The Story of the Maya

Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya tells the Maya genesis. The text is translated by Allen J. Christenson. The translator's preface states, "The Popol Vuh is the most important example of Precolumbian Maya literature to have survived the Spanish conquest. Its significance may be seen in the numerous versions of the text that have been published. In the past three hundred years, the Popol Vuh has been translated approximately thirty times into seven languages. Unfortunately, most of these translations were not based on the original Quiché-Maya Text, but rather on various Spanish versions derived from it" (Christenson 24). Some of the key characters in Popol Vuh are the Hero Twins (Hunahpu and Xbalanque), their grandmother Xmucane, their brothers One Batz and One Chouhen, their father One Hunahpu, and their uncle Seven Hunahpu, and the different Lords of Xibalba. 

Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque

Since the beginning of their lives, The Hero Twins lived their life in trickery and deceit. They tricked their brothers to retrieve birds from a tree, but the Hero Twins turned their brothers into monkeys. They deceive their grandmother into thinking they had been working in the maize field all day, but they were just playing with their blowguns. The boys get wind of their father's old ballgame equipment from a captured rat, who stated, "it is what belonged to your fathers, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu by name, who died in Xibalba" (Christenson 151). The twins start playing ball on the court. The Xibalban lords were not pleased with this as it was disruptive to the lords, the same way One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu had disrupted the lords with their ball games a while back in the story. So the Hero Twins were summoned to Xibalba, and the lords try all their might to kill the twins, but to no avail. The Hero Twins have some magic powers and strengths that allow them to trick and deceive the lords. Finally, the Hero Twins jump into an oven and the lords believe they have finally killed the Twins. The Twins were resurrected after 5 days and "people saw them in the river, for the two of them appeared like people-fish" (Christenson 180). They did not reveal who they truly were. They disguised themselves as poor orphans. They went down to Xibalba and entertained the lords with their supernatural abilities. Hunahpu was sacrificed by Xbalanque, then he was brought back to life. The lords wanted this done to them as well. The Hero Twins murdered all of the lords in Xibalba.

Maize God

The Hero Twins avenged One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu's deaths. At the Hero Twin's death, maize that had previously sprouted at grandmother Xmucane's field had dried up. However, the ears of maize had sprouted once again, and the grandmother had made an offering as a memorial to the Hero Twins. Xmucane had deified her grandchildren, the Hero Twins. She called the maize field "Center House, Center Ancestral Plot, Revitalized Maize, and Leveled Earth" (Christenson 189). This is how Xmucane will remember her twin grandsons, and this explains the origin of the Maya people. Maize became popular in the Quiché nation, and the creators of the first humans made the first people from Maize. Maize is of great significance to the creation and survival of the Maya. The Maya kept a sense of time by the growing cycles of corn. 

Works Cited

        Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh. University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

        Living Maya Time: Sun, Corn, and the Calendar. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, https://maya.nmai.si.edu/corn-and-maya-time. Accessed 7 Oct 2021.