The Council Book I: Creation

The Myth: The Creation of the World! Feathered Serpents and Death Gods! Descent into the Mayan Underworld! Human sacrifice! Ball sports!
The Book: The Popol Vuh
The Author: Anonymous Guatamalan Poets
This text: A prose translation by Dennis Tedlock
Price: About fifteen bucks, apparently.


"This is the beginning of the Ancient Word, here in this place called Quiché."

The Popol Vuh is the Mayan Book of Creation, Life and Kings. It was written in Latin text in the Quiché language, to preserve the ancient teachings after the Spanish Conquest.

"We will write about this now, amid the preaching of God, in Christendom now. We shall bring it out because there is no longer a place to see it, a Council Book..."

The poets talk of the original and ancient Council Book, known only to people whose identity is a carefully guarded secret. The poets used the tools of their conquerors to preserve their culture. My take on mythology is irreverent, but I pay my respects to those poets and their descendants.

The Popol Vuh threads the creation story with some hero myths; this post looks at the creation of the world, and of people.


Building a world
In the beginning, there's nothing. Well, there's the sky, obviously. And the sea. And the gods which are in the sea: Maker, Modeller; Sovereign Plumed Serpent; the Bearers, Begetters; sundry others. Plus the god in the sky, Heart of Sky. But apart from that, nothing.

Heart of Sky comes down to talk to Sovereign Plumed Serpent and says: Are we going to do this thing? And then: How are we going to do this thing?

Sovereign Plumed Serpent responds, we should probably get rid of some of this water.

So they drain the ocean a bit and the earth rises out of it, which they call "Earth".

And in doing so, the mountains separate out, and the mountain plain, and groves of trees and so forth.

Plumed Serpent is pretty happy with this.

But there is a problem: at some point dawn will happen, and they need to be ready.

Humans: Research and Development
The gods get to work and make animals: deer, birds, pumas, jaguars, serpents, rattlesnakes, fer-de-lances. They make sure they all have a place in the world, build nests for the birds, tell them whether they're supposed to be standing or on all fours.

And once everything is sorted, the gods are pretty happy.

Then Maker, Modeller says to them, ok folks, you can worship us now. Whenever you're ready.

Miscellaneous animal noises.

Alright, says Maker, Modeller, you can't talk. Bit of an oversight, not ideal in a worshipper.

Miscellaneous animal noises.

Maker, Modeller decides to call the animals "food", and sets about making a new worshipper. The gods need someone who can sing their praises, obviously, but they also need someone who can count the days and hours, someone who can plant and reap crops. Time is going to be starting real soon now, and it will need to be counted.

Maker, Modeller tries to make people out of mud.

Mud doesn't work well. It doesn't hold the shape. The mud people can't walk, talk, keep time, multiply, or avoid dissolving in water. They are even worse than the deer.

Well, shit, says Maker, Modeller.

The gods consult Grandfather Xpiyacoc, the master of coral seeds, and Grandmother Xmucane, the daykeeper and diviner, who say that to make a proper human you really need to start with something living. Maker, Modeller takes their advice and makes some people out of wood.

These people meet some of the design specifications: they walk around, they reproduce, they kind of talk.

But they're dumb, and they've got no interest in counting hours, and they absolutely suck as worshippers. No respect for their creators at all.

So the gods send a flood, and they send a rain of fire, and they send Sudden Bloodletter and Gouger of Faces and Crunching Jaguar and Tearing Jaguar, and they set the dogs on them and they set their hearthstones on them and generally wipe them out.

But some survive. This is why we have monkeys. Monkeys who love mocking the gods.

Humans: Out of Beta
By this stage, the Bearers and Begetters reckon they've worked out how to make a proper human. They go looking for a spot that has all the right ingredients and they find it, at Split Place, Bitter Water Place. They're helped by four animals: fox, coyote, parrot and crow.

Sovereign Plumed Serpent makes a human out of yellow corn and white corn, and the bitter water becomes its blood. That works well, so the gods make a few more. The first people are named Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now and Dark Jaguar. And: they're pretty good. They walk, they talk properly, they look, they listen, they think. They're pretty. They're entirely grateful to the gods for creating them, and they say so.

And the gods say, everything working ok? You can see and listen, talk and walk?

And the people say, yeah, actually, it's great. We can see everything perfectly. The entire world. And we know everything and understand everything. This is fucking awesome.

And the gods say, wait. And the gods say, god huddle.

This wasn't in the design specs, say the gods, we weren't supposed to make them better than us. Can we...maybe break them? Just a little bit?

So the gods mess up the humans' eyesight so they can only see what's in front of them, and mess with their heads a bit, and let them loose in the world.

And that's why humans are a bit crap.

But they were released on schedule, because it's just about dawn.

Next: The rise and fall of Seven Macaw