B'itol

Junto con su par, Tz'aqol, B'itol es una de las deidades creadores del Popol Wuj. El lingüista k'iche' Sam Colop (2008: 201n1) observa que el nombre divino, aquí escrito en forma de quiasmo, significa "Literalmente el 'constructor' y 'creador'. Tz'qa y bit son raíces verbales 'construir' y 'crear'. Tz'aq quiere decur 'construcción' y bit 'creación'. El sufijo -ol, en ambos sustantivos, es marcador agentivo."

Anthropologist Allen J. Christenson (2007: 36) calls the relationship between Tz'aqol and B'itol, translated as "Framer" and "Shaper," respectively, "associative parallelism," or the use of the literary device of parallelism to show complimentary elements. Specifically, Tz'aqol and Bitol, "Framer and Shaper," are an example of "functional association," a poetic device "in which two elements act in a similar manner." According to Christenson (2007: 51n12), "B'itol (Shaper) refers to one who makes something by modeling (i.e., pottery from clay, or a sculpture from carved stone), thus giving shape to an otherwise amorphous substance. The Framer and the Shaper are the most frequently mentioned gods involved in the creation of the world and its inhabitants. Their names imply that the creation involved giving frame and shape to matter that already existed rather than conjuring something out of nothing. This pair of gods was so important that soon after the Spanish conquest, Father Domingo de Vico used their Quiché names to refer to the God of the Old Testament (Carmack and Mondloch 1983, 206)."