Creation of the world according to the "Book of the People" of the ancient Maya Indians

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Maya left behind an amazing book, which tells about the creation of the world and about the history of the most mysterious people.

In fact, it is surprising that "Popol-Vukh" (translated as "Book of the People") managed to survive to this day. Even now, researchers cannot say with absolute certainty when and by whom this literary monument was written. Most likely, it was created approximately in the 16th century, presumably in Santa Cruz Quiche. And for the "base" the author took numerous legends of the late Maya-Quiche Indians, whose culture had practically died out by that time.

A century and a half later, this creation was found by the Dominican monk Francisco Jimenez, who at the beginning of the 18th century was the rector of a church in the Guatemalan town of Santo Tomas Chuvila (the Indians called this settlement Chichikas Tenango). We can say that future researchers of the culture of the Indians were lucky. The monk knew the Quiche language perfectly and was deeply interested in the past. Therefore, Francisco realized that the found artifact is of historical value and made the translation as accurate as possible.

As is often the case, no one paid attention to the literary heritage of the Quiche. Many years later, the Austrian Karl Scherzer discovered the monk's translation at the University of Guatemala San Carlos. Only after that did the researchers become seriously interested in the manuscript.

Soon the French scholar Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg translated the historical document into French. In 1861 he published the translation along with the original. The Frenchman called his work “Popol-Vuh. The Holy Book and Myths of American Antiquity. Now about the literary heritage of the Maya-Quiche learned all over the world.

And so it began … Every more or less self-confident explorer of Central and South America considered it his sacred duty to do his own translation - the work of de Bourbourg was taken as a basis. By and large, they all turned out to be a failure, since the translators were free to relate to the original (many points from the book were simply incomprehensible to them). Unfortunately, this list also includes K. Balmont's translation, which was published in the "Snake Flowers" diary.

Only three researchers were able to translate an Indian manuscript with real scientific processing - this is the Frenchman J. Reynaud, the Guatemalan A. Resinos, and the best translation, according to scientists, belongs to the German Schulze-Pen.

What's valuable in the book?

In "Popol-Vukha" there are several mythological cycles that have different origins. Some were created by the Indians at the very beginning of the birth of their culture, others - later, when the Maya came into contact with the Nahua peoples. Most of it is devoted to the most ancient legends, which tells about the origin of the world and the heroic adventures of the two twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

This Indian "Bible" has four parts. The first two and part of the third tell directly about the creation of the world, as well as about the confrontation of good heroes with the forces of evil. The last section focuses on the misadventures of the Indians. The book tells in detail about their ordeals, how they got to the land of modern Guatemala, founded a state there and heroically fought against numerous opponents.

The original text is written in continuous writing, without any separation. The first to introduce parts and chapters into the book was the already mentioned Frenchman Brasseur de Bourbourg.

The original "Popol-Vukh" was created by rhythmic prose, which is distinguished by a certain, equal number of stressed syllables in a certain paragraph. This arrangement of the text was used at one time by the ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian poets. Also "Popol-Vuh" is endowed with special "keywords", which are the main carriers of the semantic load. Each new sentence is built in parallel, as well as in opposition to the previous phrase. But the "key" is repeated. If it does not exist, then there is necessarily a semantic opposite. For example, "day-night" or "black-white".

Quiche people

The main character in the book is, of course, the Indian people. The way the book ends is noteworthy: "There is nothing more to say about the existence of the Quiche people …". After all, the main goal of creation is a story about the great past of civilization. And, as it should be in the worldview of that time, “great” means victorious wars, burned down enemy cities and towns, captured slaves, annexed territories, human sacrifices for the sake of bloodthirsty gods, and so on.

At the same time, the creator of the book in every possible way avoids those moments that can in one way or another discredit his people. Therefore, in "Popol-Vukh" there is not even a word and numerous internal strife, which the enemy peoples have successfully used. For example, kakchikeli. There is also no mention of clashes with the Spaniards in the book, because there is nothing to brag about in them.

But the book clearly states that the Maya-Quiche originally lived in central Mexico, in the vicinity of the Toltecs. But then something happened and they had to look for new territory. So the Quiche ended up in Guatemala.

Thanks to "Popol-Vuhu" it became known that the Indians considered themselves to be from the northern caves, this land was called Tulan. And the entrance to it was guarded by a bat. She was a kind of mediator between the world of the living and the world of the dead. So, if you believe the legends of the Maya, their ancestors once managed to get out of the underworld and settle on a living earth.