Fresh Batch #90: Popol Vuh, the Book of the Community

Is It Authentic or a Forgery?

‘Creation’ (1931), a watercolor by Diego Rivera illustrating a scene from the ‘Popol Vuh.’ PHOTO: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Popol Vuh was allegedly from the people in the region we call Guatemala. I think it is worth bringing to your attention, regardless of its authenticity, because a significant amount of people in that region believe it is their tradition. However, it’s important to recognize that the Mexicans didn’t have use of letters, and that the people responsible for this story migrated to Guatemala from the Yucatán after that portion of the civilization experienced collapse (if the status quo is correct, which they might not be). The form of communication and history they had, according to the available accounts, was done in glyphs and paintings, which the Inquisition burned for reasons explained in Spirit Whirled: Terminalia.

In the Popol Vuh, humans were created after animals and sprouted from corn cobs. Photo: MSN

According to Wiki, One of the most significant surviving Mesoamerican literary documents and primary sources of knowledge about Maya societal traditions, beliefs and mythology is a product of the 16th-century Kʼicheʼ people. This document, known as the Popol Vuh (Pop wuj in proper Kʼiche – the book of events) and originally written around the 1550s, contains a compilation of mythological and ethno-historical narratives known to these people at that time. These were drawn from earlier pre-Columbian sources (now lost) and also oral traditions. This sacred narrative includes their creation myth, relating how the world and humans were created by the gods, the story of the divine brothers, and the history of the Kʼicheʼ from their migration into their homeland up to the Spanish conquest.

The Popol Vuh, from its creation to present day, has developed as an important symbol of indigenous culture for both present-day Guatemalans and people of Mayan descent. This sacred text has been used in religious and spiritual ceremonies, university studies, political movements and protests, and historical research into the lives of the Mayans and, more specifically, the Kʼicheʼ people. In 1971 it was declared the official book of Guatemala. The Popol Vuh has been used by people of Mayan descent in present-day Guatemala to defend their traditional lands and political rights in order to preserve their indigenous culture. To this day, the Popol Vuh continues to be analyzed and studied to better understand the spiritual beliefs and practices of the Maya, and how these have shaped present-day cultures.

Kʼicheʼ (pronounced [kʼiˈtʃeʔ]; previous Spanish spelling: Quiché) are indigenous peoples of the Americas and are one of the Maya peoples. The Kʼicheʼ language is a Mesoamerican language in the Mayan language family. The highland Kʼicheʼ states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization, and reached the peak of their power and influence during the Mayan Postclassic period (c. 950–1539 AD).

The meaning of the word Kʼicheʼ is many trees. The Nahuatl translation, Cuauhtēmallān Place of the Many Trees (People), is the origin of the word Guatemala. Quiché Department is also named for them.

The name Popol Vuh translates as Book of the Community or Book of Counsel (literally Book that pertains to the mat, since a woven mat was used as a royal throne in ancient Kʼicheʼ society and symbolised the unity of the community). It was originally preserved through oral tradition until approximately 1550, when it was recorded in writing. The documentation of the Popol Vuh is credited to the 18th-century Spanish Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez, who prepared a manuscript with a transcription in Kʼicheʼ and parallel columns with translations into Spanish.

The oldest surviving written account of Popol Vuh (ms c. 1701 by Francisco Ximénez, O.P.)

Gordon wrote (Before Columbus, p. 155), “Before the Conquest, the P.V. in native script was treasured as scripture, as is clear from a passage in the sixteenth-century manuscript which Ximénez translates: ‘And there was a place where they could see everything, and a book of all, which they call Book of the Community [i.e., Popol Vuh]’ (P.V., p. 225, n. 3).”

There are definitely some interesting quotes and parallels to other creation stories in the Popol Vuh, but it’s problematic because there is nothing to support its antiquity. Gordon wrote of a native script yet nothing remains of it. If a book was written in a script that the community could read, then even if the Spaniards destroyed all the literature of that nation, its people would still remember how to read and write it, and though the works would be lost, the ability to read and write would not be, and the art would survive and flourish once again. You could burn my books, get rid of my computers and the internet, and I would still be able to use a stick, write in clay, bake that, and create tablets.

The first four men created in Popol Vuh read like the four cardinal points of the zodiac that mark the beginning of the seasons when the sun enters them.

“The first men to be created and formed were called the Sorcerer of Fatal Laughter, the Sorcerer of Night, Unkempt, and the Black Sorcerer … They were endowed with intelligence, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all that is around them, and they contemplated in turn the arc of heaven and the round face of the earth … [Then the Creator said]: ‘They know all … what shall we do with them now? Let their sight reach only to that which is near; let them see only a little of the face of the earth!… Are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods?’” (Popol Vuh.)

The round face of the earth is problematic because now you are dealing with a relatively new (and erroneous) concept called globe earth or disk earth, something the Mayans would not have been familiar with on account of them not being navigators, as all navigators are required to use a horizontal baseline (also known as an adjacent) to acquire an elevation angle to objects of interest in the sky, and the horizontal baseline they use is the horizon, which must be flat in order to derive a 90-degree angle to the object of interest, because in order to do trigonometry and triangulation, right angles are required, which you cannot get if the baseline is curved. See this post to refresh oneself on the use of sextants for celestial navigation, something which the natives had no idea about: Teacher Who Gets Millions of Views Lying to Children Gets Destroyed on a Livestream

The Popol Vuh is also pushing the one-world narrative, something that is a product of the Church. This is also problematic because we have never witnessed or had accounts of one race of humans becoming another race solely on account of location changes. Every change in phenotype is a result of procreation with another type. “However many nations live in the world today, however many countless people, they all had but one dawn.” (Popol Vuh.)

According to Wiki, One of the main missions of the Spanish clergy during the conquest was to convert the Mesoamerican people to Catholic Christianity. Though they never fully converted the people, they did affect their language. The Kʼicheʼ people were one of the first groups studied by the Catholic missionary religious order known as the Dominicans. The Franciscans established Theologia Indorum, a Christian theology text written in the Kʼicheʼ native language and adapting K'iche' concepts to Catholicism. The text was meant to be a tool for converting the Kʼicheʼ and other Mesoamerican groups to Christianity. To accomplish this, the Dominicans attempted to change the meaning of some native words to better reflect their Catholic concepts. They also used similar word, sentence, and rhythmic structure to the Popol Vuh to create similarities between the texts.

In my latest book Spirit Whirled: Terminalia (click the image), I showed how the Church tried to use culture diffusion to prove that all men descend from Adam and Eve.

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