Summary Of The Popol Vuh

The Popol Vuh is an epic tale based on the legends of the extraordinary Mayan-Quiché civilization, which talks about the creation of the world. It is known that it is influenced by some priests who in their evangelization helped to preserve the indigenous culture as much as possible, to avoid the total loss of these cultures for which they encouraged in 1550 that some indigenous people tried to rescue as much as possible their traditions so as not to lose them and that they be absorbed and forgotten by the culture western.

Although some indigenous people exclude this hypothesis, it seems to be the most feasible, considering the support applied by the evangelizers in conserving the Vuh popol and the chilam balam.

Summary of the Popol Vuh:

The Popol Vuh tells us about the creation and growth of trees and vegetation, which preceded man, and then of animals, which were given a special place. With various elements the material was tested to make man, until the corn was the definitive one.

The lords of Xilbalba: Blood, Jaundice, Skull and Misfortune, who lived in the underworld wanted to disappear men to remain as absolute owners of the Earth, but this was not possible.

One day Ixquic (simple peasant), was in the field and went to a tree from which a voice came out that said:

- You are going to be the mother of my children, so go to Grandma's house and tell her what I just told you.

Ixquic obediently went to the grandmother's house with the help of the homing birds.

Upon arriving from her, the grandmother received her with a bad attitude, asking her what she wanted; she repeated what the tree told her. The grandmother did not believe him saying that if it was true she would have to go through some tests; she first she told him to go to the field and bring a basket full of corn; she did so she did it and later she told him that if those were her, her grandchildren would have to be born at the top of the mountain among the thorns and that on the third day they would have to return walking on their own feet and grown up.

On the third day they returned, as the grandmother had established, she was surprised and she told them that if they wanted to live there, other grandchildren of her "Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué" would have to attend to her and hers, without any claim, saying that this way would.

One day Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué told their grandmother that they did not know how to climb trees and then their grandmother told her other grandchildren that taught them, when they taught them by climbing a tree, they could no longer go down and from that moment they were the only grandchildren of the Grandma.

The messenger birds sent by the lords of Xilbaba told Ixbalanqué and Hunahpu that the lords of the underworld invited them to play ball, they without doubt they accepted and left her mother and grandmother the only cane of hers to take care of her every day and that if one day it dried up it meant that they would never return to them. watch.

Upon reaching the underworld, the lords of Xilbaba sent them to sleep in the cold house and the next day they would play. the next night they were sent to the house of darkness and the last day to the house of knives, leaving without a single cut. That day the ball game was held and they were victorious and the lords of Xilbaba told them to throw themselves into the fire, they did so and they died; But the next day they were born again and with the help of the messenger birds they made the Xilbaba lords believe that they were magicians and resurrected people, and they letting themselves be carried away asked them to do magic and Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué killed them and not they were resurrected.