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 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 www.altavista.com
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.
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.
And so, the old ones spoke once again:
You do not obey us, and so your lives
will be very different. You will live lives of fear, lives spent in causing fear
and in feeling fear. You will eat other animals, and you will be eaten.
Then, they dipped their hands into the
wet clay and formed new beings, but these were weak and crumbled and did not
have the gift of understanding.
Next, the old ones gathered wood and
made new beings, beings that could stand, like the trees from which they were
made, but when they fell, like the trees from which they were made, they could
not stand again. They walked without knowing where they walked, without
knowledge of who had made them. So the old ones sent fire to burn them, and then
a flood to wash away the ashes.
After the flood, the animals hid in the
forests, and in the fields, corn sprouted. With corn and water, the old ones
shaped four beings, four men, and the animals watched. These men were in some
ways like the beings of clay and the beings of wood. But they had within
themselves knowledge of the earth and the ocean and the sky, and they had voices
to express that knowledge:
We know who we are, and we know who made
us. We know that there is much more that we do not know, but we know that in
time, it will be shown to us.
Then, they fell into a deep sleep, and
while the slept, the old ones made women to be their companions. And so, the
earth was populated, and the new generations worked and prayed and learned the
names in which they heard the story of their birth and of their life and of
their death. So let us, even now, remember and honor the names of Water, Fire,
and Thunder, and let us listen to the stories that we hear in those names.
You
can view Maya manuscripts (codices) at:
http://pages.prodigy.com/GBonline/awmayac.html
Visit
the Museum of Mayan Culture, without traveling to the Mexican state of Quintana
Roo, but with a great introduction to the ongoing life of the Maya at:
www.chetumal.mpsnet.com.mx/museos/Maya2.htm
For
an amazing online presentation of the Popul Vuh, with more bells and
whistles than I was expecting, check:
www.stanford.edu/class/anthro98a/Browser/home.html
You
can take a leisurely photograph visit to the beautiful old city of Mérida at:
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3216/Merida.html
By
the way, to get an accent mark over a letter with Word for Windows, you have to
perform the rather awkward trick of holding down simultaneously the |CTRL| key,
the apostrophe key, and the key for the letter. Just remember, if the old ones
did not get human beings right the first time, surely we can make two or three
attempts to get the accent mark over the letter.
Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your ears tuned to the ancient echoes that still tell our stories.
Religiously Ravin': Online Pilgrimages