The deities worshiped by these nations, the meaning and origin of their titles, and the myths connected with them, have been the subject of an examination by me in an earlier work.[39-1] Here, therefore, it will be needless to repeat what I have there said, further than to add a few remarks explanatory of the Cakchiquel religion in particular.
According to the Popol Vuh, “the chief god of the Cak[40]chiquels was Chamalcan, and his image was a bat.”[40-1] Brasseur endeavored to trace this to a Nahuatl etymology,[40-2] but there is little doubt it refers, as do so many of the Cakchiquel proper names, to their calendar. Can is the fifth day of their week, and its sign was a serpent;[40-3] chamal is a slightly abbreviated form of chaomal, which the lexicons translate “beauty” and “fruitfulness,” connected with chaomar, to yield abundantly. He was the serpent god of fruitfulness, and by this type suggests relations to the lightning and the showers. The bat, Zotz, was the totem of the Zotzils, the ruling family of the Cakchiquels; and from the extract quoted, they seem to have set it up as the image of Chamalcan.
The generic term for their divinities, employed by Xahila, and also frequently in the Popol Vuh, is
abuyl, which I have elsewhere derived from the Maya chab, to create, to form. It is closely allied to the epithets applied in both works to the Deity,
akol, the maker, especially he who makes something from earth or clay; bitol, the former, or fashioner;
aholom, the begetter of sons; alom, the bearer of children; these latter words intimating the bi-sexual nature of the principal divinity, as we also find in the Aztec mythology and elsewhere. The name