The Maya: The story of creation
Just as the Bible includes a mixture of historical accounts and myths, so does the the sacred book Popol Vuh (Book of Advice) recounts the history and mythology of the Maya.
The Maya believed that the Earth was flat, with 13 levels of heaven above it and nine levels of underworld below it.
Before time existed, nothing existed but waters running infinitely beneath a blank sky. In the waters lived the sea god Gucumatz. In the sky, the god Huracán.
The two gods eventually meet and start conversating and discussing how life should be in the world (how trees should grow, how people should walk, etc). They also discuss that the waters should be cleared so that earth could emerge. Their words were what originated life.
After plants, the gods set about creating animals. Deer, pumas, snakes birds and other animals were appointed to inhabit a specific habitat.
The gods ordered the animals to speak and to honour them for giving life to the forests and mountains. However, the animals could not speak, so they got disappointed as they were looking forward for a creature which could keep count of days and praise them and offering them sacrifices. So they decided to make human beings.
After a failed attempt with mud, the gods consulted a deity couple, Xpiyacoc and Xmucané, and asked them if wood would be a suitable material to make human beings. The pair of deities responded affirmatively, so Gucumatz and Huracán filled the world with wooden people.
Even though the wooden people were an upgrade relative to the mud people, the gods were dissatisfied, for even though they could speak, their minds were empty – they did not remember their creators, let alone honour them.
So, away with the wooden people. Huracan produced violent rainstorms, and the resulting floods drowned most wooden people. The survivors were devoured by monsters unleashed by the gods, or attacked by the animals.
There were a few survivors though, who the gods allowed to continue living, and these became the monkeys.
One Hunahpú and Seven Hunahpú
Now, Xpiyacoc and Xmucané had two sons: One Hunahpú and Seven Hunahpú. They loved playing the Mesoamerican ball game, but when they did, it was so loud that the noise would reach the underworld, a place called Xibalba.
The lords of the underworld, One Death and Seven Death, were extremely annoyed by the racket so they decided to challenge the brothers to play ball in Xibalba.
One Hunahpú and Seven Hunahpú immediately agreed, but when they arrived at Xibalba, they were greeted with practical jokes by the lords of Xibalba. One of these consisted in giving the brothers a burning torch and two lighted cigars. The lords of Xibalba told them that, on the day of the game, neither the flaming torch nor the cigars could have been burned down.
It was a fool’s errand.
When One Hunahpú and Seven Hunahpú met the lords the next morning and showed them the remains of the cigars and torch, they were sentenced to death. One Hunahpú’s head was cut off from his body and placed in the fork of a tree. His body was buried near the tree, together with his brother.
To the astonishment of the lords of Xibalba, the tree flourished beautifully, and from then on, this tree became sacred.
The tale of the Hero Twins
One day, the daughter of one of the underworld lords was passing by the tree and when she tried to pick a fruit from the tree the head of One Hunahpú spat on her hand. As a result, she became pregnant with twin boys, which later became known as the Hero Twins.
After they were born, they quickly found a penchant for their father’s ball game.
It wasn’t long until the lords of Xibalba summoned the youngsters to a match in the underworld. They tried to trick them in the same ways as they tricked their father, but the Hero Twins didn’t fall for any of underworld lords’ tricks.
Despite devising many more tests to trick and defeat the Hero Twins, the two brothers always managed to outwit the lords of the underworld.
After conquering death, the Hero Twins rose to the heavens to later become the sun and the moon.
One Hunahpú: the Maize God
Now, before departing to the skies, the Hero Twins reassembled the body of their father, One Hunahpú, who was to remain in Xibalba and be honoured by all men. One Hunahpú became the Maize God (or First Father), and he is the creator of the current world age.
One of his first actions was to raise a huge world tree (a maize plant) that supported the center of the Earth and connected the three realms: earth, heavens and underworld.
But there was still the issue of creating humans capable of offering praise, the original task by the gods of the sea and sky, Gucumatz and Huracán.
They received news by four animals: a crow, a parrot, a rabbit, and a coyote, about the presence of corn and other edible things in the mountains.
The animals gave the gods samples of corn ears, with which the gods had them modeled into human beings. Satisfied with the results, these four beings became the founding fathers of the principal Maya lineages.