The word puz is used in various passages of the Popol Vuh to express the supernatural power of the gods and priests; but probably by the time that Ximenez wrote, it had, in the current dialect of his parish, lost its highest signification, and hence it did not suggest itself to him as the true derivation of the name I am discussing.
The third term, Vuch or Vugh, was chosen according to Ximenez because this animal is notoriously cunning, “por su astucia.” This may be correct, and we may have here a reminiscence of an animal myth. But the word has several other significations which should be considered. It was the name of a sacred dance; it expressed the trembling in the ague chill; the warmth of water; and the darkness which comes before the dawn.[[130]]
Of these various meanings one is tempted to take the last, and connect Hun-ahpu-vuch with the auroral gods, the forerunners of the light, like the “Kichigouai, those who make the day,” of Algonkin mythology.
There is a curious passage in the Popol Vuh which is in support of such an opinion. It occurs at a certain period of the history of the mythical hero Hunahpu. The text reads:
| “Are cut ta chi r’ah zakiric, | “And now it was about to become white, |
| “Chi zaktarin, | And the dawn came, |
| “U xecah ca xaquinuchic. | The day opened. |
| “Ama x-u ch’ux ri Vuch? | ‘Is the Vuch about to be?’ |
| “Ve, x-cha ri mama. | Yes, answered the old man. |
| “Ta chi xaquinic; | Then he spread apart his legs; |
| “Quate ta chi gekumar chic; | Again the darkness appeared; |
| “Cahmul xaquin ri mama. | Four times the old man spread his legs. |
| “Ca xaquin-Vuch,” ca cha vinak vacamic. | “Now the opossum (Vuch) spreads his legs,” say the people yet (meaning that the day approaches). |
As the same word Vuch meant both the opossum and the atmospheric change which in that climate precedes the dawn, the text may be translated either way, and the homophony would give rise to a double meaning of the name. This homophony contains, indeed, rich material for the development of an animal myth, identifying the Vuch with the God of Light, just as the similarity of the Algonkin waubisch, the dawn, and waubos, the rabbit, gave occasion to a whole cycle of curious myths in which the Great Hare or the Mighty Rabbit figures as the Creator of the world, the Day Maker, and the chief God of the widely spread Algonkin tribes.[[131]]
In the second name, Hun-ahpu-utiu, the last member utiu means the coyote, the native wolf, an animal which plays an important symbolic part in the cosmogonical myths of Californian, Mexican and Central American tribes. It appears generally to represent the night, and I would render the esoteric sense of the two names by “Master of the Night,” and “Master of the Approaching Dawn.”
The same concealed sense seems to lurk in the next name, Zaki-nima-tzyiz, literally, “The Great White Pisote,” the pisote being the proboscidian known as Nasua narica, L.
These names are repeated in a later passage of the Popol Vuh (p. 20).
“Make known your name, Hun-ahpu-vuch, Hun-ahpu-utiu, twofold bearer of children, twofold begetter of children, Nim-ak, Nim-tzyiz, master of the emerald, etc.”