Hurakan

The Heart of the Sky

Domain: Storm, Wind & Creation
Alignment: True Neutral
Element: Thunder
Relics of Power: Breath of the Storm

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4 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Maya

Region

Mesoamerica (Yucatán & Guatemala)

Period

c. 2000 BC – 1500 AD

The Maya gods were worshipped in the city-states of Mesoamerica, such as Tikal, Palenque, and Chichén Itzá. Astronomer-priests read the skies and the calendar to honor them at the right time, in pyramid-temples now swallowed by the jungle. Many of their myths survive in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiché Maya.

Maya kings and queens offered their own blood in bloodletting rituals to feed the gods, and the ritual ballgame re-enacted the duel against the lords of the underworld. Cenotes such as the one at Chichén Itzá received precious offerings, guided by the 260-day sacred calendar.

At a glance

Hurakan (in the standardized K'iche' Maya spelling Jun Raqan, literally meaning 'One Leg' or 'He of One Single Leg') is the supreme creator deity of storms, celestial fire, lightning and torrential winds in the K'iche' Maya cosmology of the Guatemalan highlands, immortalized in the Popol Vuh. Revered under the august theological title Uk'u'x Kaj ('Heart of Sky') and its counterpart Uk'u'x Ulew ('Heart of Earth'), Jun Raqan acts as the principal intellectual architect and dynamic demiurge of cosmic creation alongside Tepeu and Q'uq'umatz. In the Popol Vuh he manifests as a sacred trinity of lightning forces: K'aqulja Jun Raqan (the One-Legged Lightning), Ch'ipi K'aqulja (the Lesser Lightning) and Raxa K'aqulja (the Sudden or Green Lightning). It was his thundering voice that ordered dry land and the mountains to emerge from the chaotic primordial waters, and he who sent the destructive deluge of burning black resin to annihilate the imperfect second generation of wooden beings. From a historical-religious and epigraphic standpoint, Jun Raqan corresponds directly to the Classic Maya deity K'awiil (God K), characterized by a leg that turns into a lightning serpent and an incandescent obsidian axe embedded in the forehead. His Indigenous name is widely regarded by philologists as the etymological and historical root transmitted through the Antillean Taíno language into the modern word hurricane.

7 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The whirlwind, the single leg, the lightning and the storm

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anônimo (Maias K'iche'), Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya. translation: Allen J. Christenson, University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
Anônimo (Maias K'iche'), Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life. translation: Dennis Tedlock, Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Anônimo (Maias K'iche'), Título de Totonicapán. translation: Robert M. Carmack e James L. Mondloch, UNAM, 1983.

Studies

Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Dumbarton Oaks, 1992.
David Stuart, The Inscriptions of Temple XIX at Palenque. Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 2005.
Munro S. Edmonson, The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala. Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1971.

Name and epithets

The name in classical K'iche' is Jun Raqan, composed of the numeral jun ('one' or 'single') and the noun raqan ('leg', 'foot' or 'upright stem'), literally meaning 'One Leg' or 'He Who Has One Single Leg'.

In the ancient sources

Popol Vuh (Book of the Council of the K'iche' Maya), c. 1554-1558 CE (transcription by Francisco Ximénez c. 1701)..

The myths

The Word of Creation over the Primordial Waters. At the absolute beginning of time narrated in the Popol Vuh, the cosmos lay motionless, in complete darkness and silence over the immensity of the calm waters.

Worship and archaeology

In the Guatemalan highlands, the cult of the Heart of Sky (Jun Raqan) was the metaphysical basis of the political and priestly power of the K'iche' royal elite in the fortified capital of Q'umarkaj (Utatlán).

How the god was depicted

In the Classic Maya period, the homologous deity of Jun Raqan is represented in epigraphy and monumental sculpture as K'awiil (God K).

What scholars debate

The Epigraphic Homology: Jun Raqan in the Popol Vuh and K'awiil in the Classic Period. Specialists in Maya epigraphy and iconography, such as David Stuart, Karl Taube and Dennis Tedlock, investigate the identity between…

After antiquity

Jun Raqan is universally celebrated as one of the intellectual pillars of the Indigenous literature of the Americas through the consecration of the Popol Vuh, considered by international literary criticism one of the gr…

Did you know?

In the original manuscript of the Popol Vuh preserved at the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez organized the K'iche' text in two parallel columns, one containing the transliterated Indig…

Codex relic

Breath of the Storm. The one-legged storm wind with which he created the world and unleashed the great flood.

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