Zipacna

At the same time there came a roar like thunder from the cloud-like form, which came near to deafening them, and the roar formed into words.

I am Zipacna, whom men cannot slay.

There's naught that I fear save the watery way.

That rolled rumblingly as thunderings between earth and sky, now loud, now softer, as Zipacna strode from valley to valley.

A little later he came in sight again, but far to the north of where they were.

Then vanishing from their sight into the cleft of the hills where they had battled with the cragmen.

While they gazed at this sorrowful sight, there came to them a bent old woman, sad of face and lined and wrinkled, and her talk was more like croaking than human speech.

Secret and watchful was she in her manner.

Among Maya groups, Imish is linked to water, the earth surface, and crocodilian or water lily imagery.

In the K'iche' Maya Popol Vuh, Zipacna is the elder son of seven macaw.

He boasts that he made the mountains.

He is killed through deception by the hero twins and associated with burial under a mountain.

A Mexican film collective released a short movie titled Sipactli in 2020.

A Salvadoran documentary, Cipactli, the Crocodile Goddess, examines local rock art and uses the name as a frame for regional crocodile and creation imagery.

Fiction has employed Zipacna or Cipacna as a named figure, including in Louis L'Amour's The Haunted Mesa and in later novels that draw on Maya narrative.

The day sign remains in use among people who keep the Tonalpahuali and appears as a given name.