Popol Vuh

The Book of the Maya

For this blog post, I finished reading the book the Popol Vuh, the book in the image to the left. This is a translated book from original Maya text by Allen J. Christenson. This book is about how the Maya believe the world and everything came to be, everything from Gods to the first animals and the first people to exist. The book begins by stating "We shall begin to tell the ancient stories of the beginning, the origin of all that was done in the citadel of Quiche..." (Christenson 59). Quiche referring to the land, the nation, the capital city, and the people themselves. 

There are a lot of key characters in this story that help bring understanding to this book. But of the most important characters talked about in this text is a set of twins that are called "The Hero Twins". These twins names are Hunahpu and Xbalanque. These twins are heroes because they seek to protect all. Referring to the twins the book states "They were simply gods. As a result they saw evil in this prideful one who acted according to his own desires before the face of Heart of Sky" (Christenson 94). They sought to fight all evil.

In this story these twins anger the gods from the underworld, Xilbaba and are summoned, "Someone has begun to play again over our heads. Have they no shame, stomping about up there?" (Christenson 154). The twins go to the underground world and are put through trials where the gods are trying to defeat them. Eventually they make it out of Xilbaba and later plan their deaths, get resurrected and defeat the Xilbaba once and for all. And they they become part of the sky having finally avenged their fathers death and "comforting" him, "They arose straight into the sky. One of them arose as the sun, and the other as the moon" (Christenson). The Earth was then illuminated. 

First Translations of Maya Text 

These Hero Twins and their actions explain the origin of the Maya people because humanity is created just before they arose to the sky. These twins became the light of day and night, "They discovered and established that which would become the flesh of humanity. This took place just a little before the appearance of the sun, moon, and stars..." (Christenson 192). The creators of life were able to perform their tasks once The Hero Twins went through their life's journey, securing the earth from evil.

References

Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya.