Ch'ipi Nanawak

The Nanawak deities, Ch'ipi Nanawak and Raxa Nanawak (Youngest and Sudden Nanawak), carry names that may provide evidence of historic language and cultural contact between and among Maya and Nahua societies. According to Mayanist scholar Allen J. Christenson (2007: 195fn537), the name Nanawak "The name is likely derived from the Nahua a (water), and nawak (near, close), giving the reading of 'close to water' (Campbell 1983, 84). Schultze-Jena identified Nanavac with the Mexican god Nanahuac/Nanahuatzin, a lightning deity who opened a cleft in the sacred mountain Tonacatepetl (Mountain of our Sustenance) to reveal maize (1944, 187; León-Portilla 1980, 142-143; Edmonson 1971, 5188-5192; D. Tedlock 1996, 294). This mountain is analogous to the mountain Paxil, wherein was discovered the maize that would become the flesh of the first humans (pp. 193-194; lines 4862-4881). Nanahuac was also the name of the ugly god who threw himself into the divine fire at Teotihuacan in order to be transformed into the fifth sun, or the sun of this present age. In this latter role, he was closely related to Quetzalcoatl (León-Portilla 1963, 43-44; 1980, 143 n. 86; Akkeren 2000, 162, 333; Townsend 2000, 128-129)."

En una manera semejante, el destacado lingüista k'iche' Sam Colop (2008: 139fn216) señala el consenso académico sobre las raíces náhuatles de la palabra nanawak. Escribe: "Conforme a Campbell (1983), namawak vendría del náhuatl y quiere decir 'cerca del agua'. Schultze Jena (citado por Tedlock 1996; 294) Nanawak puede ser el dios azteca Nanahuatl o Nanahuatzin, quien lanz´ó el rayo para abrir la montaña donde se encontró el maíz." De esta manera el nombre del dios no sólo apunta una conexión importante con las deidades del trueno-relámpago, sino también resalta el vínculo entre el cielo (incluyendo la lluvia, las nubes y otros elementos climáticos) y el maíz, la base de la alimentación mesoamericana.