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Many intricately derived meanings of the name Maya have been offered. The most obvious, however, is the direct translation. Ma means “not” and ya means “emotion,” “grief,” “tiresome,” or “difficult.” The combination means, “not arduous,” “not severe.” We know that the Mayas frequently alluded to their country as the Land of the Deer and the Land of the Wild Turkey— U-Lumil-Ceh, U-Lumil-Cutz. “Maya,” therefore, may quite likely have been descriptive of the region as a pleasant, comfortable place of residence. Juan Martinez, who knows the Indian and the language, present and past, as no one else, once said to me: “Work and grief are synonymous to the native mind. Work is grief to the Indian; therefore a land of no grief and no sorrow may well mean a land of no work.” However, any explanation of the derivation of so ancient a name is little more than surmise.

According to one myth, the Mayas came over the sea from the east, under the leadership of a hero-deity, Itzamna; hence the name “Itzas” as applied to a part, at least, of the Mayas. In the Maya books Itzamna is represented as an old man with one tooth and a sunken jaw. His glyph or sign is his pictured profile, together with a sign of night, the sign of food, and two or three feathers.