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Overview

The 1857 Spanish witness names Xecotcovuch, Camulotz, Cotzbalam and Tucumbalam in the catastrophe that destroys an earlier human creation. Xecotcovuch is explicitly a bird and removes eyes; Camulotz cuts off heads; Cotzbalam consumes flesh; Tucumbalam breaks bones and sinews to powder. These names and actions are preserved as a group. The passage does not give all four a common body, size, colour or habitat, and the name Camulotz is not silently substituted for the bat-house figure Camazotz.

Their attack belongs to a larger sequence: after a failed soft earthen creature, wooden people are fashioned, speak and multiply but lack understanding and fail to remember their makers. Flooding, falling resin and pitch, and the named attackers destroy them. Animals and household implements also turn against their former masters. Dogs protest starvation and beatings; grinding stones complain of endless labour; cooking vessels resent burning. Houses collapse beneath fugitives, trees cast them off and cavities close against them.

The closing explanation presents monkeys in the hills as the surviving sign of this earlier wooden humanity and the reason for their human resemblance. That narrative ending supplies the named destroyers’ context without inventing separate adventures for each. Ximénez’s Spanish rendering and Scherzer’s publication mediate the K’iche’ account; the profile does not claim an independent translation from the original language.

Four individually named attackersDifferent destructive rolesPart of the wooden-people catastropheAct alongside animals and animated household things
01

Origins & earliest records

Las historias del origen de los indios de esta provincia de Guatemala, translated by Francisco Ximénez, edited by C. Scherzer, Viena: Carlos Gerold é Hijo, 1857.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete selected creation and destruction sequence, printed pp. 10–14, read through the monkey explanation before the Vucub-caquix episode on p. 15. All four names visually checked against printed p. 13, PDF index 34; Camulotz is the actual spelling there.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Las historias del origen de los indios de esta provincia de Guatemala

    K’iche’ narrative; Francisco Ximénez, translator; C. Scherzer, editor · 1857

    Printed pp. 10–14; p. 13 names visually verified in original scan. Spanish translation and editorial mediation explicit.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary textXiménez/Scherzer 1857: complete wooden-people sequenceResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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