Copyright © 2000 by Michael
Segers, All rights reserved
No,
despite that title, I am not trying to create a new language, just trying to
share with you a story that I have been wanting to share with you for a long
time. Somehow, though, the sacred book of the Maya people just did not seem to
fit into the framework of these columns, but then, since the only framework
seems to be to share things that I find of interest, here goes.
The
Maya live in southern Mexico and Central America. I’ve spent some very
pleasant time in the beautiful old city of Mérida, Mexico, where the sunlight
makes the typical white clothing of the Maya almost shine. In the Yucatán
peninsula of Mexico, the Maya, among the poorest of the poor, live a hard life
in a hard land but with a somber grace. In the city marketplace, they sell herbs,
vegetables, and birds which I did not know—and which they could not name for
me, since for many of them, their Spanish is limited to the numbers needed to
state the prices.
The
Maya created magnificent ceremonial centers such as Chichén Itzá, near Mérida,
which were abandoned by the time the Spanish arrived. Why they were built, and
why they were abandoned, we still do not know. We can learn much about the
ancient Maya from their complex hieroglyphics and famous calendar. Their most
famous work is their sacred book, the Popol Vuh. Although it is believed
that the manuscripts of this book were burned after the Spanish invasion, the
stories passed from generation to generation orally, until the sixteenth
century, when they were written in a manuscript that was translated into Spanish
a couple of centuries later.
The
text that I am sharing with you here is my adaptation of my translation of a
modern Spanish version. So, it is a long way from the letter of the original,
but it is at least my attempt to capture some of its spirit… with a high tech
twist, which I think the Maya would approve of. After all, they were rather high
tech in their own way, discovering the concept of "zero" and
developing a symbol for it. I used my scanner to enter the Spanish text into my
computer. Then I used the translation function at Altavista
to make the basic transition from Spanish to English, which results in a weird
mix of wrong translations and Spanish and Maya words that defeat the translator,
but which does save some time. Then, I added whatever insight, humanity, perhaps
soul that I could bring to the mechanical translation.
As
you read this, notice the similarities to the story of the creation in the book
of Genesis. Since the only text of the Popul Vuh was written after the
Spanish conquest, was the story modified to be more acceptable to the
Christians? Or, is this the way the story originally read? The truth is, we do
not know.
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The
Creation Freely condensed and adapted from the Popol
Vuh Nothing. Nothing on the earth, nothing
in the sky, nothing in the ocean. No stones, no plants, no animals. No people.
No movement. No time. No awareness. Nothing to be aware of. Everything was calm,
simply because there was nothing to disturb it. No sun, no moon, no light. Only
the three, already old, Water, Fire, and Thunder, waiting, their names already
telling the story of creation, which was in their minds as if it had already
taken place. The old ones knew that the waters and
the soil would be divided, that plants would grow, that the earth would be
divided by mountains, by valleys, by rivers. Their thoughts were pleasing to
them, but they had more thoughts: Plants were good, but animals would be good
also. And so, there were animals, and to them, the old ones said: You, beast, you will drink from the
rivers, you will sleep in the caves, you will walk on four legs, and you will
hold your head low. So shall you live in your appointed place. You, bird, you live in the trees, you
will fly through the air, and like the beasts, you will multiply, and your
children and their children will follow your example. So shall you live in your
appointed place. Each of you must see his face in the
face of his brothers, and each of you must say our names, for in our names is
the story of your origin. When you call our names, you can hear in them the
story of your life and the story of your death. All the animals of the earth and the
ocean and the air had gone to their proper places, had taken on the life that
had been given
them, but they could not name the old ones. Each animal spoke
with the voice of its kind but could not speak the names that they had been
commanded to speak.
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You
can view Maya manuscripts (codices) at:
http://pages.prodigy.com/GBonline/awmayac.html
Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your ears tuned to the ancient echoes that still tell our stories. [2004 update: echoes that cannot be long heard on the Internet. This article originally had several very good links, which I have had to remove, since they are no longer functioning.]
Religiously Ravin': Internet Pilgrimages