The Maya left behind not only the ruins of once majestic cities, pyramids and products made of various metals. As an inheritance to their descendants, they passed on an amazing book, which tells about the creation of the world and the history of the most mysterious people.
"Book of the People" and translation difficulties
In fact, it is even surprising that Popol-Vuh (translated as “Book of the People”) managed to survive to this day. But even now, researchers cannot say with absolute certainty when and by whom this literary monument was written. Most likely, it was created approximately in the 16th century, presumably in Santa Cruz Quiche. And for the "base" the author took numerous legends of the late Maya-Quiche Indians, whose culture had practically died out by that time.
A century and a half later, the creation was found by a Dominican monk Francisco Jimenez, who at the beginning of the 18th century was the rector of a church in the Guatemalan town of Santo Tomas Chuvila (the Indians themselves called this settlement Chichikas Tenango). We can say that future researchers of the culture of the Indians were lucky. After all, the monk knew the Quiche language perfectly and, in general, was very interested in the past. Therefore, Francisco realized that the found artifact is of historical value and he made the translation as accurate as possible.
As is often the case, no one paid attention to the literary heritage of the Quiche. Only many years later, the Austrian Karl Scherzer discovered the transfer of a monk at the University of Guatemala San Carlos. And only after that the researchers became seriously interested in the manuscript.
Soon the French scholar Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg translated the historical document into French. In 1861 he published the translation along with the original. The Frenchman called his work “Popol-Vuh. The Holy Book and Myths of American Antiquity”. Only after that the Maya-Quiche literary heritage became known all over the world.
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And, as they say, it rushed. Every more or less confident explorer of Central and South America considered it his sacred duty to do his own translation, and the work of de Bourbourg was taken as a basis. But, by and large, they all turned out to be a failure, since the translators were very loose about the original (after all, many points from the book were simply incomprehensible to them). Unfortunately, this list also includes the translation of K. Balmont, which was published in the diary "Snake Flowers". Only three researchers were able to translate an Indian manuscript with real scientific processing - these are the Frenchman J. Reynaud and the Guatemalan A. Resinos. And the best translation, according to scientists, belongs to the German Schulze-Pen.
What's valuable in the book?
In "Popol-Vukha" there are several mythological cycles that have different origins. Some were created by the Indians at the very beginning of the inception of their cults, others a little later, when the Maya came into contact with the Nahua peoples. But most of it is still reserved for the most ancient legends, which tells about the origin of the world and the heroic adventures of the two twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.
This, one might say, Indian "Bible" has four parts. The first two and a part of the third tell directly about the creation of the world, as well as about the confrontation of good heroes with the forces of evil. In the last section, all attention is paid to the misadventures of the Indians. The book tells in detail about their ordeals, how they got to the land of modern Guatemala, founded a state there and heroically fought against numerous opponents. The interesting thing is that the original text itself was written in solid form, without any separation. The first to introduce parts and chapters into the book was the already mentioned Frenchman Brasseur de Bourbourg.
The original Popol-Vukh was created by rhythmic prose, which is distinguished by a certain, equal number of stressed syllables in a certain paragraph. Ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian poets used to “indulge” in this arrangement of the text. Also "Popol-Vukh" is endowed with special "keywords", which are the main carriers of the semantic load. Simply put, each new sentence is built in parallel, as well as in opposition to the previous phrase. But the "key" is repeated. And if it does not exist, then there is necessarily a semantic opposite. For example, "day-night" or "black-white".
Quiche people
And yet the main character of the book is, of course, the Indian people. It is noteworthy how the book ends: "There is nothing more to say about the existence of the Quiche people …". After all, the main goal of creation is a story about the great past of civilization. And, as it should be in the worldview of that time, “great” means victorious wars, burned down enemy cities and towns, captured slaves, annexed territories, human sacrifices for the sake of bloodthirsty gods, and so on.
At the same time, the creator of the book in every possible way avoids those moments that can in one way or another discredit his people. Therefore, in "Popol-Vukh" there is not even a word and numerous internal strife, which the enemy peoples have successfully used. For example, kakchikeli. There is also no mention of clashes with the Spaniards in the book, because there is nothing to brag about in them. But the book clearly states that the Maya-Quiche originally lived in central Mexico, most likely in the vicinity of the Toltecs. But then something happened and they were forced to look for new territory. So the Quiche ended up in Guatemala.
Thanks to "Popol-Vukh" it became known that the Indians considered themselves to be from the northern caves, that land was called Tulan. And the entrance to it was guarded by a bat. She was a kind of mediator between the world of the living and the world of the dead. So, if you believe the legends of the Maya, their ancestors once managed to get out of the underworld and settle on a living earth.
Pavel Zhukov
