Saqi K'oxol

Conforme al lingüista k'iche' Sam Colop (2008: 158n254), Saqi K'oxol es "'el dueño' de las montañas y 'guardián' de los animales. En el Memorial de Sololá (Otzoy 1999: 105, 161) se dice textualmente: xa wi wawe' in k'o wi, xa in ruk'u'x juyu': 'aquí es mi lugar, soy el corazón de la montaña'. Su ropa era del color de la sangre derivado seguramente del calor provocado durante el nacimiento del Sol y su representación actual es la imagen colorada que carga consigo el ajitz en el 'baile de la conquista.' De Saqi K'oxol, dice el texto k'iche', xa xuchap chi uk'a rib pa che' ... que en una traducción literal sería: 'se agarró de las ramas de los árboles', que debe entenderse como escapar para no ser petrificado como los demás." Colop se refiere al pasaje en el cual los demás animales del bosque, koj, b'alam, sochoj y k'anti', quedan convertidos en piedra por Tojil, Awilix y Jaqawitz.

Anthropologist Allen J. Christenson (2007: 229-230n602) traces an extended history of Saqi K'oxol. He writes: "According to Basseta, this is the name given to any frightening spirit or phantasm, but specifically the duende, a dwarf-like denizen of the mountains and forests that the highland Maya believed to be the guardian of animals and messenger of the earth deity. Coto identifies him as a phantasm associated with mountains: 'The duende who walks in the mountains they call: ru vinakil che [the person/personification/manifestation of tree], or çaki qoxol' (Coto 1983, 355- 356). In the Annals of the Cakchiquels, he appears as a spirit within the Volcano of Fuego:

Afterwards they left there, they left Chiyol and Chiabak, and twice they traveled their road, passing between the volcanoes which stand abreast, those of Fuego [Fire] and Hunahpu. There they met face to face the spirit of the Volcano of Fire, he who is called Zaquicoxol. 'Verily, the Zaquicoxol has killed many, and it is surely terrifying to see this thief,' they said. There, in the center of the Volcano of Fuego was the guardian of the road by which they arrived and which had been made by Zaquicoxol (Recinos and Goetz 1953b, 61).

Stories about Saqi K'oxol are common in highland Guatemala today as well, where he is described as a mountain spirit. At times he can be merely mischievous, playing tricks on people for his own entertainment. He can also be quite dangerous or deadly if proper respect is not shown to the wild things of the mountains or to the earth god himself (Tax 1947; Bode 1961, 213; Cook 2000, 201). In the popular dance drama, “The Dance of the Conquest,” performed by the Maya throughout the highlands, one of the main characters is K'oxol, who successfully predicts the Spanish conquest through a divinatory ceremony. Following the Conquest, he refuses baptism and escapes into the forest where he gives birth miraculously to the son (portrayed as a small doll dressed in red) of Tecum, the great Quiché warrior who died fighting the Spaniards (Bode 1961; Baile de la Conquista 1991; B. Tedlock 1982, 149-150). In Momostenango, the K'oxol is the patron of aj q'ij priests, the source of the divination power that awakens their blood (B. Tedlock 1982, 147-148; B. Tedlock 1986, 135; Cook 2000, 201). As such he represents the ancient power of traditional Maya worship, a survival of the world prior to the Spanish conquest. It is interesting that even for the Precolumbian Quichés, Saqi K'oxol was a survivor from a previous age."

Anthropologist Dennis Tedlock (1996: 304-305n161), in collaboration with K'iche' daykeeper Andrés Xiloj, offers another perspective on the history of Saqi K'oxol. He writes: "The White Sparkstriker is saqi k'oxol [zaqui coxol], composed of saqi, 'white'; k'oxo, a verb stem used for the act of striking stones together 'to start a fire' (FV)' and l-, agentive. This name follows immediately after the fer-de-lance, so that some translators have treated it as part of the list of beings who are turned to stone. However, in terms of what is known about the White Sparkstriker today (see B. Tedlock 1983 [1982]; 1986), it makes much more sense to treat the name as the subject of the sentence that follows it, xa xuchap chi uk'aj [uca] rib' pa che' [che], 'just he/she took that to-accompany him/herself into trees.' Today the White Sparkstriker, who is sexually ambiguous, is the keeper of volcanic concretions and ancient artifacts that resemble animals; these objects, which are said to have been petrified when the sun first rose, are called meb'il (the same as the name of the shrine in which they are kept) in Momostenango.

Andrés Xiloj commented on this passage as follows: 'When all the birds, animals were converted into stone, they remained as meb'il. When the moment comes and one is able to acquire one of these, this is the meb'il. Birds, rabbits -- in sum, all the different kinds of stones. Now the k'oxol [Sparkstriker], this one, yes, he has money, they say. When one has luck, the k'oxol presents himself. If he takes off his shoe and leaves it thrown away, then there is the money; or his little bag -- because he has a little bag, and if he leaves it thrown away, there is the money. This is the meb'il of a person; it is the luck.' Lucas Pacheco, a daykeeper from a town near Santa Cruz del Quiché, said that the k'oxol lost his/her shoe when the sun first rose; the k'oxol escaped petrifaction by running into the trees, but the shoe did not."