Primal Myths

by Barbara C. Sproul

  They were endowed with intelligence; they saw and instantly they could see far, they succeeded in seeing, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all around them, and they contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth.

  The things hidden [in the distance] they saw all, without first having to move; at once they saw the world, and so, too, from where they were, they saw it.

  Great was their wisdom; their sight reached to the forests, the rocks, the lakes, the seas, the mountains, and the valleys. In truth, they were admirable men, Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam.

  Then the Creator and the Maker asked them: “What do you think of your condition? Do you not see? Do you not hear? Are not your speech and manner of walking good? Look, then! Contemplate the world, look [and see] if the mountains and the valleys appear! Try, then, to see!” they said to [the four first men].

  And immediately they [the four first men] began to see all that was in the world. Then they gave thanks to the Creator and the Maker: “We really give you thanks, two and three times! We have been created, we have been given a mouth and a face, we speak, we hear, we think, and walk; we feel perfectly, and we know what is far and what is near. We also see the large and the small in the sky and on earth. We give you thanks, then, for having created us, oh, Creator and Maker! for having given us being, oh, our grandmother! oh, our grandfather!” they said, giving thanks for their creation and formation.

  They were able to know all, and they examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky and the round face of the earth.

  But the Creator and the Maker did not hear this with pleasure. “It is not well what our creatures, our works say; they know all, the large and the small,” they said. And so the Forefathers held counsel again. “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! It is not well what they say. Perchance, are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods? And if they do not reproduce and multiply when it will dawn, when the sun rises? And what if they do not multiply?” So they spoke.

  “Let us check a little their desires, because it is not well what we see. Must they perchance be the equals of ourselves, their Makers, who can see afar, who know all and see all?”

  Thus spoke the Heart of Heaven, Huracan, Chipi-Caculha, Raxa-Caculha, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Forefathers, Xpiyacoc, Xmucane, the Creator and the Maker. Thus they spoke, and immediately they changed the nature of their works, of their creatures.

  Then the Heart of Heaven blew mist into their eyes, which clouded their sight as when a mirror is breathed upon. Their eyes were covered and they could see only what was close, only that was clear to them.

  In this way the wisdom and all the knowledge of the four men, the origin and beginning [of the Quiché race], were destroyed.

  In this way were created and formed our grandfathers, our fathers, by the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth.

  (III.3) THEN their wives had being, and their women were made. God himself made them carefully. And so, during sleep, they came, truly beautiful, their women, at the side of Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam.

  There were their women when they awakened, and instantly their hearts were filled with joy because of their wives.

  Here are the names of their wives: Caha-Paluna [falling water] was the name of the wife of Balam-Quitze; Chomiha [beautiful water] was the wife of Balam-Acab; Tzununiha [water of hummingbirds], the wife of Mahucutah; and Caquixaha [water of the macaw] was the name of the wife of Iqui-Balam. These are the names of their wives, who were distinguished women.

  They conceived the men, of the small tribes and of the large tribes, and were the origin of us; the people of Quiché.

  There were many priests and sacrificers; there were not only four, but those four were the Forefathers of us, the people of the Quiché.

  The names of each one were different when they multiplied there in the East, and there were many names of the people: Tepeu, Oloman, Cohah, Quenech, Ahau, as they called those men there in the East, where they multiplied.

  The beginning is known, too, of those of Tamub and those of Ilocab who came together from there in the East.

  Balam-Quitze was the grandfather and the father of the nine great houses of the Cavec; Balam-Acab was the grandfather and father of the nine great houses of the Nimhaib; Mahucutah, the grandfather and father of the four great houses of Ahau-Quiché.

  Three groups of families existed; but they did not forget the name of their grandfather and father, those who propagated and multiplied there in the East.

  The Tamub and Ilocab also came, and thirteen branches of peoples, the thirteen of Tecpan, and those of Rabinal, the Cakchiquel, those from Tziquinaha, and the Zacaha and the Lamaq, Cumatz, Tuhalha, Uchabaha, those of Chumilaha, those of Quibaha, of Batenaba, Acul-Vinac, Balamiha, the Canchahel, and Balam-Colob.

  These are only the principal tribes, the branches of the people which we mention; only of the principal ones shall we speak. Many others came from each group of the people, but we shall not write their names. They also multiplied there in the East.

  Many men were made and in the darkness they multiplied. Neither the sun nor the light had yet been made when they multiplied. All lived together, they existed in great number and walked there in the East.

  Nevertheless, they did not sustain nor maintain [their God]; they only raised their faces to the sky, and they did not know why they had come so far as they did.

  There they were then, in great number, the black men and the white men, men of many classes, men of many tongues, that it was wonderful to hear them.

  There are generations in the world, there are country people, whose faces we do not see, who have no homes, they only wander through the small and large woodlands, like crazy people. So it is said scornfully of the people of the wood. So they said there, where they saw the rising of the sun.

  The speech of all was the same. They did not invoke wood nor stone, and they remembered the word of the Creator and the Maker, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth.

  In this manner they spoke, while they thought about the coming of the dawn. And they raised their prayers, those worshipers of the word [of God], loving, obedient, and fearful, raising their faces to the sky when they asked for daughters and sons:

  “Oh thou, Tzacol, Bitol [Creator and Maker]! Look at us, hear us! Do not leave us, do not forsake us, oh, God, who art in heaven and on earth, Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth! Give us our descendants, our succession, as long as the sun shall move and there shall be light. Let it dawn; let the day come! Give us many good roads, flat roads! May the people have peace, much peace, and may they be happy; and give us good life and useful existence! Oh, thou Huracan, Chipi-Caculha, Raxa-Caculha, Chipi-Nanauac, Raxa-nanauac, Voc, Hunahpu, Tepeu, Gucumatz, Alom, Qaholom, Xpiyacoc, Xmucane, grandmother of the sun, grandmother of the light, let there be dawn, and let the light come!”

  Thus they spoke while they saw and invoked the coming of the sun, the arrival of day; and at the same time that they saw the rising of the sun, they contemplated the Morning Star, the Great Star, which comes ahead of the sun, that lights up the arch of the sky and the surface of the earth, and illuminates the steps of the men who had been created and made….

  (III.9) HERE, then, is the dawn, and the coming of the sun, the moon, and the stars.

  Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam were very happy when they saw the Morning Star. It rose first, with shining face, when it came ahead of the sun.

  Immediately they unwrapped the incense which they had brought from the East, and which they had planned to burn, and then they untied the three gifts which they had planned to offer.

  The incense which Balam-Quitze brought was called Mixtan-Pom; the incense which Balam-Acab brought was called Cavixtan-Pom; and that which Mahucutah brought was called Caba
uil-Pom. The three had their incense and burned it when they began to dance facing toward the East.

  They wept for joy as they danced and burned their incense, their precious incense. Then they wept because they did not yet behold nor see the sunrise.

  But, then, the sun came up. The small and large animals were happy; and arose from the banks of the river, in the ravines, and on the tops of the mountains, and all turned their eyes to where the sun was rising.

  Then the puma and the jaguar roared. But first the bird called Queletzu burst into song. In truth, all the animals were happy, and the eagle, the white vulture; the small birds and the large birds stretched their wings.

  The priests and the sacrificers were kneeling; great was the joy of the priests and sacrificers and of the people of Tamub and Ilocab and the people of Rabinal, the Cakchiquel, those from Tziquinaha, and those from Tuhalha, Uchabaha, Quibaha, from Batena, and the Yaqui Tepeu, all those tribes which exist today. And it was not possible to count the people. The light of dawn fell upon all the tribes at the same time.

  Instantly the surface of the earth was dried by the sun. Like a man was the sun when it showed itself, and its face glowed when it dried the surface of the earth.

  Before the sun rose, damp and muddy was the surface of the earth, before the sun came up; but then the sun rose, and came up like a man. And its heat was unbearable. It showed itself when it was born and remained fixed [in the sky] like a mirror. Certainly it was not the same sun which we see, it is said in their old tales.

  Immediately afterward Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz were turned to stone, together with the deified beings, the puma, the jaguar, the snake, the cantil, and the hobgoblin. Their arms became fastened to the trees when the sun, the moon, and the stars appeared. All alike, were changed into stone. Perhaps we should not be living today because of the voracious animals, the puma, the jaguar, the snake, and the cantil, as well as the hobgoblin; perhaps our power would not exist if these first animals had not been turned into stone by the sun.

  When the sun arose, the hearts of Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam were filled with joy. Great was their joy when it dawned. And there were not many men at that place; only a few were there on the mountain Hacavitz. There dawn came to them, there they burned their incense and danced, turning their gaze toward the East, whence they had come. There were their mountains and their valleys, whence had come Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam, as they were called.

  —The Popol Vuh. Adrián Recinos, trans.; Delia Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley, English trans. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, pp. 81–92, 165–173, 186–190.

  MAYA

  Our Father God This modern creation myth from the Mayan Indians of Guatemala shows the effect of centuries of missonary work and the complex way in which Christian doctrines were assimilated into a basically Indian framework. In a similar Aztec myth, the Great Mother of the universe protects her unborn child, Tezcatlipoca, from the jealous star gods, her other children. When Tezcatlipoca is born, he destroys all his persecutors, transforms his sister into the moon, and becomes the sun himself.

  In this Guatemalan myth, once Our Father God demonstrates his great powers, his uncles (the ancestors or “Ancient Men,” called “Jews” by the Indians) plot his destruction. Beaten and burned, he miraculously survives, outwits his opponents, and transforms them into monkeys (as in the Popol Vuh). Although finally betrayed and crucified by the Jewish kings, Our Father God escapes up a ladder (another axis mundi connecting the profane and sacred realms) to the heavens and becomes the sun. Then, like the hero of the Popol Vuh, he destroys the ancient beings (here the kings, there the great animals) with his heat and “clears the world.”

  Not only are the Indian and Christian myths sufficiently similar in basic structure to permit easy merging, but also the experience of Christianity as a new religion supplanting an older Judaism in its own history seems easily translatable into this new culture. The Mayans thus identify their own ancestors with the “unbelieving” Jews, and describe the religious struggle and final victory of the new young god with personal conviction.

  WHEN OUR FATHER GOD was born of Our Virgin Mother, He was born there in the pasture. The ox gave him breath that he should live.

  “How did it happen that our sister [the Virgin Mother] gave birth to a son?” [asked the Ancient Men, brothers of the Virgin Mother]. “Whose is the son that our sister has?”

  Three days after birth Our Father spoke, and when the brothers [the Ancient Men] heard him speak they took him away to work. “Come with us,” they said to him. “You will be our companion, we will look after you, we will give you your food and your drink, when we have finished working we will carry you.”

  They arrived at the working place, placed an axe in the hand of Our Father God so that He should work, beat him, and then set him to clear away some trees standing in a field. He chopped at the trees only twice to clear the field, thereby winning over the brothers [who had to work all day to cut down one tree].

  “This brother [i.e., God] will become more powerful than we are,” said the brothers. “Later he will annoy us more, this fatherless orphan.”

  When they returned from work they beat him and did not give him any food; instead they handed him an axe, a cutting knife with a long wooden shaft, a machete, and a hoe, and made this brother [God] walk in front of them. They left him with his mother, saying, “Here is our brother, we will come to get him tomorrow.”

  She said, “He will not go with you again because he is very small, my son.”

  God said, “I am going with my brothers. I am going to see how they burn a field [i.e., prepare a field for cultivation].”

  [The next day] on the way [to the field] there is a volcano that is hidden from view. They beat him [God] with a whip, shouting, “You are going to be more knavish than we are. You are a son of a widow.” Then they carried him to the field, tied him to a tree by means of twenty-two new ropes, set fire to the field, and [they] the Ancient Men formed a circle around the fire. They believed that he was burned and said, “Hear how his stomach has already burst. Now we have won.”

  “Our Father God then called the “cotusa” [an animal]. The earth opened and the cotusa came to cut the ropes. Then God went with the cotusa into the earth and escaped free [from the burning field]. When the field was cold, they [the Ancient Men] went to look. God had left a kind of tree which resembles human bones at the foot of the tree to which he had been tied. “Now he is burned, now he is dead,” they cried.

  During their journey home the Ancient Men came to a volcano and there they saw him [God] playing in his hut, there with his mother. “It appears that our brother is playing there; now we are not going to win. Let us inquire if our brother has already arrived.”

  “We ordered him to leave sooner than we did,” [the Ancient Men told the Virgin Mother]. “Do not burn yourself, we said.”

  They, her brothers, returned to their houses. “Let us make a fiesta, we are sad, we did not conquer the son of the widow.” Then they searched for a drum and a chirimía [flageolet], donned their jackets, put on their masks, placed their weapons, a squirrel pelt and the pelt of a wildcat under their arms and they, the Ancient Men, danced.

  “I am going to see how my brothers dance,” said she, the Mother of Our God. “I will carry a bit of my cotton; I will arrange it [the cotton] in my basket.”

  “I am going with you, Mama.”

  “Do not go, son, they might trample on you.”

  “I can go in the basket under the cotton, and watch [them].”

  He observed what they did and then returned to his hut with his mother. Having finished dancing, the brothers of the Mother of Our Father God ate.

  “I am going to see what they are eating, Mama,” said God. He watched from the door of the house. Then they threw the bones [from the food] in the face of Our Father God. He picked them up and gathered them together, those meat bones, in his hat and carried them to his hut.
Then he planted [the bones], erected a corral, closed the corral and returned to his hut. Three days after planting he went to see it and found there good [i.e., well grown] cattle, the beast, the pig, the deer, the sheep, the goat, the armadillo, the chickens, the rabbit, the turkey, the fox, the coyote, the badger, the raccoon, the “pisote,” the poodle, the “taquazin,” the squirrel, the snake, the mouse, the bird, the lizard, the toad, the frog, the iguana, the crab, the goose, the turtle [tortoise], the buzzard, the widow [red-beaked buzzard], the sparrow hawk, the raven, the songbird, the owl, the barn owl, the cockroach, the dog, the cat, the fish, the scorpion, the butterfly, the ant, the louse, the white louse, the flea, the woodpecker [three kinds], the sparrow, the tiger, and the lion. Our Father God planted all the animals there are in the world.

  When the Ancient Men saw the corral, they opened it. [Later] when Our Father God arrived to look at it again, no more than one half of the animals were left. Yes, only the horse, the sheep, the cattle, the pig, the chickens, the duck, the turkey, the dog, and the goat, only these was Our Father God able to seize. The wild animals had already fled to the woods when he arrived.

  Our Father God went to see how they [the Ancient Men] perform their dances. He said to his mother, “I am going to form one [dance] too, like that of my brothers.”

  The mother said to him, “Liar, you can hardly do it. A gathering is necessary, there is money and food to be spent.”

  He formed it [the dance] in just one night, arranging [the performance] for midnight. When his dance began, they [the Ancient Men] heard the skyrockets. They went to watch it and saw that the dance was much better [than their dance]. Then they consulted with their companions [?], to whom the older brothers admitted that they were shamed. They threw away their dance costumes and said to the younger brother [God], “Yes, we have behaved badly to you. Excuse us, we ask pardon. Show us where you went to get your costumes.”