Today amoung the Chorti Maya of Guatemala the Pleiades, called "El Siete Cabrillas," or "Seven Kids," fix the day of the planting and the coming of the rains when they undergo heliacal rising in the morning sky on April 25...Among the ancient Maya the Pleiades were called tzab, "the rattlesnake's tail," a form by which this hieroglyphic representation is recognized at several places in the codices (Dutting, 1979).
They name these stars Mamalhuaztli, and by that same name they call the sticks with which they drill a fire, becuse it seemeth to them that they somewhat resemble the stars and that from them there came to them this manner of producing fire. From this it was customary that the men make certain burns on the wrist in honor of those stars. They said of him who was not marked by those burns that, when he died, there in hell they would produce fire on his wrist, drilling it there as those do who here drill fire with the stick. (Sahagun, 1953, pp. 60,62)
The Fire Drill constellation must be formed out of two rows of stars meeting at an acute angle. Both the Hyades group in Taurus and the Belt and Sword of Orion . . .to the east of the Pleiades fulfill this condition and, accordingly, both have been suggested as possibilities.
{Codex Fejervary-Mayer} "The five regions of the world along with their associated colors are enshrined in the four arms of the Maltese Cross and at the center: the four cardinal points (crossarms) and the zenith (center). We have east (red) at the top, west (blue) at the bottom, north (yellow) to the left, and south (green to the right. When the sun rises, he sees the north to his right, the south to his left; straight ahead is the region of the west where he will die each night. In this depiction the sun is represented by a spiked disk in the eastern arm of the Maltese Cross, while the death head is pendent below the central square..."
{This disagrees with Cottie Burland's interpretation.}