Nu' Siwan

El lingüista k'iche' Sam Colop (2008: 67n95) afirma que el lugar por donde pasaron Jun Junahpu y Wuqub Junahpu para llegar a Xib'alb'a estaba "lleno de estacas puntiagudas," y "espinas grandes," para hacer muy difícil el viaje. Colop (2008: 67n94) cita a Dennis Tedlock (1996: 256) quien "sugiere que podrían ser las cuevas de Semuc Champey." En todo caso, los dos barrancos (el barranco agitado y el ruidoso) del camino de Xib'alb'a probablemente representaban obstáculos de acuerdo con sus nombres, Nu' Siwan y K'ulku Siwan (barranco agitado, barranco ruidoso, conforme a Colop).

Anthropologist Dennis Tedlock (1996: 355) suggests that the reference to the canyon on the way to Xib'alb'a "could be east of San Pedro Carchá, where the Río Cahabón disappears into a system of caves and then emerges again."

Ximénez seems to have believed that the two canyons were merely two names of the same canyon, as he translates the K'iche' passage "nuzivan cul, cu zivan vbi" (or Nu' Siwan, K'ulk'u Siwan ub'i' in Christenson's modern transcription) as "una varranca muy angosta q' se llamaba fuerte varranca" (a very wide canyon that is also called strong canyon). Although the translators disagree on their interpretations of the passage, all use names that convey the difficulty of passing through the space on the way to Xib'alb'a.​