Ixchel with serpent headdress from the Dresden Codex
The best etymologies offered to date for Xmucane and Xpiyacoc, the creator parents of One and
Seven Hunahpu in the Quiche Maya Popol Vuh, are those first offered by Dr. Ruud W. van
Akkeren. Dr. Akkeren found piyakok as the name for the slider turtle (Trachemys scripta
elegans) as well as for a turtle design in the weavings of Rabinal. Kok (or coc) means turtle,
although originally the word designated a type of gourd that left behind a shell when in its
interior rotted and dried up. Hence the concept of a shell was applied to the turtle’s carapace and
became, over time, a name for the turtle itself.
X-, as Allen Christenson, translator of the Popol Vuh, has assured me, is a diminutive prefix.
Akkeren thinks that piy- is akin to Yucatec (or, more recently, Chol) pihe, ?open the door?, and
that the whole word piyakok means something like ?opened is your shell?. This seems like a
peculiar name for a turtle, who closes himself up in his shell for defense. But Akkeren thinks the
reference is to the cleft/split in the back of the legendary God N/Pauahtun turtle, from whose
back was born the Maize God. Arguing against this is the use of the word piyakok for the
common slider.
The slider turtle has yellow lines and reticulations on its carapace, and distinct yellow or orange
markings on head, neck and legs. Often almost the entire plastron (underneath of the carapace)
is bright yellow. For this reason I would propose that a Zapotec word has found its way into the
Quiche: pija, ?sun?. According to Professor Brian Stross, there is precedence for Zapotec words
being found in Quiche. He cites Zapotec pekku having found its way in Huastec as pik?o ?dog?
and into Yucatec as pek ?dog?. Piyakok would then be the ?sun-turtle?, a fitting description for
the slider, with its bright yellow coloration. I would also mention that we have several Maya
representations of turtles or the turtle God N with k?an crosses marked on their shells. K?an
means ?yellow?. Professor Stross pointed out to me that the k?an cross resembles the ki?n or
?sun? glyph.
Xmucane is rendered by Akkeren as ?curved is your tail?, a designation for a scorpion. He links
the name to the mukje textile design found at Rabinal, which is indeed identified as a scorpion,
and the ?moc a ne? description of a scorpion in the ?Ritual of the Bacabs?. Mukje or mukne
(?tail? is je is some Mayan languages, ne in others) would be, interpreted literally,
?jointed/knotted tail?, i.e. a segmented tail. I have this from David Bolles, author of the Yucatec
Dictionary at FAMSI. He says the proper translation of moc a ne would be ?jointed/knotted is
your tail?.
While Dr. Ruud van Akkeren may well be right about Xmucane being a scorpion goddess (one
might compare her with the Nicaraguan pre-Christian mother goddess Itoki, who was a
scorpion), I did have my own idea for an etymology of her name that, if viable, may lead us in
another direction – a direction more in keeping with what we know about the religion of the
Maya.
The X- of Xmucane is almost certainly for Ix, ‘Lady’. But let us suppose –mucane is from moko, ‘knot’, plus chan, ‘serpent’. So (X) moc kan. According to Dr. Allen J. Christenson, “A
repeated k is often dropped, so no problem there.” The –e terminal could be accounted for, I
suppose, by something like chan-na, a “fossilized spelling” for cha’n, ‘sky’, or chan-na for chan,
‘snake’ (see mesoweb.com/features/tokovinine/performance.pdf).
She would be, then, Lady Knotted Serpent. This brings to mind immediately Lady Ix Chel or
Lady Rainbow, who is frequently depicted with a knotted serpent as a headdress. It is generally
believed that the goddess accompanying God N at Chichen Itza is a version of Ix Chel. Her
pairing with this male deity of the earth/mountain, and his holding up of twisted serpents,
strongly suggests the Chichen Itza goddess had a marked sky aspect. The homonymous quality
of Mayan cha’n and chan is well known. There is, however, some difference in opinion as to
what the rainbow of Lady Rainbow actually represents.
There is the suggestion this may have been a moonbow (see Milbrath), and not a regular rainbow
created by sunlight passing through rain. Via a private communication, Dr. Christenson
commented on this:
“Your proposed etymology for Xmucane is interesting. It certainly fits the iconography
(something that not only Ixchel/Chak Chel has with regard to the knotted serpent, but also living
traditionalist Maya such as the Yaxper deity at Santiago Atitlan who is said to wear a serpent
headdress). Since all of the words you use in this proposed etymology are from the same dialect
of Maya, it seems intriguing, if not provable (short of resurrecting one of these folks it seldom
is).
I favor the idea of rainbow since the Santiago Atitlan Yaxper is said to wear a serpent headdress
associated with rainbows. The headdresses that women wear there are said to be patterned after
hers and is sometimes called a rainbow serpent (you could take a look at my book, Art and
Society in a Highland Maya Community to read more if you’re interested.”
Thus the twisted serpents God N holds up over himself at Chichen Itza may not be emblematic
of the sky-serpent, but of the rainbow arching over the earth/mountain.
In any case, the advantage of seeing Xmucane as Lady Knotted Serpent would be to allow an
early association between her and God D. This is not something that we can do with a Scorpion
goddess and God D.
For another personage from the POPOL VUH who appears to be a manifestation of Ix Chel, see https://firstjaguaronelord.blogspot.com/2021/12/xbaquiyalo-wife-of-maize-god-proposed.html.
NOTE:
This from Dr. Allen Christenson's POPOL VUH, p. 142, bottom:
The ancient lowland Maya worshiped an aged female deity named Ixchel (Goddess O of the codices), who is often depicted with a jug from which she pours out water in the form of rain. Ixchel was also a patroness of medicine, fertility, childbirth, midwifery, and the art of divination. The grandmother goddess Xmucane was apparently the Quiché equivalent of Ixchel, associated with the powers of creation (pp. 60- 62; line 35), divination (pp. 79-82; lines 569-599), midwifery (p. 62; lines 32, 38), medicine (p. 99; lines 1112-1119), childbirth (p. 113; lines 1736-1742), and now the leaking water jug.
