Ajaw Jaqawitz

De los cuatro casas grantes "antes los Ajaw K'iche'," Colop (2008: 199) escribe: "Jaqawitz, el cuarto Señor". En una nota al pie (n227) explica el lingüista k'iche' que "Soy del criterio que este nombre es Jaqawitz y no Jakawitz como usualmente se ha transcrito. Jaqawitz, este está compuesto de jaq' que en varios idiomas mayas quiere decir 'abierto' y witz 'cerro'", así apuntando una fuerte conexión entre la deidad y "el lugar de ubicación" en las montañas de las tierras altas de Guatemala. El Ajaw Jaqawitz, del linaje K'iche', conserva este vínculo en su nombre, territorio y cultura.

Christenson (2007: note 762, page 257) translates "Ajaw Jaqawitz" as "Lord Hacavitz," and notes, "This is likely the priest of the god Hacavitz, the patron deity of the Ahau Quichés." 

Anthropologist Ruud van Akkeren (2018: 43-44) suggests that the deity Jaqawitz of the Popol Wuj is the same figure as "the founding father Q'aq'awitz" in the Kaqchikel narrative Memorial de Sololá, or Anales de los Kaqchikels. Van Akkeren (2018: 44) compared the orthography used by Ximénez in the Popol Wuj "with other K'iche' documents written by indigenous authors" and determined that "the proper spelling of the name should be Q'aq'awits," which is notable "because in the Popol Wuj, Q'aq'awits-Majukataj is the ancestral father of the Ajaw K'iche' lineage, the founders of the K'iche' confederation, before Kaweq took over." In other words, argues van Akkeren (2018: 44), "our best source on the incipient K'iche' confederation is a Kaqchikel document," indicating once again "the flexibility of lineage history" relative to other historiographic modes, such as political history. The Anales de los Kaqchikels, not the Popol Wuj, tells us "that the Kaweq were part of the Poq'om confederation, and when conquered by the young K'iche' alliance, crossed over to the new rulers, historical facts that were barred from the Popol Wuj written by the same Kaweq" (2018: 44).