	3 Pax	Kin 154, White Spectral Wizard
16 Feb 2027	13 Ok	3 K'ayab	Kin 174, White Overtone Wizard

Each falls on day 3 of its Haab' month, one of the four positions (3, 8, 13, 18) open to Ok. [1]

Ok with each of the 13 numbers

• 1 Ok · next: 28 Mar 2027
• 2 Ok · next: 7 May 2027
• 3 Ok · next: 16 Jun 2027
• 4 Ok · next: 8 Nov 2026
• 5 Ok · next: 18 Dec 2026
• 6 Ok · next: 27 Jan 2027
• 7 Ok · next: 8 Mar 2027
• 8 Ok · next: 17 Apr 2027
• 9 Ok · next: 27 May 2027
• 10 Ok · next: 19 Oct 2026
• 11 Ok · next: 28 Nov 2026
• 12 Ok · next: 7 Jan 2027
• 13 Ok · next: 16 Feb 2027

Each number links to its page.

Ok 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

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FAQ

Are Ok, Oc and Tz'i' the same day? Yes. Oc is the colonial Yucatec spelling, Ok the revised one, and Tz'i' the K'iche' name. [1][3]

Is Ok the dog sign? Yes. Tz'i' means dog in K'iche', the glyph is probably a dog's head, and the matching Aztec day is Itzcuintli, "dog". [4][5]

Why is the dog linked to death? In Maya and Central Mexican belief, dogs guided the souls of the dead to the underworld. [4]

Is "White Dog" the same as Ok? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list, but Dreamspell's count differs, so a "White Dog" birthday is usually not an Ok 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 Ok 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. 78–80.
5. Christenson, Allen J. K'iche'–English Dictionary. FAMSI, s.v. "Tz'i'", "tz'i'". https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf
6. Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. Electronic edition, Mesoweb, 2007, p. 123, n. 311 (quoting Bunzel 1952:282–283). https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf
7. 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. 202–203. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2813/281336894007.pdf
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