Episode Details

In The Finding of the Maize, the Bearer and the Begetter, Tepeu and Gucumatz, take counsel in the darkness upon what must enter into the flesh of man; and at Paxil, at Cayala, as the place is called, there come the ears of yellow maize and the ears of white maize, and the Fox, the Coyote, the Parrot and the Crow bring the word of them and show the road to Paxil; and Xmucané grinds the yellow maize and the white maize and makes nine drinks of it, and that food, entering into the body, brings forth strength and vigour and gives flesh and sinews to man; and of yellow maize and of white maize alone is the flesh of our first fathers formed. In The Four First Men, Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah and Iqi-Balam are fashioned and formed without mother and without father, perfect and beautiful men who speak and reason, who see and hear; their sight embraces everything at once, from the vault of the sky to the surface of the earth, and the most hidden things are seen by them at will; questioned by the Builder and the Maker, they give thanks two times, three times over, for their existence and their formation — but the Builder and the Maker do not hear these things with pleasure, for their creatures know all things, great and small; and counsel is taken anew, and a cloud is breathed upon the pupils of their eyes by the Heart of Heaven, and their sight is veiled, as the face of a mirror is covered with breath, and they see only what is near at hand; and during their sleep their wives are made, and are found beside them when they awake, and their hearts are filled with joy. In The First Wives and the Multiplying Tribes, the wives are named — Caha-Paluna, wife of Balam-Quitzé; Chomiha, wife of Balam-Agab; Tzununiha, wife of Mahucutah; and Caquixaha, wife of Iqi-Balam — and they were princesses; and these father the people, the small tribes and the great, the rootstock of the K'iche' nation, and the nations of the East are reckoned, and Tamub and Ilocab, and the thirteen branches of Tecpan; and a great number of men are made, and in the darkness they multiply, before the light of day exists, all of one single language, invoking neither wood nor stone, remembering only the word of the Creator and the Maker; and lifting their faces to the sky they ask for daughters and for sons, for open roads and paths without ambush, for the sowings and for the light, and in the waiting for the rising of the sun they contemplate the Morning Star, that great star, forerunner of the sun, which lights the vault of the sky and the surface of the earth. These are the K'iche' people's own book, written down by K'iche' authors in the 1550s and preserved in Fr. Ximénez's copy, read here with respect as the sacred and historical book it is.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening

0:04 The Finding of the Maize

3:11 The Four First Men

8:40 The First Wives and the Multiplying Tribes

From the Popol Vuh in the French translation of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris, 1861), from the K'iche' text preserved in the copy of Francisco Ximénez — a fresh in-house English rendering.

Popol Vuh.

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