Popul Vuh Analysis

The Popul Vuh is a myth or story describing the process of the earth and all of its inhabitants being created according to what the Mayans believe. Throughout this passage there are a few questions historians can ask and many are answered, including: What are some important aspects of Mayan culture and what items do they cherish? What is the purpose for writing this material? Who was this story intended for?
Just as all other writings, this story has some bias to address before breaking down the material. One example is that the entire passage is strictly based on what the Mayan are familiar with and does not extend much past their environment. Meaning they speak specifically about the animals and plants they know and give them much

higher value than other things. Jaguars and corn specifically seem to have much greater significance and worth than they would to people today that are not from that region. This is quote is an example of the how often jaguar was used “There came Crunching Jaguar: he ate their flesh. There came Tearing Jaguar: he tore them open.” Jaguar is also capitalized and given titles in this quote showing power or importance. There is also the fact that the story is written in a way that does not have any question about the way these events take place. The passage is written as if it is complete fact and does not give the information as an option; it gives the information as the only choice. Another form of bias to watch out for would be bias from the reader. Since there is disagreement between where we think human life began and where the Mayans believe life began. It can be easy for someone to judge their beliefs or push them aside because they do not align with the reader’s beliefs, but that should be avoided. As a reader you need to be careful to understand why the writer of the story wrote this way and why it is important instead of dismissing it.
The intended audience for this passage seemed to be anyone and everyone within Mayan culture. It is a story that can answer one of life’s most fundamental questions: How did we get here? It also helps shed some light on: why people are here? Humans question everything, so this story was directed to any curious Mayan individual who questioned the world and its existence.
This passage was written to inform Mayan people.

This story helps to fill the emptiness of uncertainty, because for many it is much easier to believe in something someone tells you than to question life and get the answers for yourself. It is can be settling to have someone tell you all the answers to all your questions, if they have already ventured the spirituality of this world and have made conclusions that you can align with then it makes your life much easier. It gives everyone one less thing to worry about. It also helps to establish reasons for many of the Mayan actions like sacrifices. It consolidates the purpose for killing people because there is a great power that created the world that wants the Mayans worship. One can see the Mayan’s gods need for human worship here “Name our names, praise us. We are your mother, we are your father,” This is from a part of the story when the gods try to make humans to worship and speak to them, but they fail and create animals unable of worship, which upsets

them.
This anger further clarifies that they deeply crave human attention and interaction. This section of writing can lead to further purpose for creating this passage. If the creator of this passage truly believed in these gods and thought they craved worship from humans, then it would be reasonable to create a text to show others that worship of these gods is important. This is especially important because there are other portions of the text that show the gods creating human like creatures that do not worship that they wipe out with a flood as seen here “They were not competent, nor did they speak before the builder and the sculptor who made them and brought them forth, and so they were killed, done in by a flood.” The last thing anyone would want to do, if they believed in these gods, would be to not worship them; so that could be why they wrote this story.
This passage can give readers a basic understanding of what was important to the Mayans and how they lived. Throughout the passage as previously stated the author refers to a few plants and animals much more than the others and gives them more importance. Through this quote “After that, they put it into words: the making, the modeling of our first mother-father, with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh, food alone for the human legs and arms, for our first fathers” one can see the how the Mayans valued corn. This quote is describing the third and final time the gods tried to make competent humans who could worship them. Corn specifically was used as one of the most important ingredients in creating humans, showing that Mayans must have thought very highly of corn and it must have played an important role in their lives. The jaguar also seemed to stand out in the writing because there were multiple instanced where “Jaguar” was used as a title or a name for important people and was capitalized as shown here “Jaguar Quitze, Jaquar night, Mahucutah, and True Jaguar were truly gifted people” This quote gives the impression that if “Jaguar” is put in your name you are gifted or powerful, meaning jaguars were known to be superior to other animals and caught the attention of the Mayans.
This passage also answers many questions about the Mayans spiritual beliefs, like did they have gods and if so how many?

This writing shows that the Mayans did in fact believe in gods, as stated earlier. Through the text there is mention of many different gods with all kinds of unique duties and features. Many of these gods can be seen in this quote “Only the Maker, Modeler alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, the Bearers, Begetters are in the water, a glittering light. They are there, they are enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green.” These god like beings named in the previous excerpt seemed to be alone in an empty world with only water and sky as shown here “Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky; there is nothing whatever gathered together. It is at rest; not a single thing stirs. It is held back, kept at rest under the sky” The passage goes on to show many ways of how these beings start to shape the earth and create life as well as introduce more higher beings who also help to create things of the earth like they are

today.
The Mayans did seem to believe in gods, and as previously stated, the gods crave worship. This shows that the Mayan Gods were not just around for earth’s creation, but they have an active role in everyday life. They must be entertained and respected for life to continue because they can change anything in an instant if they please. This is reiterated in this quote “And such was the loss of means of understanding, along with the means of knowing everything, by the four humans.” Where the humans were already created and the gods interfered again to take away some of human’s intelligence, because the humans knew so much they had less respect for the gods than the gods wanted them to have.
Lastly some texts that would aid in understanding this material would include writing describing in more detail what each god was like and why one would do something and not the other. It would help to understand the process of the world being built better. There are a lot of gods and it would be nice to see if there was a hierarchy between them or if they were all one in the same. The text talked about the gods as if the reader already knew exactly who the gods were but we don’t. Another text that could be helpful would be a set of laws obeyed by the Mayan people. This could show how closely they’re spiritual belief tied to their everyday lives and how big of a role the things of this passage played in types of organization or governing the Mayans.