Many scholars have referred to this gesture as signaling submission, but there are examples in which two or more characters of similar rank use the gesture to address each other with no apparent higher status person who could be the intended recipient of such submission (illustrations b, c, and a). Given its distribution among high ranking but non-focal figures who can nevertheless display this gesture to each other, it is likely that it is the marker of an important but secondary rank, perhaps comparable to that of sajal in the inscriptions.

Illustration courtesy of Justin Kerr's Mayavase Database.