Chapter Two: The Creation of Men

The “Popol Vuh” or “Book of Councils” was effectively the Bible of the Quiché-Maya of what today is Guatemala. It is also perhaps the best-known literary text of the pre-Hispanic era in the Americas. This chapter offers us a Mayan view of the flawed creation of the first humans.

…And when the creation of all the four-legged creatures and the birds was done, the Creator and the Shaper and the Progenitors said to them:

“Speak, shout, chirp, call, speak each one according to your species, according to the variety of each one.” Thus they told the deer, the birds, lions, tigers and serpents.
“Speak your names now, praise us, your mother, your father. Invoke Huracán, Chipi-Calculhá, Raxa-Calculhá, the Heart of the Sky, the Heart of the Earth, the Creator, the Shaper, the Progenitors; speak, invoke us, adore us!” they told them.

But they could not make them speak like men; they only screeched, cackled and croaked; there was no shape to their language, and each one cried out in a different manner.

When the Creator and the Shaper saw that it was not possible to make them speak, they said one to another: “They have not been able to say our name, the name of their creators and shapers. This is not good,” said the Progenitors among themselves.

So they told them: “You shall be changed because you have not been able to speak. We have changed our plan: you shall have your food, your grazing, your habitation and your nests; they shall be the ravines and the forests, because you have not been able to adore us or to invoke us. There shall be others who adore us; we shall make other beings who are obedient. You shall accept your fate: your flesh shall be ground up. So shall it be. This shall be your fate.” Thus they spoke when they made their will known to the animals great and small that live on the face of the earth.

Then the animals wanted to try again; they wanted to make another attempt and again lift their voices to adore them.

But they could not understand their language among themselves, they could achieve nothing and they could do nothing. For this reason their flesh was burned and they were condemned to be eaten and killed, all the animals that exist over the face of the earth.

Thus the Creator, the Shaper and the Progenitors were compelled to make a new attempt to create and shape man.

“We shall try again! The dawn and the sunrise draw near; let us make ones who shall sustain us and feed us! What shall we do to be invoked, to be remembered over the earth? We have already tried with our first works, our first creatures; but they were not able to praise us and venerate us. Let us try now to make some obedient and respectful beings, who sustain us and feed us.” Thus they spoke.

Thus was the creation and formation. From earth, from mud they made the flesh [of man]. But they saw that it was not good, because he fell apart, he was soft, he had no movement, no strength, he collapsed, he was watery, he could not move his head, his face fell to one side, his vision was veiled, he could not see behind him. In the beginning he spoke, but he had no understanding. He quickly became damp in the water and he could not stand upright.

And the Creator and the Shaper said: “It is clear that he could not walk nor multiply. Let us ponder these things,” they said.

Then they took apart and undid their work and their creation. And then they said: “What shall we do to perfect our work, so that our adorers, our invokers, turn out well?” Thus they spoke when they consulted again among themselves.

“Let us tell Ixpiyacoc, Ixmucané, Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú: Try your luck again! Try to make the creation!” Thus spoke the Creator and the Shaper among themselves when they spoke to Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucané.

And then they spoke to those diviners, the grandmother of the day, the grandmother of the dawn, who were named thus by the Creator and the Shaper, and whose names were Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucané.

And Huracán, Tepeu and Gucumatz said, when they spoke to the foreseer, to the shaper, who are the diviners: “We must come together and find a way for the man that we shall create to sustain us and feed us, invoke us and remember us.”

“Enter, then, into consultation, grandmother, grandfather, our grandmother, our grandfather, Ixpiyacoc, Ixmucané; let it be clear, let the dawn come, so that we may be invoked, so that we may be adored, so that we may be remembered by the created man, by the shaped man, by the mortal man; let it be so.

“Make known your nature, Hunaphú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú, twice mother, twice father, Nim-Ac, Nimá-Tziís, the Lord of the emerald, the jeweller, the sculptor, the carver, the Lord of the beautiful plates, the Lord of the green jicara cup, the master of the resin, the master Toltecat, the grandmother of the son, the grandmother of the dawn, who shall be named thus by our works and our creatures.
“Cast lots with your corn kernels and tzité seeds. Let it be so and it shall be known whether we shall work or carve his mouth and his eyes in wood.” Thus they spoke to the diviners.

And then came the divination, the casting of lots with the corn and the tzité. “Lots! Creature!” an old man and an old woman called to them. And this old man was of the lots of the tzité, the one called Ixpiyacoc. And the old woman was the diviner, the shaper whose name was Chiracán Ixmucané.

And beginning the divination, they spoke this: “Come together! Speak, that we may hear you, tell, declare if it is meet that the wood be joined and be worked by the Creator and the Shaper, and if this [the man of wood] is he who shall sustain us and feed us when the light comes, when dawn comes!”

You, corn, you, tzité, you, lots, you, creature; join together, unite!” they said to the corn, to the tzité, to the lots, to the creature. “Come and sacrifice here, Heart of the Sky; do not castigate Tepeu and Gucumatz!”

Then they spoke and they said the truth: “Well made shall be your dolls of wood; they shall speak and converse, your dolls of wood, they shall speak and converse over the face of the earth.”

“Let it be so!” they answered when they spoke.

And at that instant were made the dolls worked in wood. They looked like man, they spoke like man, and they populated the surface of the earth.

They existed and they multiplied; they had daughters, they had sons, the dolls of wood; but they had no soul, no understanding, they did not remember their Creator, their Shaper; they wandered aimlessly and they went about on all fours.

They no longer remembered the Heart of the Sky and for that they fell in disgrace. It was only a practice, an attempt to make men. They spoke in the beginning, but their face was fleshless; their feet and their hands had no consistency; they had no blood, no substance, no moisture, no fatness; their cheeks were dry, dry were their feet and their hands, and yellow was their flesh. For this reason, they no longer thought of the Creator or the Shaper, of those who had given them their being and had cared for them.

These were the first men who in great number existed over the face of the earth.

Translated by Martin Boyd