K. Dickson
Comparative Mythology: Mesoamerica
Summary of Popol Vuh

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Part One: Creation

In the beginning, there is empty sky and calm sea. The gods of the sea (Maker, Modeler, Bearer, Begetter, Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea, Sovereign Plumed Serpent) confer with the gods of the sky (Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth, Newborn Thunderbolt, Raw Thunderbolt, Hurricane). Gugumatz (=Plumed Serpent / Quetzalcoatl) and Hurricane shape the earth and raise the sky.

The earth is then populated with animals. When the gods discover that animals cannot speak and praise their makers, they condemn them to be food for higher beings.

The gods create a human being from mud, but it dissolves.

The gods ask the diviners Xpiacoc and Xmucane, who suggest making creatures out of wood (male) and rushes (female). These beings populate the earth, but since they are arrogant and forget their makers, they are destroyed by fire and flood; the gods even turn their pots, griddles, grinding stones, and dogs against them.


Part Two: Hero Twins

Hun Hunahpu (1-Hunter) and Vucub Hunahpu (7-Hunter) are twin sons of Xpiyacoc and Xmucane. Hun Hunahpu marries Xbaquiyalo, and they too have a set of twins: Hun Batz (1-Monkey) and Hun Chuen (1-Howler), both great artists and musicians. Hun Hunahpu and his brother play ball so constantly that the noise disturbs the Lords of Xibalba (Place of Fright), who challenge them to a game in the Underworld. Hun and Vucub descend to Xibalba, guided by monstrous owls, along the Black Road that leads west.

In Xibalba they are tricked into mistaking manikins for the real Lords of Xibalba, and also into sitting on a hot stone bench. That night they are lodged in the Dark House, and fail a test in which they are required to keep a torch and cigars burning all night without consuming them. The next day, they are sacrificed and buried in the ballcourt. Hun Hunahpu is decapitated and his head stuck in a calabash tree.

The young Xibalba goddess Xquic (Little Blood ) visits the tree, where Hun Hunahpu spits in her hand and impregnates her. Her father orders that the owls cut her heart out with the White Dagger, but she persuades them to spare her, and they present the Lords of Xibalba instead with a node of red sap from a croton tree; they burn it and inhale its smoke. Xquic escapes to the upper world, where she lives with Hun Hunahpu's mother Xmucane. Xquic passes a test in which she produces a netful of corn by pulling the silk from a single ear. She then gives birth to the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque (Hunter and Jaguar Deer). As infants, they are abused by their older twin brothers, Hun Batz and Hun Chuen. The Twins later trap them up a tree, where they turn into monkeys.

The Twins attempt to clear land for a garden, but animals come each night to restore the plants they have cleared. They try to grab each of them, but succeed only in catching the rat, who in exchange for a share of future food reveals the location of the ball game equipment left behind by the deceased Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu. The Twins become expert players, and are also invited to a game in Xibalba. Before leaving, they "plant" ears of corn in the center of their house to indicate to their grandmother whether they are alive or dead.

Along the way to Xibalba, the Twins  defeat Vucub Caquix (7-Macaw), who sets himself up as a false sun with the support of his sons Zipacna and Cabracan. The Twins damage Vucub Caquix' jeweled teeth with their blowguns, then trick him into replacing them with ground corn, which falls out when he tries to eat. Vucub Caquix becomes the Big Dipper; his wife (Chimalmat) the Little Dipper.

The Twins later kill Zipacna and Cabracan. The crocodilian monster Zipacna had earlier killed the Four Hundred Boys after they failed to crush him; the Boys become the Pleiades. Zipacna himself is tricked by the Twins into crawling after an artificial crab into a tight space beneath a western mountain. The mountain falls on him, and he turns to stone. Cabracan (Earthquake) is tricked into eating birds cooked inside a coating of earth, thanks to which Cabracan too becomes covered and buried in the east.

Both during the journey and when they first arrive in Xibalba, the Twins are subjected to tests and traps, but surmount each of them. One trap involves the attempt to trick Hunahpu and Xbalanque into mistaking manikins for the real Lords, but the Twins use a mosquito to bite each god and make him reveal his true name. They also refuse to sit on the bench that had burned Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu.

Each day, the Twins play ball with the Lords; the ball is at first a skull within which the White Dagger has been hidden. Each night, the Lords require them to sleep in a different house. When told to keep their cigars lit all night in the first house and to return them whole in the morning, they put fireflies on the ends. When told to provide cut flowers in the second house — the House of Knives — they summon ants to cut flowers from the garden of Xibalba. When sent to the Cold House, they drive the cold away. In the Jaguar House, they feed jaguars with the flesh of other animals, saving their own. They also escape burning in the Fire House. In the Bat House they survive the night by sleeping in their blowguns, but when Hunahpu sticks his head out early in the morning, a bat beheads him.

With the help of some animals, Xbalanque makes a new head for Hunahpu out of a squash. As it is being fashioned, the sky begins to redden in the east, and possum delays the dawn by making four streaks on the horizon, corresponding to the four days on which a new solar year can begin. When they get to the ballcourt, the Twins discover that the Lords are using Hunahpu's head as the ball. When the Lords are tricked into chasing a rabbit pretending to be the ball, Xbalanque recovers his brother's real head.

Knowing that the Lords plan to burn them, the Twins instruct the seers Xulu and Pacam to advise that their bones be ground into powder and thrown into a river.  The Twins then let themselves be defeated and cooked in an oven.

Five days later the Twins reappear, first as catfish and then as itinerant performers. They are summoned to the court of Xibalba, where they perform a number of feats — setting fire to the house without burning it, then sacrificing and resurrecting a dog, a human, and Xbalanque himself. Two Lords of Xibalba beg the Twins to do the trick on them, too; the Twins oblige, but do not revive them.

The Twins declare that from that time on Xibalbans will receive only offerings of animals and incense made of croton sap. They then dig up the bodies of their father and uncle (Hun and Vucub Hunahpu) and revive them. Vucub Hunahpu can restore only those parts of his face whose names he can recall — mouth, nose, and eyes; he is left in Xibalba.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque walk into the sky to become the sun and moon.


Part Three: The Quiché

Xmucane again makes human creatures, this time out of four different colors of maize brought by animals from Mount Paxil. These four are the Founders of the Quiché lineage. Because they are nearly as perfect and knowledgeable as the gods themselves, however, the gods cloud their eyes, limiting their vision to only what is nearby.

The Founders go to the Mountain of Seven Caves, and there receive the gods in the form of bundles to carry on their backs. Balam Quitze receives Tohil, who in turn gives fire to humans once human sacrifice is performed for him. As a result, the true sun rises for the first time.

The Popol Vuh closes with a genealogical list tracing the Quiché from Balam Quitze to descendants in the middle of the 16th century.