Sipakna

Sipakna is killed when the Hero Twins trick him into being crushed by a mountain (Meawan). Christensen (page 96, note 168) suggests that a toponym associated with Sipakna still exists. "This is a long hill in the center of the Rabinal valley roughly the shape of a crocodile. It is still called Sipak and the people of Rabinal associate it with a crocodile (Akkeren 2000, 60)." Since Meawan is also near Rabinal, it is not impossible that Sipak represents Sipakna's actual body underneath the layer of stone that crushed him.

Sipakna is one of the prideful sons of Wuqub’ Kaqix, and his wife Chimalmat. Whereas their other son, Kab'raqan, is more closely linked with the destruction of earth, Sipakna believed himself to be the creator of such earth. Indeed, his first line is “y soy el hazedor de la tierra [And I am the maker of the earth]” (6v).

Some Mayan scholars have rooted the origin of Sipakna’s name from outside the Mayan language area, coming from the nearby Nahuatl language of the Central Mexico. According to Mayanist scholar Allen Christenson (2007: 95-96, note 168), Sipakna “is most likely derived from the Nahuatl cipactli, a monstrous crocodile whose spiny back symbolized the mountainous earth floating on the primordial sea.” He cites Akkeren (2006: 60) when mentioning “a long hill in the center of the Rabinal valley roughly the shape of a crocodile” that “is still called Sipac and the people of Rabinal associate it with a crocodile.” This cross-linguistic sharing is nonetheless contextualized within K’iche’ geographical surroundings, as the text states that Sipakna was the creator of several landmark volcanos in the K’iche’ area.

In contrast, Dennis Tedlock (1996: 240, note 77) takes a lowland Maya approach to the translation and context of Sipakna. He writes that Sipkana “and his brother, Earthquake [Kab’raqan], constitute the Quiché version of a pair of Mesoamerican dragons, often represented as a two-headed dragon by the Classic Maya, whose features variously combine those of reptiles or (less often) fish or birds.” Although Tedlock locates the deity in another geographic zone, his reading parallels Christenson’s interpretation of Sipakana above. Indeed, he continues, Sipakna “has the habits of a caiman, bathing besides a river and hunting in its waters. His name…resembles a number of other Mayan god names in ending with na, meaning “house” in Yucatec.” As for the rest of the name, he believes it “could well have its source in the Yucatec verb stem sip-, referring to a sliding or slipping motion (like that of a caiman) and nominalized by -ak.” In connection to the Yukatek calendar, he associates Sipakna with “the patron deity of the month named sip, whose glyph consists of the profiled head and snout of a caiman. Together, sipakna and sip are cognate, in both their caiman features and their names, with the Mexican dragon whose Nahuatl name is cipactli.” This deity’s association with reptiles and dragons thus threads together these three linguistic and cultural areas.

Another shared characteristic between these two linguistic areas is calendric importance. Christenson (2007: 96, note 168) writes that “Cipactli is also a day on the Central Mexican calendar” and suggests “that like other names in the Popol Vuh, this character has calendric associations.” Interestingly, anthropologist Ruth Bunzel (1950: 280, note 40) believes that the calendar day Imox correlates to the Aztec’s “beginning of the calendar cycle…Cipactli, crocodile, dedicated to Tonatecutli, god of life.” The importance of the calendar in the Popol Wuj is indeed vital to its understanding, seeing as how many of its characters in the first half of the text represent days on the K’iche’ calendar. As a result, there must have been significant cultural and linguistic contact for the transmission of these ideas into the Popol Wuj as an essential character of the text.

While evidence of cultural and linguistic contact is often revealed between the Yukatek and K’iche’ Maya people, the presence of Aztec calendar names linguistically corroborates the interaction the human K’iche’ people have with the Yaquis later in the text, who are likely the Aztecs of the west. Thus, while the Popol Wuj serves as the creation story of the world and the K’iche’ people, it also offers a glimpse into the cultural state of Mesoamerica during the time the authors wrote the text.

Sipakna es uno de los hijos soberbios de Wuqub’ Kaqix y su esposa Chimalmat. Dado que su hermano Kab'raqan se asocia con la destrucción de la tierra, Sipkana se cree como el creador de la tierra. Afirma esta idea en su primera oración, “y soy el hazedor de la tierra” (6v).

Varios lingüistas mayas han localizado el origen del nombre de Sipakna fuera del área maya. Según el lingüista maya Sam Colop (2007: 45, nota 53), el nombre “viene del náhuatl Cipactl ’caimán o lagarto’”. Citado en Mondloch y Carmack (2017: 279), Akkeren explica que en la zona de Guatemala en donde se encuentra la montaña que corresponde a Meawan en el texto, “se han recogido una serie de cuentos orales sobre una criatura llamada Sipak, y hay una referencia de cómo éste cargó cierto árbol, que después llegó a ser un Palo Volador”. La tradición de un palo volar continúa en ciertas comunidades mayas, envuelta con el cuento de la transformación de Jun Batz’ y Jun Chuwen en monos (véase al artículo “Hermanos Artesanos”). Aunque el nombre de Sipakna se ubica lejos del área K’iche’, la relación de su personaje con la tierra persiste en comunidades mayas. Edmonson aclara que “Sipakna estremecía no sólo los volcanes sino también la tierra”. Por ejemplo, hay “una creencia sobre Sipakna que había persistido en Chichicastenango, según la cual es un gigante amarrado bajo la tierra, y cuando se mueve cause terremotos” (Carmack y Mondloch 2017: 279). Estas observaciones muestran que el significado de un personaje no se aferra al origen geográfico de su nombre sino al contrario: este significado se desarrolla con la comunidad en que se encuentra.

Como otros nombres en el Popol Wuj, la deidad Sipakna tiene asociaciones con varios calendarios culturales. Según Edmonson (1971), es un nombre mencionado “en un viejo calendario maya de Yucatán”, el cual tenía la forma de “Capactonal”. Por su parte la antropóloga Ruth Bunzel (1950: 280, nota 40) observa que este día de Cipactli corresponde al día Imox en el calendario K’iche’. Este día “etimológicamente viene de ‘mar’, ‘río’, y ‘lago’. Es el día para pedir que regrese la persona que ha abandonado su país o su casa…. Se pide para que se calmen los trastornos mentales y espirituales, para que se calmen los cambios climáticos, y los problemas del hogar” (“El significado de los días”). Las asociaciones de los calendarios quizás quieren decir que hubo suficiente contacto entre los mayas y los aztecas que no solo palabras sino aspectos culturales enteros se transmitieron entre las culturas.

Los significados lingüísticos y calendáricos de Sipakna son buenos ejemplos del compartimiento culturales que ocurrían durante la formación ideológica del Popol Wuj. Es decir la evidencia lingüística consta que el Popol Wuj no solo representa la gente K’iche’ y la creación apercibida de su mundo, sino también documenta el estado cultural del área mesoamericana en el tiempo que los autores escribieron el texto.