Alom the Conceiver and Qaholom the Begetter stand as the paired creative force in the Popol Vuh — feminine and masculine powers joined to fashion humanity from maize after three failed attempts.
Qaholom and Tepeu deliberated together in the primordial darkness above the still waters, their council producing the creative word that raised mountains from the sea and set the earth in order.
Alom the Conceiver and Qaholom the Begetter, working with the other creator gods, shaped the Four Progenitors — Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam — from white and yellow maize dough, at last achieving beings who could speak, pray, and sustain the gods with worship.
In the Popol Vuh, the creator gods — Huracan, Q'uq'umatz, Tepeu, Alom, and Qaholom — consulted the divine daykeepers Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, who cast maize kernels and coral seeds to divine that corn was the substance from which true humans should be fashioned.
Xmucane ground the white and yellow maize nine times to produce the dough from which Qaholom and the creator gods fashioned the first true humans, her labor transforming sacred grain into the substance of humanity.
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