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I. Summary
of Popol Vuh Originally, Popol Vuh had no divisions. It consisted of 5,237 lines spreading through 56 double folio pages, each page containing approximately 47 lines. It was Brasseur de Bourbourg who broke down the Popol Vuh into a preamble and Four Parts which were further subdivided into chapters as follows: Part One, nine chapters; Part Two, fourteen chapters; Part Three, ten chapters; Part Four, twelve chapters. Brasseur's formalized divisions are warranted by the implicit and very natural pauses in the original undivided text.
In the Preamble the narrator states
what he is writing, how he will structure his document, and why he is producing
it at all. He opens with
This is the beginning
of the old traditions of this place called Quiché. Here we shall write and we
shall begin the old stories, the beginning and the origin of all that was done
in the town of the Quiché by the tribes of the Quiché nation.
Even before he begins to put pen to
paper, he knows that the Quiché nation has come to an end, and actually says so
in the final line of Popol Vuh: "ln this manner, then, all the
people of the Quiché, which is called Santa Cruz, came to an end".
How the narrator will proceed is
indicated by his use of contrast between "first" which is implicit and
"then" which is explicit. In a rather sophisticated distinction
vaguely evocative of irony, he first will set forth the history of his nation as
it was revealed by the gods and then he will tell it in the light of existence,
in the light of history. By keeping the gods in both the metahistorical and
historical narratives he implicates them in the rise as well as the demise of
his people. Here are his words. And here we shall set forth the revelation, the declaration, and the
narration of all that was hidden, the revelation by Tzacol, Bitol, Alom, Qaholom,
who are called Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiu, Zaqui-Nimá Tziís, Tepeu, Gucumatz,
u Qux cho, u Qux Paló, Ah Raxá Lac, Ah Raxá Tzel, as they were called. And
the declaration, the combined narration of the
Grandmother and the Grandfather whose names are
Xpiyacoc, and Xmucané, helpers and protectors, twice grandmother, twice
grandfather, so called in the Quiché chronicles. Then we shall tell all
that they did in the light of existence, in the light of history.
Of all the names mentioned above,
those of Gucumatz and Xmucané will appear most frequently and almost
exclusively, with Xmucané running in the lead.
The motives which the narrator
ascribes to his production are stated in terms which have stirred much
controversy.
The first motive is ambiguous and
might be no motive at all.
The second, though clearly stated, is
not so clear in meaning.
Here is the text. This we shall write now under the Law of God and Christianity; we shall
bring it to light because now the Popol Vuh, as it is called, cannot be
seen any more, in which was clearly seen the coming from the other side of the
sea and the narration of our obscurity, and our life was clearly seen. The
original book, written long ago, existed, but its sight is hidden to the
searcher and to the thinker. The first two lines could be a motive
if an
internal change has occurred in the writer himself, namely, that he has embraced
Christianity. In this case one could read that, as a Christian, he is "now
under the Law" and would be writing either out of obedience to a command or
out of response to a request by some Christian priest or bishop or lay
authority.
But if he is not a Christian and is
writing either on his own or at the request of a Maya-Quiché priest, the first
two lines cease to be his motive and become time elements. In this event,
"now under the Law" could simply mean that he is now under a new
regime, namely, the Spaniards who live "under the Law of God and
Christianity".
This leads us to the second motive
which is less ambiguous by reason of the word "because" which connects
"We shall bring it to the light", and "now Popol Vuh, as
it is called, cannot be seen any more".
Nevertheless,
six problems muddy up the motive.
1.
There is the book.
Living as he did in the sixteenth century, the narrator had occasion to see
books such as the Spaniards had. But, if the original Popol Vuh had long
since disappeared, how did he know what it looked like? Some scholars see no
problem here since it can be shown that the primitive Indians of Meso-America
did have some kind of books analogous to ours. Father Ximenez denies that there
was any such book. The best that can be said is that the stories which came down
from generation to generation were merely interpretations of objects presented
in an oral medium which could be transposed into a written medium. If this is
so, the difference would be in manner of writing and not in the making of the
book. So, the problem is still open.
2.
There is the writing.
The narrator was acquainted with the Old World Mode of writing by means of a
phonetic alphabet, which was different from the manner of writing prior to the
coming of the Spaniards. The narrator knew this difference. In the early part of
the Preamble he refers explicitly to the "Quiché chronicles" which
contain the revelations of the gods. So far, there seems to be no
evidence of this kind of written
story telling though there are samples of genealogies, calendars of feasts,
computations, and prophetic chants. If the original Popol Vuh was as old
as the narrator says it was, it would seem that its age would be contingent on
the emergence of writing and on the progressive transformation in the manner of
writing. The matter is not clear. 3. There is the problem of originality. The narrator implies that the old Popol Vuh was the first and the only authentic book of its kind. How did he know this except from hearsay, since the book was hidden from sight?
4.
There is tbe
disappearance of Popol Vuh. The
narrator does not say that it was lost; he simply says that it cannot be seen by
the searcher and the thinker, a very curious allusion.
5.
Who are the searchers
and the thinkers? The common
Maya-Quiché individual? The priests? The Quiché Lords? Subsequent scholars in
search of clues to the rise and fall of the Mayas? That the loss of Popol
Vuh would be the object of concern to searchers is understandable. But
thinkers totally bereft of a source of thought is unthinkable. Was there no oral
continuity? How much did the book contain: from when to when?
6.
The compiler.
The anonymous writer must have had confidence in himself if his Popol Vuh
was to serve as a replacement which would stop the searchers and start the
thinkers going. Was he a searcher and a thinker? He was very intelligent; he had
the long perspective of history to go by; what he saw was a Maya-Quiché nation
in ruins. Perhaps the searcher and thinker would be he who looks for and wonders
about the causes for collapse of a nation.
But there is another tempting
possibility as to what Popol Vuh might really have been, namely
a Iiving book. Popol Vuh would then be a topos or a
metaphor. The Maya-Quiché nation would then be a book. Their disappearance
would coincide with the disappearance of Popol Vuh. The new
book would then become a kind of book-of-the-dead where the searcher and thinker
can search and ponder. The book as topos or metaphor is old and common to
Western literatures both sacred and profane.
Adrián Chávez proposes an
explanation which favors the Popol Vuh as metaphor. He correctly notes
that the original manuscript does not have "popol" but "popo".
He also correctly notes that "popo" should be "pop", the
final 'o' being due to Spanish vocalic influence. But "pop" originally
meant a mat woven together from green reeds. These mats still exist but instead
of "pop" they are now called petate or estera. By going
back to the original meaning of "pop" as mat, Chávez explains
how the meaning shifted from mat as an object to a situation which occurred when
the mat was used, namely a gathering, so that now "pop", a
Quiche verb, has come to mean "to gather", "to join",
"to crowd", as Ximénez himself notes.
Since the "pop" or mat was
invariably provided as a carpet upon which stood or sat a priest or noble as he
explained their traditions to the Mayas, whether it was in an open plaza or in a
private house, the mat became associated with gatherings of people.
The mat or "pop" was an
object which symbolized a reserved sacred space and, therefore, was the center
of the gathering. Thus, while "pop" in the manuscript of
Chichicastenango did not directly point to mat as mat, it did point to the place
where the action was. Chavez points out an exampIe of the Roman Forum which was
initially a space or place and later meant assembly of senators. He concludes by
saying that "Estas figuras de lenguaje son corrientes en el hable Quiché
como el caso concreto de 'pop'".
And so the mat-gathering would be an
information center of living knowledge. PopoI Vuh would then be a
Book of the.Community, or Book of the Council, or even Book of Wisdom; but, in
all cases, a living entity .
Judging from what the narrator knew
at the time, one might have expected a palinode at the closing of the Preamble.
Instead, he ends with a panegyric extolling the revelation as told by the Creator and the Maker, the Mother and the Father of Life, of all created things, he who gives breath and thought, she who gives birth to the children, he who watches over the happiness of the people, the happiness of the human race, the wise man, he who meditates on the goodness of all that exists in the sky, on the earth, in the lakes and in the sea.
Part One of Popol Vuh
consists of two stories. The first narrates the failure of the gods to create
earthly beings who will adore, obey and sustain them (three chapters). The
second tells how two mysterious twins Hunahpu and
Xbalanqué (foreshadowers of man) destroy an arrogant celestial
being, Vucub-Caquix, and his two sons, Zipacná
and Cabracán, who refused to adore,
obey and sustain their creators because they would not recognize and accept
their creatureliness (six chapters).
The logistics of the narrator who
puts two apparently unrelated stories back-to-back becomes clear in Chapter
I of Part Three where the creation of man is finally
"successful". The story of Vucub-Caquix and his sons is a preview of
what happens to a creature who ascribes divinity to himself.
From the very start, Popol Vuh
manifests dramatic tension as polarizations of good and evil, order and chaos,
the divine and the human. The theme is announced, power, and the battle
is on. The Lords of Heaven conceive the earth as the only place where they can
demonstrate their unchallenged power, namely through men who will adore and
sustain them, men who will increase and multiply to insure continuity and
expansion of that power.
The first story of Part One opens
with a description of what it was like before Creation began. "All was
empty" because there was nothing "brought together". All was
"in silence" because there was "nothing which could make a
noise". "All was motionless" because "there was nothing
which could move or tremble". There was "only the sky and the
sea".
In the sea, "surrounded with
light, hidden under green and blue feathers" was Gucumatz.
In the sky was "the Heart of Heaven, or God - as
he is called". All "was in suspense".
"Then came the word"
like a bolt of lightning, ripping through the diaphanous membrane of the sky.
This word, charged with the plenitude of Heaven, penetrated the waters and
fecundated the minds of the submerged earth-water deities, Tepeu
and Gucumatz.
Set in motion by this divine
discharge of celestial power, the Creator-Former couple "came together and
united their thoughts". A plan was born whereby, "when dawn would
break, man must appear" because they knew that "there would be neither
glory nor grandeur in their creation until man was formed".
Accordingly, the Creator-Former
couple issued a command: "Let it be done." And, instantly, their
imperative became an indicative. "The earth (mineral kingdom) emerged from
the sea", and plants (vegetative kingdom) "put forth shoots". It
was a perfect work; Gucumatz,
"filled with joy", exclaimed: "Your coming has been fruitful,
Hearth of Heaven." Next to appear were the animals (sentient kingdom). And here the story takes
a sudden and strange turn. Instead of being the development of how the animals
were created, as one would expect, the story turns out to be
three frustrated attempts by the gods to create man, first out of animals, then out
of mud, and finally out of wood.
As it turns out, the stories do not point
out the failure of the gods to make man, but the impossibility
for man to be exclusively a glob of mud, a piece of wood, or a mere brute. In
other words, the stories explain what man is not to be. Later, in Part
Three of Popol Vuh, man will actually be created and launched on his way. The
three stories in Part One, then, are previews of what not to expect in Part
Three.
What the narrator achieves by this negative
creation is to bring into focus the purpose of the Lords of Heaven in
creating man, and the consequences of a purpose that is frustrated. It also
highlights what ingredients must go into the composition of man. The punishment of the
mineral kingdom (mud man), the plant kingdom (wooden men), and the sentient
kingdom (animals) implies a guilt
for which they were not responsible. But this is, after all, only a
"story". The uprising of pots and pans (mud objects) and of animals
against the wooden men is a dramatic allegory which seems to indicate
dissatisfaction with their state of being and regret over not having passed the
test of transcending themselves.
But, back to the first of the three
creation stories. When the four-footed animals,
the birds, and reptiles were first
made, they were told: "You shall multiply."
This was both understandable and possible. But, then, they were told:
"Speak our names, invoke us, adore us." But the gods could not
make the animals speak like men; they only hissed, screamed, cackled."
Displeased with the outcome, the gods
condemned the animals to "live in the ravines and the woods". And they
were furthermore reminded that there would be "those who adore" and
that they would "make others who shall be obedient".
In a sudden change of heart, however,
the gods "gave the animals another trial" because, as the narrator
says, "the gods wished to make all living things adore them". But the
animals failed after a second chance and "were condemned to be killed and
eaten". And this is why animals roam the woods and
ravines and are fair game for man.
This double failure with the animals
prompted the gods to ask themselves: "What shall we do to be invoked, in
order to be remembered on earth?" Undaunted, they "try to make obedient,
respectful beings who will nourish and sustain" them.
So, they made a man out of mud.
Immediately they "saw that it was not good". The mud man could not
stand or move its head. Its sight was blurred. At first it spoke, but it had no
mind. It quickly dissolved. How could such a being "walk
or multiply"?
Once more the gods asked themselves:
"What shall we do to perfect the work, that our worshippers and our
invokers will be successful?" But this time, they consulted an old couple, Xpiyacoc
and Xmucané, who were diviners and
soothsayers. The gods told them: "You must work together and find the
means so that man will nourish and sustain us, invoke and remember us".
Getting together the old couple cast
lots with a corn kernel and a tzité (bean). Beginning their divination, they
said to the "dice": "Get together, grasp each other, and say if
it is well that the wood be got together and that it be carved by the
Creator-Maker, and if this (man of wood) is he who must nourish and sustain
us." Satisfied with the affirmative answer from the "dice", the
couple told the Heart of Heaven that "the figures of wood shall come out
well; they shall speak and talk on earth".
Instantly, the figures
made of wood appeared; they "looked like men, talked like men, and
populated the face of the earth". But, not having
"souls nor minds, they did not remember their Creator and Maker".
Besides, "they had no blood, no substance, nor moisture, nor flesh".
How could their multiplicity mean anything?
In a sotto voce, the narrator says
that the male figures were made of tzité (a nonhuman germ), and that only the
female wooden figures were made of zibaque (a reed or rush), which was a prefiguration
of corn from which man would eventually be made.
What seem like three creational
failures are summed up by the narrator who says: "It was merely a
trial, an attempt at man."
The story goes on to say that the
wooden men were punished. Some died "in a deluge". Some had
"their eyes gouged out". Some had their heads cut off. Others
"had their nerves torn and their bones ground to dust". This was
"to punish them because they had not thought of their mother, nor their
father, the Heart of Heaven, called Huracán".
Then occurs a clever allegory. The
earth, resentful of its failure to be man and jealous of the men of wood, gets
its revenge when pots, pans, jars, grinding stones, and other earthen implements
strike out and beat the wooden men unmercifully. And the animals, who had also
failed the test, tell the wooden men: "We shall destroy you and you shall
feel the teeth of our mouths; we shall devour you."
From this, one would gather that the
wooden men had come closest to being human. The story concludes by stating that
the descendants of the wooden men are the monkeys who look like men. This
simian similarity is to be "an example of a generation of men which were
created and made but were only wooden figures. Thus ends the creation story
which will be picked up later.
*
*
*
Next follows a story which opens with
a Lucifer figure named Vucub-Caquix
"who was very proud of himself". He constantly boasted: "I shall
be great above all the beings created and formed. I am the sun, the light, the
moon... because of me, men shall walk and conquer… I am the sun for all
mankind, because I can see very far." The narrator says that Vucub's only
ambition was "to exalt himself and to dominate." The two sons of
Vucub-Caquix, Zipacná and Cabracán, were as vain as their father and used to stir up chaos. Pulling up
mountains for their rich mineral contents was Zipacná's favonte pastime. Cabracán
also did his share of shaking down mountains and making the earth tremble.
Determined to defeat Vucub-Caquix,
the twins took their blowguns and from their ambush under a tree where Vucub
obtained his food they shot at his jaw. His teeth were shaken to the roots. In
anger, Vucub tore off the arm of Hunahpú.
To recover the arm, the twins
persuaded an old couple to pose as their grandparents and to go with them to the
home of Vucub-Caquix. They consented. Once at the house, they posed as dentists
saying that their specialty was "only to take the worm from the teeth, cure
eyes and set bones". Apparently Vucub did not recognize the twins. So he
consented to be diagnosed. The verdict of the "dentists" was that the
teeth must come out. Vucub was horrified and refused because it was "only
with them that he was Lord" and that "all his ornaments were his teeth
and eyes". The "dentists" offered to replace the shaky teeth with
new ones made from ground bone. The narrator says that "the ground bone was
nothing but grains of white corn". Duped by the offer, Vucub-Caquix had his
teeth pulled and replaced with "false" teeth. While the
"dentists" were at work, Hunahpú recovered his arm. He "put it
in place, and it was all right again".
When the dentures were in,
Vucub-Caquix's "features sagged and he no longer looked like a Lord".
He died in poverty because the "dentists" had made a haul and a clean
getaway.
Then the twins went to work on Zipacná
who had cleverly feigned death when four hundred boys tried to do him in. Joyful
over their "victory" the boys got drunk. During their drunken stupor,
Zipacná cut off their heads. After that the boys
became stars in heaven.
Finally, the twins caught up with
Zipacná. Lured into a cave in search of a crab which the twins had made, Zipacná
was caught by a cave-in and died. He was changed into a stone, immobilized like
the four hundred boys who became stars. Turning to stone seems to be a favorite
fate as we shall see when Tohil, the god
of the Quiché, also turns to stone. The defeat of Cabracán
was ordered by the Heart of Heaven, Huracán, who said to
the twins: "This is our will, for it is not well what they do on earth,
exalting their glory, their grandeur, and their power." The twins said to
Huracán: "You who are peace are perfectly right."
The twins tempted Cabracán with a
roasted bird basted in "white earth soil." Upon eating the fowl, he
became deathly ill of "earth poisoning" and passed away. So ends the story
of creatures who dared to challenge the inalienable majesty and power of the
deities. The story of Vucub-Caquix and his sons is a foreshadowing of what man must not be, namely an arrogant creature whose visions and desires transcend the boundaries of his limitation.
Part Two spreads through fourteen
chapters which are crucial to an understanding of Popol Vuh and which contain
the climax and key to the mystery of man's origin.
The first two chapters introduce two
brothers, Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú,
sons of an old couple, Xpiyacoc and Xmucané,
twice father and twice mother of the Maya-Quiché nation.
Hun-Hunahpú and his wife Xbaquiyalo
have two sons, Hunbatz and Hunchouén.
Vucub-Hunahpú is a bachelor. Both Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú were
"very wise and had "good dispositions and habits". Hun-Hunahpú
taught his sons all the arts so that they were accomplished flutists, singers,
hunters, painters, sculptors, jewelers, and silversmiths. Every day the two boys
and their father and uncle played ball, one pair against the other. The narrator
says that playing ball was the privilege only of
nobles and not of the common man.
One day, as the four played ball on
the road to Xibalba (the Black Road that
leads West towards the sunset), the noise of their lively game on the surface of
the earth disturbed the silence of Xibalba and annoyed its Lords. The narrator
says that Xibalba was clearly the infernal region of Hell and was totally evil.
The Lords of Hell thereupon summoned
the brothers Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú to a contest: "Let them come
here to play ball. We will overpower them because they no longer respect us or
consider us or fear our rank, and they even play above our heads."
The narrator then gives an inventory
list of Xibalba Lords. They (1) shed
blood; (2) cause gangrene and swelling; 3) make things waste away; (4) kill men
on the way home; (5) cause men to die on the road from sudden vomiting of blood;
and (6) choke men until the blood rushes to their mouth.
While waiting for an answer from the
brothers, the Lords of Hell held council as to how to "torment and wound
Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú. Actually, what the Lords wanted most was their
playing equipment: pads, rings, gloves, crown, masks, and --most important of
all-- their ball. Fortun ately, the boys left the ball with their mother, in
pledge.
Answering the summons, Hun-Hunahpú
and Vucub-Hunahpú took to the highway until they came to the Black Road to
Xibalba. While they hesitated momentarily, the Black Road said: "I
am the one you must take because I am the way of the Lord." At that
point, says the narrator, the brothers were already overcome. After a series of
tortures, they were sacrificed and buried, never having
even played the game whose stakes were life or death.
On the spot where the brothers were
buried, there sprang up a tree miraculously loaded with fruit. Among the fruit
was the head of Hun-Hunahpú. Filled with apprehension at the sight, the Lord of
Hell said: "Let no one come to pick this fruit. Let no one come and sit
under this tree." When word got around about the tree which had never borne
fruit, a young girl heard the story.
The maiden, daughter of a Lord of
Hell named Cuchumaquic (gathered blood),
came to the tree. Her name was Xquic
(little blood, or blood of a woman). Entranced by the sight she exclaimed:
"Must I die, shall I be lost if I pick one of this fruit?" Suddenly a
voice informed her that "Those round objects which cover the branches of
the trees are nothing but skulls." Asked if she wanted one, she answered:
"Yes, I want them." When
she put forth her hand "the
skull let a few drops of spittle fall directly into the maiden’s palm".
Then the skull said: "In my saliva and spittle I have given you my
descendants;
Now my head has nothing on it any
more, it is but a skull." And so will it be for others who die, even if
they are nobles.
But, the head of Hun-Hunahpú assured
Xquic that though men die "they do not lose their
substance when they go, but bequeath it; the image of the Lord, of the wise man
or of the orator does not disappear nor is it lost, but is left to the
daughters and sons which he begets. Then Hun-Hunahpú announced to Xquic:
"I have done the same with you. Go up, then, to the surface of the earth,
that you may not die."
The maiden "returned directly to
her home, having immediately conceived the sons in her belly by virtue of the
spittle only."
When her condition was discovered,
six months later, her father asked: "Whose are the children that you
carry?" She answered: "I have no child, my
father, for I have not yet known a youth." So, her father exclaimed:
"You are really a whore." Thereupon, he ordered four messengers to
take Xquic away, sacrifice her, and bring back her heart for burning.
At the frontiers between Hell and
earth, Xquic persuaded the messengers not to kill her, saying: "My heart
does not belong to them; only the blood shall be theirs and shall be given to
them." After telling the messengers that they should go to earth with her
because Hell was not their home and they should not be forced to kill men, she
foretold how "Later, in truth, the real criminals will be at your [the
messengers'] mercy, and I will overcome Hun-Camé
and Vucub-Camé", the chief Lords of Xibalba. Moved by her plea, the messengers did
not kill her. Instead they made a false heart, put it in a gourd and returned it
to her father who burned it, he being none the wiser. "In this
manner the Lords of Xibalba were defeated. All were tricked by the maiden."
On earth, alone and expectant, Xquic
comes to the home of her mother-in-law, Xmucané. In a greeting that was highly
ambivalent, Xquic says to Xmucané: "I am your daughter-in-law and your
daughter mother." Xmucané, shocked by the announcement, insists that this
is impossible since her sons have died in Xibalba. But the maiden explains how
she became pregnant and assures Xmucané that her sons have a continued
existence in her (the maiden’s) belly. Doubtful about the whole business,
Xmucané puts Xquic to the test. She is to go to the cornfield and bring home a
load of corn. When Xquic goes out to fulfill the order, she sees only one lonely
stalk in the middle of the field. In distress she calls upon the guardians of
the field, spirits of some kind, and in a twinkling she has a load of corn which
she brings home. Thus, she wins Xmucané's confidence and acceptance.
When the time for her delivery came,
she went out alone to give birth to twins, Hunahpú
and Xbalanqué, the very same two who overcame Vucub-Caquix, earlier
in the story.
When Xquic returned with her twins,
trouble was waiting. The cries of her children (foreshadowers of man) disturbed
the Creator-Mother Xmucané and her two grandsons, Hunbatz
and Hunchouén, the children of Hun-Hunahpú and stepbrothers of
Hunahpú (male principle) and Xbalanqué (female
principle).
So, they were put out of the house
and placed first on anthills and then on thistles where their stepbrothers hoped
the twins would die "because of the hatred and envy that Hunbatz and
Hunchouen felt for them."
But the twins survived, grew up, and
lived in the fields trying to cultivate corn. As workers, the twins contrasted
greatly with Hunbatz and Hunchouén who were artists and
who stayed home singing, painting,
and poeticizing. True, they had made a road leading to a cornfield; and true,
there was one stalk, as Xquic noted, but their role as workers was clearly
futile and sterile.
The narrator says that because
Hunbatz and Hunchoue'n were envious (they had heard that the twins would be
their successors) they did not "show great wisdom, and their hearts were
filled with bad will, although Hunahpú and Xbalanqué had not offended
them".
But the twins got their revenge.
Failing one day to bring home the customary birds for dinner, they were
reprimanded by Xmucané. They quickly explained that their birds were caught in
the tree and only their stepbrothers could retrieve them.
So, out go the elder brothers to show
their prowess in climbing. However, once up the tree, they could not come down
because the tree trunk had miraculously grown very large. Filled with terror,
the older brothers cried, "What has happened to us?"
The conniving twins ordered them to
loosen their breech-louts and tie them below their stomach, leaving the long
ends hanging. This they did, but instantly the breechclouts turned into tails
and the brothers took on the appearance of monkeys, hopping from branch to
branch and grimacing.
Victorious, the twins returned to
Xmucané and told her what had happened. Her dismay was somewhat assuaged by the
promise that the twins would take care of the situation. They had a plan for
getting back their stepbrothers. Mimicking flute and drum players they lured the
brothers down from the tree and into the presence of Xmucané. Their appearance
put her into a panic. "She began to laugh, unable to control herself."
Xmucané's laughter frightened the
monkey-men who went away. The twins chided her but promised to try again to lure
back their stepbrothers. The same thing happened twice more. Unresponsive to the
fourth call, they were seen no more. All that remains of them is the invocation
of their memory by "painters and craftsmen". The narrator says they
were changed into monkeys because they became arrogant and abused their
brothers: In this way they were disgraced; this was their loss". The monkey-business is very
significant and quite crucial to the mystery of Maya-Quiché disappearance,
as will be shown in a later chapter.
The next scene shows the twins, not
as artists, but as cultivators of corn. But, in spite of their efforts at
clearing the fields during the day, their work was undone at night by the
inimical vegetative kingdom which covered the fields with overgrowth, and by the
animal kingdom who pulled up what little produce was growing.
To overcome this chaos, the twins
resorted to a ruse. Hunahpú and Xbalanqué went to the field where they hid
themselves in the darkness. When the animals appeared, the twins tried to
capture them. They failed, but did manage, however, to catch a rat whom they
tortured. When the twins were about to poke out the rat's eyes, he cried:
"l must not die at your hands. And neither is it your business to plant the
cornfield."
These words sound very much like
Xquic's speech in Xibalba where she said: "Neither shall my heart be burned
before them. Nor must you [the messengers] let them [Lords of Xibalba] force you
to kill men."
The rat promised to tell the twins a
secret if they would feed him. But the twins promised they would feed him after
he told the secret. They showed him, as if in a vision, all the corn, beans, and
cocoa they had in store for him. So the rat told the twins that their father’s
playing gear was left in Xmucané's home as a pledge when the
Lords of Xibalba chaIlen ged them to
a ball game as narrated back in the second chapter of Part Two.
Surprised, the twins released the rat
and had him accompany them home. There they asked Xmucané to feed them. While
she was preparing the food, the rat ran up the roof beam. The twins could see
their father's instruments reflected in their plates. They then got Xmucané to
go for water. When she left, the twins seized the instruments and hid them in
their field; then they went to assist Xmucané whose jar would not hold water
because a mosquito had bored a hole in it, thereby delaying her return to the
house. Shortly after this incident, the twins stole away to play ball in the
court where their father and uncle had once played.
The noise of their lively playing
roused the Lords of Hell who sent for the twins: "Go and tell them to come;
we wish to play ball with them here, within seven days." So the messengers
came, not to the boys but to their grandmother. Xmucané's "heart was
filled with anxiety", as she recalled what had happened to her two sons. As
she sat alone and grieving, a louse fell into her lap (an idea, perhaps?). She
sent the louse with the message of the Lords to the playing twins. The way in
which the message arrived is curiously symbolic. The louse was swallowed by a
toad, the toad by a snake, the snake by a hawk. Thus, the message could travel
faster. When the boys saw the hawk, they aimed a pellet from their blowguns and
struck the hawk in the eye. The hawk spiraled downward before them and told them
he had a message but would not deliver it until his eye was cured.
When the twins cured the hawk's eye,
it spewed forth the snake; the snake vomited up the toad who refused to eject
the louse which was not really swallowed but lay hidden in the toad’s teeth.
The dislodged louse finally delivered the message from Xmucané.
They boys ran to Xmucané who was
grieving. They consoled her, saying: "We are going, but here will be the
sign which we shall leave of our fate; each of shall plant a reed in the middle
of the house." They went on to say that, if the reeds dried, this
"would be a sign of our death." But she was to know that they were
alive "if it sprouts again." They carefully "planted the reeds,
Hunahpú one, Xbalanqué another, in the house and not in the field, not in
moist soil, but in dry. Thereupon, they went to keep their date with the Lords
of Xibalba.
On the way, they passed over the
river of corruption and of blood on their blowguns. At a point near Xibalba,
they sent a mosquito to scout the place and to sting each of the Lords of Hell.
He was "to suck the blood of the men on the roads".
In Xibalba, the mosquito stung
everyone, even the first two wooden figures whom the mosquito thought were
lords. Each of the Lords exclaime.d "Ah" when he was stung, and told
his name. This is how the twins learned their names. The name was the person. To
know the name is somehow to have the person.
On entering the council chamber of
Xibalba, they were ordered to greet the Lords. The first two Lords, however,
were wooden figures which were intended to deceive the twins (as their father
had been deceived when he was down there). But, in carrying out the order, the
twins showed their knowledge of truth and falsity
by passing up the wooden figures, having learned this from their extension, the
mosquito (a hair of their legs). They began with the real Lords, calling them by
the names which the mosquito had given to the twins. They were shocked, because
"what the Lords wished was that they should not discover their names".
To frighten the twins, the Lords of
Hell decided to send them to the House of Gloom where the twins were to hold
lighted pine sticks and smoke a cigar. This they did,
but on the next day, the Lords
discovered that neither the pine sticks nor the cigars had been consumed, even
though they had burned all through the night. Truly alarmed, the Lords asked
themselves: "How is this? Whence have they come? Who conceived them? Who
gave birth to them? This really troubles us."
So, the Lords decided to get on with
the ball game. The twins agreed. After a dispute as to whose ball was to be used
first, the twins agreed to use that belonging to the Lords. The boys won the
game, but not without some anxiety; for they discovered that the game was merely
a trick to get them down to Xibalba. Shocked by the victory of the twins, the
Lords put forth another challenge. This time, the twins' ball was used. But the
twins won a second time. This was too much for the Lords. So, they decided upon
some other way to demolish the twins.
Accordingly, they sent the twins to
gather flowers in the House of Knives. The knives were to cut the lads to
pieces. However, the twins escaped the knives and, assisted by ants, gathered
the flowers and sent them to the Lords. Since flowers were a rarity in Hell, the
Lords marveled and feared. They probably recalled the miraculous tree whose
fruit appeared when Hun-Hunahpú was buried. A third time
the ball game was played but ended "in several tie-matches". So, the
twins were sent to the House of Cold, the House of Jaguars, and the House of
Fire, where the Lords "wished that the twins would die rapidly.
Nevertheless, it did not happen thus, which disheartened the Lords of Xibalba".
Finally, the twins were put into the
House of Bats. Here, the twins slept "inside their blowguns and were not
bitten". Suddenly, they were awakened by the sound of a special bat called "Camazotz
that came from the sky" (Heart of Heaven). It was this heavenly bat
and not the bats of Hell that "made Hunahpú poke forth his head and come
into sight". Instantly, Hunahpú’s head was cut off. Xbalanqué
exclaimed: "Unfortunate are we. We are completely undone:" The head of
Hunahpú was hung up in the ball court. Xbalanqué, with the help of "many
soothsayers who came from heaven", fashioned a false head for Hunahpú. She
did this bv using a turtle which had come up to the neck of Hunahpú and
resembled a head. This was done in the darkness of the night while the Lords
were asleep.
Next day, Xbalanqué managed to get a
game going with the Lords. She told the body of Hunahpú: "Only pretend to
play; I shall do everything alone." Note that it
was the female Xbalanqué who survived. Her use of the words "I shall do
everything alone" are very significant. But, before the game
started, Xbalanqué had made arrangements with a rabbit who was to roll up into
the shape of a ball and lie off to the side of the court. When the game started
and the Lords tossed the ball to Xbalanqué, she returned it in such a way that
"it stopped, bounced, and passed quickly over the ball court". The
Lords went to chase the ball, but not finding it, they began to search for it.
Instantly the rabbit began to run, as it had been ordered by Xbalanqué.
Thinking that it was the ball, the Lords went in pursuit. While they were thus
occupied, Xbalanqué switched heads; the turtle head now hung in the tree;
Hunahpú’s head was now back with his body.
When the Lords returned, the game was
resumed and ended in a tie. Xbalanqué broke the turtle to pieces with a stone.
At the sight, the Lords were aghast.
The story of
the infernal ball game ends with the narrator's comment that the twins
"Having been forewarned of all the suffering which the Lords of Xibalba
wished to impose upon them, did not die of the tortures, nor were they overcome
by the animals in that place".
The following story tells how
Hunapú and Xbalanqué died. Tempted into a contest by the Lords, the
twins were supposed to play "a mocking game with them". This
consisted of flying four times over a
bonfire without getting burned. The Lords thus hoped to put the twins to death.
But the twins said: "Do not try to deceive us; we know about our death and
that it awaits us here." So, in the most symbolic of acts which forms the
climax of Popol Vuh, the twins " embracing each other, face to face, both
stretched out their arms, bent toward the ground and jumped (voluntarily) into
the fire. Thus, they died together. The Lords, ecstatic with joy, exclaimed:
"At last they have given themselves up." But
the joy of the Lords was ironic, as the following story shows.
Before the twins had surrendered
themselves to the fire, they had told two old soothsayers what to do with their
charred bodies, in case the Lords asked them. So, after the twins' death, the
soothsayers told the Lords to grind up the twins' bones "on a grinding
stone, as cornmeal is ground; each one was to be ground separately". The
bones were then to be "thrown into the river, where the spring gushes
forth".
Shortly after that thev arose
miraculously and appeared as old men. They presented themselves disguised first
as dancers, then as magicians, before the Lords of Hell. Their magic tricks
consisted in killing a dog and bringing him back to life, burning a house and
restoring it, killing a man and reviving him. Finally, the twins killed
themselves and rose again.
So impressed were the Lords by these
powers over death that "their hearts were filled with desire and
longing" to submit themselves as volunteers for so marvelous a piece of
magic. "Do the same with us! Sacrifice us!" they exclaimed. The twins
agreed. "And so it happened that they first sacrificed the one and then the
other of the Lords. And the twins did not bring them back to life."
Everyone in Xibalba panicked and ran. "This is the
way the Lords of Xibalba were overcome."
Part Two closes with the
twin's avenging of their father's death. The remaining inhabitants of Xibalba
were told that their race would exist no longer, that their rank would be
lowered, and that the ball game would never be played again by them. They were
to spend their time making earthen pots, tubs, and grinding stones. Only the
sinners, the evil ones, the sad ones, those who give up themselves to vice would
talk to them or welcome them.
On earth, "the reeds
sprouted", and Xmucané's "heart was filled with joy". She
worshiped the reeds "in the Center of the House". The narrator says
that the resurrected twins, symbolically living in the Center of the House (this
is approximately the center of Popol Vuh), were the "Green reeds growing in
the plains", and the foreshadowing of corn from which the first four
created men were to be formed of flesh. In Xibalba, the twins gave a farewell speech which was a eulogy of their father. The inhabitants of Hell were told that the twins’ father and uncle would be "the first to arise, the first to be worshiped by the sons of noblemen, by the sons of noblemen, by the civilized vassals". After the speech, the twins "rose up in the midst of light, and instantly they were lifted into the sky", where they joined the "four hundred boys whom Zipacna had killed". Thus ends Part Two of Popol Vuh.
In the Preamble to Popol Vuh,
the narrator stated that he would tell the origin and traditions of the Maya-Quiché
nation according to "the revelation and declaration of the gods". He
also says that he will give his version "in the light of history".
Accordingly, Parts One,
Two, and the first three chapters of Part Three are narrations of divine origin.
Whereas the remaining chapters of Part Three and the whole of Part Four are
stories of human origin.
In Part One, the Lords of
Heaven were shown in what might be considered attempts to create man. Actually,
they were scenes portraying what man was not to be, earth, wood, a brute.
Conversely, he was to be a creature who could stand, speak, remember, know in a
rational way, so that he could adore, obey, sustain, and nourish the Heart of
Heaven. Moreover, he should be able to multiply and keep the human species
going.
In Part Two, the Lords of
Hell were shown in what might be considered attempts to frustrate the intentions
of the Heart of Heaven in creating the human race. In Hell, it became clear that
man was to have two ingredients: man was to have blood for multiplying and
immortality for defying death.
With the nature of man
clearly delineated in the stories of Parts One and Two, it is time for man to
appear on the face of the earth. This brings us to Part Three. "Here, then,
is the beginning of when it was decided to make man, and when what must enter
into the flesh of man was sought."
The Creator-Maker couple together
with Gucumatz saw that "the time of dawn has come, let the work be
finished". The word "finished" implies that the work had already
begun, namely the creation of man's spirit. What
they needed now was the ingredients that "must enter into man's
flesh". Moreover, not any kind of man would do. The first men were to be
"the noble sons, the civilized vassals". In other words,
the Lords of the Earth were about to appear.
The time was right: "It was just
before the sun, the moon, and the stars appeared." And the ingredients were
ready: "From Paxil (which means separation,
spreading of the waters, inundation), and from Cayala (which means rotten,
putrid matter in the water), came the yellow ears of corn and the white ears of
corn." Four animals showed the Creator-Maker couple where the corn
was. The corn was absolutely necessary because for man "this was his blood;
of this the blood of man was made. So the corn entered into the formation of
man.
After grinding the corn, Xmucané and
her helpers "made the arms and the legs of man. Only dough of cornmeal went
into the flesh of the four first men who were created". Their names were Balam-Quitzé,
Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and lquiBalam. They were "shaped and
formed; had no mother nor father, nor were they begotten by the Creator. They
were called "men"".
And what did these men look like? "They
were handsome; they talked, saw and heard, walked, grasped things; they were
good." They were "endowed with intelligence and could see all around
them", even "the things hidden". The men were conscious of their
endowments and thanked the Heart of Heaven: "We give you thanks for
having created us."
But the creators "did not hear
this with pleasure". They observed that "it is
not well what our creatures say: they know all, the large and the small".
After some consultation it was decided to "let their sight reach only to
that which is near; let them see only a little of the face of the earth! It is
not well that they see so much, for they are only simple creatures of our
making". Moreover, "must they also be
gods?" If they should be gods, what will happen "if they do not
reproduce and multiply?"
Finally, the Heart of Heaven
"blew mist into their eyes, which clouded their sight as when a mirror is
breathed upon". The result "as that "their eyes were covered and
they
could see only what was close".
So that only what was close "was clear to
them".
By blinding the first four men, the
gods made sure that they would "check their
desires, lest perchance they should wish to be the equals of their Makers".
The narrator concludes Chapter II by saying, "In this way, the wisdom and
all the knowledge of the four men, the origin and the beginning [of the Quiché
race], were destroyed". This act on the part of the gods takes on serious
consequences when it becomes apparent that their creations were to be Lords of
the Earth, noble men, and civilized vassals. It is this blindness which leads to
the catastrophes described in subsequent chapters of Popol Vuh. This act also
shows that from the beginning the end was already a possibility.
The story continues with the creation
of the first four women who were to be the wives of the first four men.
Thus, the earth became populated, there in the East. "The
speech of all was the same. They did not invoke wood nor stone [adore idols],
and they remembered the word of the Creator, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of
Earth." They were "loving, obedient, and fearful, raising their faces
to the sky". And they prayed beautiful prayers. The narrator then
gives the prayer the first men prayed.
Oh thou, Tzacol, Bitol! Look at us,
hear us. Do not leave us, do not forsake us, oh, God, who art in heaven and on
earth, Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth. Give us our descendants, our succession,
as long as the sun shall move and there shall be light. Let it dawn; let the day
come! Give us many good roads, flat roads! May the people have peace, much
peace, and may they be happy; and give us good life and useful existence!
But, the faith and confidence shown
in the prayer above was not to last long. Again, the narrator stresses that the
first fathers and mothers did not adore idols, but only the word of God, the
Heart of Heaven. "They did not yet have wood nor stones to keep."
After a long time, "their hearts
were tired of waiting for the sun". So they decided to move from the East,
and "having heard of a city, they went there". Their reason for moving
is affirmed positively: "Let us go, let us go to search and see if our
[tribal] symbols are in safety. For being as we are, there is no one who watches
for us." They finally arrived at Tulán-Zuiva (city of the seven caves or
ravines), "where they went to receive their gods". The narrator says
"it was impossible to count the men who arrived, there were very
many".
At Tulán-Zuiva, they witnessed
"the appearance of their gods". Each of the four first men (or at
least the successors of the first four) saw his god. As it turned out, all had
the same god, Tohil; "one
only was the name of the god". In receiving Tohil, each of the four
men "put him [Tohil] on his back, in his [wooden] chest. Then the four
heads of the tribes of the Quiché made known their grievances to their new god.
First of all, there was great
confusion of tongues. "They could no longer understand each other
clearly after arriving at Tulán." They had no decent clothing because
"they were poor". Besides, "they did not have fire".
After this litany of woes, Tohil
consoled them: "Do not worry. Yours shall be the lost fire which is talked
of." In amazement, the four fathers exclaimed: "Really? Oh, God, our
support, thou our God." Then Tohil answered: "Very well, certainly I
am your God [he de ser]; so shall it be!" At least that seems to be what
was "told to the priests and sacrificers by Tohil".
When the other tribes who were in the
vicinity of Tulán saw the fire given by Tohil to the
Maya-Quiché tribes, they were eager to get some of it. Some begged, but
were refused; they could not understand how this could be so. But the reason was
not far to find. It so happened that a messenger of Xibalba came to the first
four fathers and told them not to give their fire away until the beggars should
"present offerings to Tohil". When the beggars offered coin, it was
rejected. What Tohil wanted in return for the fire was "their waist and
their armpits".
So the four first fathers relayed the
message to the fire-less tribes. After a moment's hesitation they agreed to the
terms: "Very well, we shall join you [the Quiché] and we shall embrace him
[Tohil]." Immediately they received the fire and it became warm.
One tribe, however, would not
surrender their waist and their armpits [heart] to Tohil. These were the
Cakchiquels, enemies of the Quiché. Instead, they managed to steal the fire.
They shrewdly avoided being "overcome the way the other tribes had been
overcome when they offered their breasts and their armpits so that they would be
opened".
It seems that Tohil had prophesied
the power and sovereignty of the first four men, but that they would not
actually exercise it until they had come to Tulán "where they subdued and
subjected the large and small tribes and sacrificed them before Tohil, and
offered him the blood of all the men".
The narrator notes that at first
Tohil wanted only men's blood, that is, before the Quiché came to Tulán.
"Bleed your ears, prick your elbows; this will be your thanks to God".
lt was only later that he demanded their heart also.
Symbolic wounding was not enough. Death was the perfect offering.
Eventually, the tribes who did not
identify with the Maya-Quiché pressed in so insistently and violently that the
latter feared for their survival. So, they decided to leave Tulán, taking their
god Tohil "on their backs". Circumstances were such that they had to
"hide Tohil in different places along the route". Tohil reminded the
Quiché that "it would be a disgrace for you [the four fathers] if we were
imprisoned by our enemies within these walls [wooden boxes] where you, the
priests and sacrificers keep it".
Apparently, the priests and
sacrificers, who worked in cooperation with the four first men, were afraid that
they would be discovered, as they eventually are. This caused the four fathers
"not to sleep". They stood up all night so "great was the anxiety
of their hearts; they felt shame".
Having second thoughts, they asked
themselves "why they had come so far". They had once lived "in
harmony in their former country", there in the East. Instead of the god
taking care of them, they had to carry him on their backs in a wooden box which
they called a "bundle of greatness".
But, in spite of the trouble, the
Quiché managed to hold together. And their day came. "It was the dawn of
the Quiché nation." In gratitude, they "burned their incense, and it
was then that they began to dance facing toward the East". But the joy of
dawning gave way to the horror of the midday sun which
stood still, burned with such intensity that it scorched the earth. Worst
of all, "Tohil was turned to stone." The Quiché mourned because their
brothers from whom they had separated, were not able to share the dawn. These
brothers were "the Yaqui, in the land which today is called Mexico".
The final chapter of Part Three
clearly indicates the catastrophe which Tohil will bring on the Quiché. It
seems that although the first fathers had settled for living on a mountain
called Chi-Pixab, and that everything seemed promising for a fruitful existence,
there were, nevertheless, faint rumblings of trouble. For Tohil had turned to
stone, and some of the people were becoming suspicious. A trick had to be
magically produced whereby Tohil could "speak" to the forefathers.
"Then Tohil spoke; only by a miracle [magic art] he gave counsel to the
priests and sacrificers".
Also, Tohil told the priests and
sacrificers: "Do not show me before the tribes when we are insulted by the
words of their mouths, or because of their conduct." Fearful of reprisal on
the part of the tribes, Tohil said that they should not "permit him to fall
into a snare". Until things calmed down a little, the priests and
sacrificers were to desist from killing men and giving Tohil the blood. However,
some blood was necessary. "Give me a little of your blood, have pity on me.
Give me the blood of the female deer and the female birds. You may have the
skins and the feathers. Guard me from those whose eyes have deceived us (those
tribes who have exposed Tohil as an impostor)."
In exchange for this
"bargain" Tohil promised: "Great shall be your position; you
[priests and sacrificers] will dominate all the tribes." But, Tohil warned:
"When they [the tribes] ask 'Where is Tohil?' show them the deerskin;
neither shall you show yourselves, for you will have other things to do."
Tohil, impersonating a
youth, or some youth impersonating Tohil (more than likely), "spoke"
through the stone figure of himself, when the priests and sacrificers brought
him the blood of the animals and of the birds. And the priests and sacrificers,
in keeping with Tohil's command that they not allow themselves to be seen by the
irate tribes, "did not live in their houses by day, but walked over the
mountains". Neither were "the roads from their homes known, nor did
they know where their wives had remained". The priests and sacrificers
became recluses and "celibates". Thus ends Part Three of Popol Vuh.
Part Four describes the total victory
of Tohil, who operated upon the Lords of the Earth through the instrumentality
of the priests and sacrificers. But it was not without a struggle that Tohil won
his dominion. Tohil's dominion, however, was the reason
for the destruction of the Quiché.
The story begins with the priests and
sacrificers who "began the abduction of the men of the tribes", and
who "went to sacrifice them before Tohil". Aware of this horror, the
tribes held a council. "Could it be Tohil who has been here among us? It
must be someone who is nourished and sustained by priests and sacrificers. Where
are their [the priests] homes?"
It was discovered that the homes of
the murderers were "in the vicinity of the people whom they killed".
It also became apparent that the priests saved their own sons from sacrifice.
Could this be in order that their own priestly caste would survive?
Accordingly, the "tribes
discussed the way to overcome Tohil". Knowing that it was Tohil's custom to
"bathe in the river every day", they decided to send two of their
beautiful daughters to tempt him. "What the tribes wanted was that the two
maidens would be violated by the incarnation of Tohil." But when Tohil was
approached by the maidens, he refused to fall into the snare. Knowing that the
girls would be afraid to admit their failure and thus have to pay a price, Tohil
gave them three capes. One was the painting of a jaguar. On the second, an
eagle. On the third, wasps. Tohil ordered that the lords be given and wear the
capes when the girls returned home.
Once at home, the maidens were
suspected of not having gone through with the ruse and were called in to give an
explanation. They thereupon gave the capes as evidence of their encounter with
Tohil. The first two capes were put on by two of the Lords but nothing happened.
When the third Lord put on the third cape, he was stung by
the wasps painted upon it. This gave
clear evidence of the power and malice of Tohil. "All of the people were
overcome by him".
The next few chapters of Part Four
are a series of triumphs of Tohil over the
enemies of the Quiché. But his success only increased the desire for vengeance.
Apparently, the priests and sacrificers were so confident of Tohil's might that
"their hearts were calm". And this despite the fact that there were
"many tribes who were going to kill the Lords Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab,
and Mahucutah, who were on the mountain Hacavitz, the name of the place where
they were found".
After many attacks by the tribes
against the Quiché, the latter won. "Then all the tribes
surrendered." They were not destroyed; instead
"they became vassals". The next story describes the disappearance
of the first four men. Because "they had completed their
mission", they were going back to whence they had come. After their
farewell, they left the symbol of their being, "the Pizom-Gagal, as it was
called, whose form was invisible because it was wrapped up and could not be
unwrapped". The sons of these first four men were saddened by their
departure. The only reminder they had of their fathers was the
"bundle" or Pizom-Gagal, an idol in a wooden box. "Never did they
unwrap it; but it was always wrapped, and
with them. Bundle of Greatness they called it."
After the first four fathers
"went away", three of their sons went to the land of their
forefathers. "They came there, to the East, when they received the
investiture of the kingdom from Lord Nacxit", or Quetzalcoatl,
the famous Toltec king. Nacxit gave the three sons a throne, many gifts
and the famous paintings of Tulán.
The narrator goes on to describe a
frightful revolt in which "many fell into slavery and servitude". Human
sacrifice reached frightening proportions, but the three clans of the
Quiché survived and thrived. This revolt occurred while the Quiché were living
at Izmachi, which they then abandoned to found Gumarcaah.
At Gumarcaah,
Gucumatz, a most magnificent Lord raised the Maya-Quiché to its
greatest peak of power. But, there is something extremely odd about this King
Gucumatz. "All the other Lords were filled with terror before him."
News of his unusual power spread across the towns of tribes surrounding the
Quiché. He showed signs of extraordinary power "not to be an extraordinary
king, but as a means of dominating all the towns, as a means of showing that
only one was called upon to be chief of the people". This was during the
fourth generation.
Some of the marvels done by Gucumatz
were to "mount to the skies for seven days", then to "descend
into Xibalba for seven days". Moreover, he frequently "changed himself
now into a snake, then into an eagle, then into a jaguar", for seven days
at a time.
It got so that the inhabitants would
adore Tohil and immediately their Lord of the Earth,
Gucumatz. In league with Tohil, who, in turn was
in league with the Lords of Hell, the Maya-Quiché prospered and grew
mighty. Gucumatz had the advantage of having
"everything clear before his eyes; he saw if there would be death and
hunger, if there would be strife". And the place where he was able to see
this "was a book which was called Popol Vuh".
Gucumatz also instituted an elaborate
ritual of fasting and other abstinence rites. Part Four of Popol Vuh ends with
the genealogies of the tribes of the Quiché "who finally came to an
end". Chapter IV: Popol Vuh: Its Structure
The preceeding chapter presented Popol
Vuh in summary form to supply the reader with the story line and to
help him locate within the story certain "flaws" which some readers
and critics condescendingly ascribe to a lack of craftsmanship. These
"flaws", which allegedly interrupt narrative flow and obscure the
story's meaning, consist of dislocation and repetitions characteristic of
primitive writing. Accordingly, Popol Vuh might have been a good story
had it not been so badly told.
The present chapter proposes to show
that the so-called "flaws" are not "defects" that mar but
are actually structural devices that enhance Popol Vuh and raise it to
the high level of literature which it has long deserved. The gap between what Popol Vuh says and what Popol Vuh means is reduced only in proportion to the understanding of how Popol Vuh is told. An understanding of the structure is essential to a clarification of the meaning. Conversely, once the meaning is grasped, the inner logic of the structure will become more apparent.
Mything
Links: Creation Myths and Sacred Narratives of Creation From Precolumbian Antecedents for Modern Highland Mayan Ceremonialism: 4. Colonial efforts
to break indigenous cultural and religious institutions
and native strategies to maintain cultural forms extended
as well to written documents. Prior to the sixteenth
century the highland Maya were a fully literate people,
recording their history and culture utilizing a hieroglyphic
script in folded screen codices made of deer skin or
bark paper. However, the importance of these painted
codices prompted Colonial ecclesiastical authorities
to single them out for destruction in an effort to protect
the Indians from their former paganism. Fray Bartolomé de
las Casas wrote that in 1540 he saw numerous such books
in the Guatemalan highlands which "recorded
their history for more than eight hundred years back." Las
Casas later lamented that when found, all such books
were burned. Of the numerous highland Maya hieroglyphic
codices which once existed, not a single one is known
to have survived these purges, prompting some scholars to
question whether any significant remnants of Precolumbian
art or ritual survived the first shock of conquest. 5. It
is my assertion that important elements of Maya iconography
and ceremonialism were never completely suppressed. Traditionalist
Maya scribes and shamans actively sought to preserve
the basic tenets of Precolumbian cosmology while grafting
onto them those aspects of Christian worship which were
consistent with their own indigenous world view. Soon
after the Conquest, literate members of the highland
Maya nobility made a number of lengthy copies of Precolumbian
books utilizing the Latin script in an effort to preserve
what they could of their history and cultural heritage. A
notable example of such an extant transcription is the Popol
Vuh, the most complete account of Precolumbian
history and myth known from the Maya world. Its
native Maya authors compiled the book in the mid-sixteenth
century in an effort to record the acts of ancient gods
who carried out their purpose "as enlightened beings,
in enlightened words" long before the arrival of
the Christian god. Thus the book contrasts
its "ancient word," which contains light and
life, with that of the more recent voice of Christianity. In
highland Maya society, antiquity denotes authority. In
1977, a K’iche’-Maya priest-shaman in Momostenango attested
to me that the traditional Maya god of the earth, Tiox
Ulew, is greater than Christ and the saints because
he was worshiped by his people for centuries before the
arrival of Europeans. 6. The
highland Maya were particularly successful in preserving
the contents of such ancient books. Two hundred
years after the Conquest, Francisco Ximénez wrote that
many ancient books, including the transcribed text of
the Popol Vuh, were kept in secret by the indigenous
elders of Chichicastenango so that local Christian authorities
would not learn of them. Far from being forgotten
tales, he found that these texts were "the
doctrine which they first imbibed with their mother’s
milk, and that all of them knew it almost by heart." As
recently as 1973, Robert Carmack discovered the presumably
lost sixteenth century transcription of the Título
Totonicapan, along with a number of other documents,
which the Maya mayor of the village of Yax kept in an
old chest. 7. The
best source for ancient highland Maya cosmology is the Popol
Vuh which describes the creation of the world
and the role of the gods in maintaining life. The
text relates the history of a god named Hun Hunahpu,
likely a manifestation of the Precolumbian Maya god of
maize, who descended beneath a great mountain into
the underworld realm of Xibalba, there to confront the
twin lords of death. After a number of trials,
the maize god was ultimately defeated and sacrificed. The
victorious underworld lords then took his head and placed
it in the branches of a dead tree. The instant
the head touched the tree, it miraculously came to life
with abundant foliage and fruits which resembled the
god’s skull. In ancient Maya art, this was the
sacred World Tree which represented the ability of life
to spring forth from the realm of the dead. Like
the maize god, the dead seed of corn is planted beneath
the earth in the underworld. With time, the grain
of maize germinates and sprouts new life from its dry,
bony husk. Ancient art often depicts the maize
god rising out of a cleft in the earth with his arms
outstretched, a symbol of his rebirth from death as a
maize plant. In the central panel from the Temple
of the Foliated Cross at Palenque, the World Tree appears
as a fruitful stalk of maize, each ear bearing the head
of the maize god. 8. Ancient Maya inscriptions on carved stone stelae and architecture continue the story. After he rose from the dead, the maize god was paddled in a canoe to the center of the sky, located at the base of the Milky Way near the constellation of Gemini, which the Maya represented as a pair of copulating peccaries. There the maize god oversaw the setting of three great stones in the constellation of Orion. This was the great hearth of the universe. Fire was kindled there, quickening the cosmos and allowing life to emerge. Today the Maya still have three-stone hearths in the center of their houses. It is around this hearth that the family spends much of its indoor time, gathered at the place where maize, still the main staple of the Maya diet, is prepared and cooked to sustain life. After the foundations of the hearth were set, the maize god erected a great World Tree to support the vault of the heavens, and to serve as the axis point around which the world would be created. Its roots extended down into the underworld, while its branches stretched out to the four cardinal directions.
III. Selected Popol Vuh Bibliography
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