Xmucane

Co-creator goddess paired with Xpiacoc; the maize-grinding grandmother whose nine grindings of yellow and white maize produce the substance of the fourth-creation humans (the maize people, current humanity in K'iche' cosmology). Bore Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu; raised the Hero Twins after their birth from Xquic. Iconographically continuous with the Classic Maya Goddess O (Chak Chel), the aged jaguar-pawed weaver-and-midwife, and with the Postclassic codical figure who pours water from a jar in the Dresden Codex flood scene. The maize-grinding scene of the cosmogonic creation is the foundational K'iche' women's-domestic-labor mythologem, ritually reenacted in the daily preparation of nixtamal across the highland Maya region. The day-keeper (ajq'ij) couple Xpiacoc-Xmucane is invoked at the opening of every divinatory session in the continuous Momostenango / Chichicastenango / Sololá tradition.

Children

• Hun Hunahpu
• Vucub Hunahpu

Powers

• Casts seeds for divination
• Grinds maize into human flesh

Epithets

• Rixmukane kiche · epithetGrandmother of light/day; maize-grinding diviner-grandmother of the Popol VuhPopol Vuh (A. J. Christenson trans. 2007; D. Tedlock trans. 1985) (primary)

Relations

• spouse: XpiacocPopol Vuh (primary)
• mother of: Hun Hunahpu
• mother of: Vucub Hunahpu
• grandmother of: Hunahpu
• grandmother of: Xbalanque

Sources

• existence: Popol Vuh (Ximénez ms.) (primary); Classic Maya polychrome ceramics, c. 600-900 CE (iconographic); Madrid Codex, Postclassic (primary)
• parentage-of-twin-fathers: Popol Vuh, Part II (primary)