Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life

Dennis Tedlock

Description

Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation is not only the most important text in the native language of the Americas, it is also an extraordinary document of the human imagination. It begins with the deeds of Mayan Gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the Mayan Lords who founded the Quiché Kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. Originally written in Mayan hieroglyphs, it was translated into the Roman alphabet in the 16th century. The new edition of Dennis Tedlock's unabridged, widely praised translation includes new notes and commentary, newly translated passages, newly deciphered hieroglyphs, and over 40 new illustrations.

Sujets

• Foreign Language study
• Lettres et linguistique
• Language

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456613037
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

POPOL VUH
 
The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life
 
REVISED EDITION
Translated by
 
DENNIS TEDLOCK
 
With commentary based on the ancient knowledge of the modern Quiché Maya
Copyright © 1985, 1996 by Dennis Tedlock
All rights reserved, including the right of the reproduction in a whole or in part in any form.
** Page numbers reference the print edition **
CONTENTS
 
     Illustrations
     Preface
     Introduction
P ART O NE
 
     This is the beginning of the Ancient Word
     This is the account
     Now they planned the animals of the mountains
     And then the deer and birds were told
     Again there comes an experiment with the human work
     Then comes the naming of those who are the midmost seers
     Again there comes a humiliation
     This was when there was just a trace of early dawn
P ART T WO
 
     Here is the beginning of the defeat and destruction of the day of Seven Macaw
     And here is the shooting of Seven Macaw by the two boys
     And here are the deeds of Zipacna
     Now this is the defeat and death of Zipacna
     And the third to magnify himself is the second son of Seven Macaw, named Earthquake
P ART T HREE
 
     And now we shall name the name of the father of Hunahpu and Xbalanque
     And these are the lords over everything
     And now for the messengers of One and Seven Death
     After that One and Seven Hunahpu left
     And One and Seven Hunahpu went inside Dark House
     And here is the account of a maiden
     And after the maiden was noticed by her father
     And when Blood Moon came to the mother of One Monkey and One Artisan
     And this is their birth; we shall tell of it here
     And then they sang, they played, they drummed
     And now they began to act out their self-revelation
     So now there was fire in their hearts
     Happy now, they went to play ball at the court
     They went down to Xibalba
     First they entered Dark House
     And after that, the boys next entered Razor House
     And now they entered Cold House
     So next they entered Jaguar House
     So next they entered the midst of the fire
     Now they were put inside Bat House
     And here it is: the epitaph, the death of Hunahpu and Xbalanque
     This is the making of the oven
     And on the fifth day they reappeared
     And they came to the lords
     And this is the sacrifice of little Hunahpu by Xbalanque
     And then they named their names
     And this is their grandmother, crying and calling out in front of the ears of green corn
     And here their father is put back together by them
P ART F OUR
 
     And here is the beginning of the conception of humans
     These are the names of the first people who were made and modeled
     And then their wives and women came into being
     And this is our root, we who are the Quiché people
     And this is the name of the mountain where they went
     They walked in crowds when they arrived at Tulan, and there was no fire
     When they came away from Tulan Zuyua
     And then they came away, just camping on the road
     And then Tohil, along with Auilix and Hacauitz, spoke to them
     And here is the dawning and showing of the sun, moon, and stars
     And there began their song named “Camacu”
     And here they burn their copal
     And then comes the killing of the tribes
     First the tribes tried to plan the defeat of Tohil, Auilix, and Hacauitz
     And they sent the two of them, named Lust Woman and Wailing Woman
     And here is the joining together of all the tribes
     And then Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar had a plan
     And these are the ones who were there: Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar
     Now this is where we shall tell about the death of Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar
P ART F IVE
 
     And then they remembered what had been said about the east
     And then they came before the lord named Nacxit
     And then they came to a place where they founded a citadel named Thorny Place
     And Bearded Place is the name of the mountain of their citadel
     And then they got up and came to the citadel of Rotten Cane
     And here are the titles of the lords who led the Cauecs
     And now these are the lords who led the Greathouses
     And now these are the Lord Quichés
     And there were also two lineages of Zaquic lords
     Then splendor and majesty grew among the Quiché
     And here are the names of the sixth generation of lords
     After that came the sentries
     And now we shall name the names of the houses of the gods
     And this is the cry of their hearts
     And here are the generations, the sequences of lordships
     And here shall appear the faces, one by one, of each of the Quiché lords
     And here are those of the Greathouses
     And now these are for the Lord Quichés
     And there are three Masters of Ceremonies in all
     This is enough about the being of Quiché
 
 
     Notes and Comments
     Orthography
     Abbreviations
     Mayan Poetics
     The Mayan Calendar
     Introduction
 
     Glossary
     Bibliography
     Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
 
Map of the Mayan region
The pages of books
The only surviving copy
The emergence of the earth from the water
Divinatory methods that are still in use
Contemporary Quiché daykeepers
They are called “mother-fathers”
The head of a bat
Hacauitz
Pyramids that bear the temples
Sovereign Plumed Serpent
The Heart of Sky, named Hurricane
Thunderbolt
Just let your flesh be eaten
He gouged out their eyeballs
Their hearthstones were shooting out
The boys talked
He was shot by Hunahpu
Great White Peccary
This is Zipacna, bathing on the shore
The boys made fire with a drill
People should die in the road
These messengers of theirs are owls
The lords of Xibalba shouted out with laughter
A cigar
Blood Moon is the name of the maiden
Take her away for sacrifice
The owls went to show the maiden the way out
All they work at is writing
Dancing when they arrived
Suddenly scratching themselves
Tamazul, the toad
They put it on the falcon’s eye
That creature named the mosquito
“It’s just a skull”
Their ball was dropped in
Snatch-bats, monstrous beasts
His head was taken off
Xbalanque summoned all the animals
The possum
It was the head of Hunahpu
Walking on Stilts
They danced the Armadillo
Then they took hold of a human sacrifice
Sacrifice yet again, even do it to yourselves!
Their father is put back together by them
The moon to the other
The yellow corn and white corn were ground
They did not yet pray to the tree-stone
Tohil … was first to generate fire
They’ve come to ask for your fire
It was ahead of the sun
They would become our captives
It was wound about with coverings
They were captured and they were made prisoners
He would make himself … feline
Projectiles alone were the means for breaking the citadels
They came before Tohil first
When Tonatiuh arrived
Map of places mentioned in the Popol Vuh
Sleeping place of the house
Run your hands … over the seeds of the coral tree
Hunahpu
Xbalanque
PREFACE
 
T HE P OPOL V UH TELLS THE STORY of the emergence of light in the darkness, from primordial glimmers to brilliant dawns, and from rainstorms as black as night to days so clear the very ends of the earth can be seen. A revised edition of this translation of the Popol Vuh has become necessary because the world of Mayan studies is itself a constantly brightening one. Advances in the understanding of Mayan languages, literature, art, history, politics, and astronomy have required changes in the introduction, notes, commentaries, glossary, and illustrations. There are also changes in the translation itself, some of them subtle refinements and others that readers of the previous edition may find surprising. And finally, an index has been added.
Newly available sources on Mayan languages have made it possible to give meaning to proper names that were left untranslated before. For example, Xbaquiyalo, the wife of Seven Macaw, now becomes Egret Woman. The temptresses Xtah and Xpuch are now Lust Woman and Wailing Woman, and they stand revealed as the predecessors of a dangerous phantom known all the way from Guatemala to northern New Mexico by her Spanish name, La Llorona. And Tecum, Keeper of the Mat in the ninth generation of Quiché lords, becomes Black Butterfly.
In other cases new sources have made it possible to correct errors of translation that were caused by imprecise spellings or slips of the pen in the Popol Vuh manuscript, which often leave words and phrases open to multiple interpretations. What was once “the emergence of all the sky-earth” now becomes “the lighting of all the sky-earth,” a reference to the astronomical aspect of the story. The name of the first human woman, given as Celebrated Seahouse in the previous edition, now changes to Red Sea Turtle. The term for the rubber used by the hero twins to heal a falcon’s eye is no longer “sorrel gum” but rather “blood of sacrifice.” And the image of the god Hacauitz is no longer located “above a great red river” but rather “at the top of a great pyramid.”
Other refinements have resulted from discussions with Quiché linguist and literary scholar Enrique Sam Colop, who recently completed his dissertation on Mayan poetics. For example, he has conclusively shown that various translators (including myself) have misread the phrase saq petenaq ch’aqa palo , which is one of several titles of the Popol Vuh. My previous version was “The Light That Came from Across the Sea,” but the actual meaning of ch’aqa , in the present context, calls for the rendition given in the present edition, which is “The Light That Came from Beside the Sea.” Corrected in this way, the phrase becomes one of a