Popol VuhMesoamerican MythologyAncient Myth / ComparativeK'iche'SharePopol Vuh 12Spence - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableSpenceLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Popol Vuh 1Popol Vuh 2Popol Vuh 3Popol Vuh 4Popol Vuh 5Popol Vuh 6Popol Vuh 7Popol Vuh 8Popol Vuh 9Popol Vuh 10Popol Vuh 11Popol Vuh 12Popol Vuh 13Popol Vuh 14Popol Vuh 15Popol Vuh 16Popol Vuh 17›Book Iii. Commented UponPopol Vuh 12ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1We are here engaged with the problem which the origin of man presented to the Kiché mind, and we shall find that its solution bears a remarkable likeness to that of similar American myths. We seldom hear of one first-created being. In the creation-myths of the New World four brothers are usually the progenitors of the human race. Man in these myths is nearly always earth-born. He and his fellows emerge from some cavern or subterranean place, fully grown and fully armed. Thus the Blackfoot Indians emerged from Nina-stahu, a peak in the Rockies. In the centre of Nunne Chaha, the High Hill, was a cavern, the house of the Master of Breath, whence came the Choctaws. The Peruvians come from Pacari Tambu, the House of the Dawn, near Cuzco, and an ancient legend of the Aztecâ states that they came from Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, to the north of Mexico. 2We find the first Mayan men speedily engaged in migration. Such must always be the life of the unsettled and unagricultural savage. He multiplies. Gods are given to each tribe. These he bears to a new country. In fact we have a complete migration myth in the Third Book of the "Popol Vuh," and there are not wanting signs to show that this migration took place from the cold north to the warm south. The principal item of proof in favour of such a theory is, of course, the statement that the sun was "not at first born," and that at a later stage of the journey, when his beams appeared upon the horizon, it was as a weaker and dimmer luminary that he seemed to the wanderers than in after years. The allusion to "shining sand," by the aid of which they crossed rivers, may mean that they forded them when covered with ice. The whole myth is so strikingly akin to the Aztecân migration-myth given in the Mexican MS. in the Boturini Collection (No. 14, sec. viii.) that we cannot refrain from appending a short passage from the latter: 3"This is the beginning of the record of the coming of the Mexicans from the place called Aztlan. It is by means of the water that they came this way, being four tribes, and in coming they rowed in boats. They built their huts on piles at the place called the Grotto of Quinevayan. It is there from which the eight tribes issued. The first tribe is that of the Huexotzincos, the second tribe the Chalcas, the third the Xochimilcas, the fourth the Cuitlavacas, the fifth the Mallinalcas, the sixth the Chicimecas, the seventh the Tepanecas, the eighth the Matlatzincas. It is there where they were founded in Colhuacan. They were the colonists of it since they landed there, coming from Aztlan.... It is there that they soon afterwards went away from, carrying before them the god [20] Vitzillopochtli, which they had adopted for their god.... They came out of four places, when they went forward travelling this way.... There the eight tribes opened up our road by water." 4We find a similar myth in the Wallam Olum, or painted records of the Lenape Indians. "After the flood," says this record, "the Lenape with the manly turtle beings dwelt close together at the cave house and dwelling of Talli.... They saw that the snake land was bright and wealthy. Having all agreed, they went over the water of the frozen sea to possess the land. It was wonderful when they all went over the smooth deep water of the frozen sea at the gap of snake sea in the great ocean"5. 5We thus see that the Third Book of the "Popol Vuh" is a migration saga of a type not uncommon in America. Asiatic tribes may have come down from the Chi-Pixab of the "Popol Vuh" to British Columbia, and thence by easy stages to Central America. And the Third Book of the "Popol Vuh" may be the distant echo of a mighty wave of colonisation, whose sound swept the entire surface of the New World. ‹Previous chapterPopol Vuh 11Next chapterPopol Vuh 13›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg