When contemplating the creation of the Earth, the Sovereign Plumed Serpent and the Maker, " . . .talked, then they thought, then they worried. They agreed with each other, they joined their words, their thoughts" (Popol Vuh 73). The Popol Vuh praises the Maker and Sovereign Plumed Serpent for being "great knowers" and "great thinkers" (Popol Vuh 73). The importance of thinking to the Mayans can be seen in the Popol Vuh.

The gods' main goal in the creation was to create intelligible beings that could talk, think, and praise them-- " . . . to make a giver of praise, giver of respect, provider, nurturer" (Popol Vuh 79). David Drew explains that these beings "must praise the gods, tend to shrines, make offerings and regulate their lives by the sacred calendar" (307). After creating the earth with no animals on it, the gods complained about the lack of thinking people-- "Why this pointless humming? Why should there merely by rustling beneath the trees and bushes?" (Popol Vuh 76).

Four Attempts to Create a Being that Could Think and Praise the Gods

The gods then began their attempts to create a being that would be able to think and praise them. First, they attempted this by creating the deer, bird, puma, jaguar, and serpent. The gods told these animals, "Talk, speak out. Don't moan, don't cry out. Please talk, each to each, within each kind. Name now our names, praise us. We are your mother, we are your father. . . speak, pray to us, keep our days" (Popol Vuh 78). But the gods were disappointed when they found that the animals ". . .just squawked, they just chattered, they just howled" (Popol Vuh 78). Referring to this trial, Miguel Léon Portilla explains, " . . . the gods, so deeply concerned with having creatures capable of worshipping them, ask the various animals they had created to manifest their capacities" (109).

And so the gods made a second attempt to create a being that could think and praise them. In this attempt they created a man out of mud--but this man " . . . was just separating, just crumbling, just loosening . . . it talked at first, but senselessly. It was quickly dissolving in the water" (Popol Vuh 79). The gods failed yet again to create a being that could think and praise them.

In their third attempt, the gods make humans out of wood--but these wooden people had ". . .nothing in their hearts and nothing in their minds, no memory of their mason and builder" (Popol Vuh 83). These wooden people forgot the gods and simply did what they pleased. This angered the gods and they sent down floods and animals to attack and mutilate them. These wooden people became so mutilated that they transformed into monkeys as punishment.

The Adventures Hunahpu and Xbalanque

Before the successful creation of man out of corn, the Popol Vuh digresses into showing the importance of thought in the adventures of the twin gods Hunahpu and Xbalanque. To avenge the death of their father, the boys descend into the underworld to challenge the underworld lords. The twins are praised for their intelligence. Passing through the same trials that their father had failed in and died from, the twins successfully overcome the trials and defeat the lords.

The first test was to bid good day to twelve lords of the underworld. To discover their names, the twins sent "the creature named mosquito" to bite each one of them--as the mosquito bit the first lord, he yelled, "Ouch!", to which the neighboring lord inquired, "What is it, One Death?" This continued on till all twelve had been bitten and had said the name of each neighboring lord. Thus the twins successfully "bid the lords good day" (Popol Vuh 136).

The lords tempted the twins to sit on a stone slab, but the two boys identified it as a heated slab for cooking and refused to sit on it. In the next test, the twins were given a cigar and torch and required to ". . .return the torch in the morning, along with the cigars. [You] must return them intact" (Popol Vuh 137). The twins cleverly used the bright tail feathers of a macaw bird to make the torch appear burning and then placed fireflies in the ends of the cigars. In the morning, the torch and cigars were still intact and the lords of the underworld were foiled.

The boys then took the challenge to play a Mayan ball game against the lords. The boys were defeated and required to bring a bowl of red, white, and yellow flower petals. The lords carefully guarded their own flower garden to prevent the twins from taking petals from their garden. The twins sent ants to take the flowers, and the guards did not " . . . notice the ants stealing what's under their guard, swarming, carrying away loads of flowers . . . " (Popol Vuh 141). In the morning the lords of the underworld were stunned and "paled at the sight of the flowers" (Popol Vuh 141).

The boys successfully passed through the many tests, and then the twins began sacrificing people before bringing them back to life. They eventually tricked the lords of the underworld to be sacrificed also. Xbalanque and Hunahpu sacrificed the two main lords, but did not bring them back to life. Through their brilliance in this action and the trials, the twins successfully defeated the lords of the underworld.

Successfully Making Man Out of Corn

The gods then contemplated the creation of man as "they thought and they wondered" (Popol Vuh 163). They created men out of corn, and the men proclaimed "we speak, we listen, we wonder, we move . . ." (Popol Vuh 166). Léon Portilla points out, "To speak, see, hear, walk, grow, to be handsome, to have a face with its particular features, to breathe, are the traits this text underlines as essential attributes of man. But to see and to understand appear immediately after as that which particularly matters" (Portilla 124). The gods made the men reliant upon them, and the men gave "double thanks, triple thanks" (Popol Vuh 166).

Human Sacrifice

The gods instructed the men to perform human sacrifice, explaining, "This is your way of giving thanks before your god" (Popol Vuh 176). They would remove the hearts of their victims, which is quite literally a "heartfelt thanks" (Popol Vuh 181). The Mayans also performed sacrifices of animals and ran cords through their own elbows and ears to acknowledge the gods.

The Mayans performed human sacrifice to show their reliance upon the gods. Addressing this Mayan view, Kay Almere explains, "If one wanted the cosmic beings to provide food, one had to feed the cosmic beings in return" (Read 31). The gods stress to that the people "must bring blood and lymph before us, they must come to embrace us" (Popol Vuh 185). Stressing the importance of this relationship with the gods, David Drew states, "Humas must constantly praise the gods and nourish them, by returning that which they received in the first place, the sacred gift of blood" (311).

Contrary to most any other moral system, human sacrifice was viewed as a form of showing gratitude to the gods. This site does not explore the details of human sacrifice, but instead shows that to the Mayans, human sacrifice was an act of showing thanks to and reliance on the gods.

The Tribes

Over time the tribes grew in number and the Quiché tribe became great in strength. The other tribes at one point combined against the Quiché, but the Quiché prevailed "since they were people of genius" (Popol Vuh 192). The Quiché defeated this large army by placing wooden manikins dressed as soldiers on the walls protecting their city, and then placed swarms of yellow jackets and wasps in holes at the base of the wall. When the opposing soldiers charged the citadel, the yellow-jackets and wasps came out "like a cloud of smoke" and " . . .the soldiers were done in, with the insects landing on their eyes and landing on their noses, on their mouths, their legs, their arms" (Popol Vuh 196).

The gods and people in the Popol Vuh are constantly praised for the feats performed "by means of their genius" (Popol Vuh 212). Also, the gods require people to turn their thoughts to them and rely upon them--thus explaining actions such as human sacrifice. The importance of thought and giving praise to the gods is a constant moral found throughout the Popol Vuh.

Next Evidence of Mayan Morals: IV. Avoiding Self-Magnification
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