Popol Vuh: Mayan Creation Myths and Venezuelan Literature
Popol Vuh
Source
The original text was destroyed by fire during the era of conquest. A few years later, a Christianized Indian reconstructed the book as he knew it from oral tradition, using the Quiché language but the Spanish alphabet. In the 18th century, a missionary went to a population of Chichicastenango and won the confidence of the Indians. They revealed the existence of the book that tells of their origin. The priest translated the book into Spanish because of its historical value.
Parts of the Book
The book consists of four parts:
- Theological and Cosmogonic: It discusses the creation and the relationship between God and man.
- Ethical: It speaks of the triumph of good and the punishment of evil.
- Historical and Ethnological: It talks about the origins of peoples in Guatemala.
Tale of the Popol Vuh
- It tells of the formation of the world where there was nothing, just silence, immobility, suspense, and quiet. The gods spoke and decided to create the world, ordering the removal of water, and land arose. The creators felt it necessary to have guardians of the forests and created the animals. However, knowing that those animals were not invoked, they were condemned to be eaten by each other. Faced with this failure, the gods met to create a being different from animals: man. First, man was born of clay, but it was destroyed. Then they created man of wood, but it did not serve. Finally, they created man from corn, who could remember, invoke, worship, and speak.
- It tells the story of the sacrifices and penalties that Hunahpú and Xbalanqué were subjected to. It also tells of some sports they played to be free from punishment and avenge their parents.
- It tells about the creation of man and his training. The gods got together again to create the man who would substantiate, be a vassal, invoke them, and build humanity.
- It tells about the founding of the various peoples of the tribes, abductions among one another for survival, the maintenance of the rites and customs, and then speaks of the Quiché race.
Rating
- Theological and Religious: The origin and intervention of the gods to the people. This goes from worshiping the stars and animals to human-like beings.
- Cosmological: It relates the origin of man as a civilization of the soil (agriculture) with a creation that is becoming an evolutionary process.
- Anthropological: It displays the origin of inanimate things and animals at the service of man.
- Ethnicity: It samples many data, habits, and movements of a civilization.
- Ethics: The intervention of gods and men, the conflict between good and evil, and the punishment they deserve when they do not meet the requirements of the gods.
Regionalism
Features
- Love and attachment to their land; they were inspired by the local environment.
- Relationship between man and the earth.
- Identity and symbols.
- Conflict between the environment and reality.
Most Famous Regionalist of Venezuela
Rómulo Gallegos (1884-1969): Born in Caracas, he dedicated himself to teaching. He founded a newspaper called La Alborada (The Dawn). He wrote his first novel in 1920 (El Último Solar – The Last Solar), La Trepadora (The Climber) in 1925, Doña Bárbara in 1929, Canaima in 1935, and Pobre Negro (Poor Black) in 1937.
Doña Bárbara
Characters
- Doña Bárbara: Represents barbarism.
- Santos Luzardo: Represents civilization.
- Marisela: Victim of the struggle.
Topic
The fight between barbarism and civilization.
Conflict
The emergence of the man-eater, the struggle between Doña Bárbara and Santos Luzardo, Marisela’s education, and Doña Bárbara’s refusal to disappear.
Magical Realism
Features
The landscape becomes a great place. It is no longer the protagonist. The real and imaginary are mixed. Satire is presented with irony. Real elements are played with in a poetic style to mislead. It has no logical time sequence. Hyperbole is widely used.
Salient Characters of Magical Realism
Miguel Ángel Asturias and Gabriel García Márquez.
Biography of Gabriel García Márquez
Born in Colombia on March 6, 1927. He began reading the works of Hemingway, Joyce, Woolf, and most importantly, Faulkner. He undertook a study of classical works and found tremendous inspiration in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. With this, he wanted to express in his work the life in Colombia in an exaggerated manner.
Most Outstanding Works
No One Writes to the Colonel, Big Mama’s Funeral, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Awards
Nobel Prize in Literature (1982), Rómulo Gallegos Prize, ESSO Prize for the Novel, Medal of the Legion of Honor, and the Aztec Eagle Award.