The Maya believed that creation was related to divination, or attempts to read the future through various signs, and they often referred to their heroes and creator gods as diviners. The men and women who practiced divination regarded it as a form of creation similar to the divine miracle
The Maya played a ball game in which teams competed to pass a rubber bad through a stone ring or hoop. Although the meaning of the games is not clear, the players may have represented the struggle between light and dark, and the bad may have symbolized the movement of the stars through the heavens. ERICH LESSING/ART RESOURCE, NY.
That produced the world and humankind. Like the Aztecs and other Mesoamericans, the Maya believed that the present world is only the most recent in a series of creations. The earlier ones perished, or were destroyed one after the other, just as this world will one day come to an end also.
According to the Popol Vuh, creation began with the god Huracan (pronounced wah-ruh-KAHN), who blew as a great wind over the ancient ocean, causing the earth to rise from the depths. Then Xpiyacoc (pronounced shpee-YAH-kok) and Xmucane (pronounced SHMOH-kah-nay), “old man and old woman,” performed magical rituals that helped Huracan and other creator deities form plants, animals, and eventually the human race. The gods fashioned the first man out of clay, and he melted into the water. The next race of people, made of wood, were dull, spiritless, and easily destroyed by fire. For their third attempt,
The gods mixed yellow and white maize flour together and made the First Fathers, the ancestors of men, from the dough.
The First Fathers were worshipful, handsome, and wise—too wise, the gods decided. Fearing that their creations would become too powerful, the gods blew fog into the First Fathers’ eyes, taking away some of their knowledge. The gods then made the First Mothers. Finally they created the sun to bring light to the world.
One section of the Popol Vuh tells the myth of the Hero Twins, sons of the maize god Hun-Hunahpu. The lords of death, seeing the maize god and his twin brother playing the ball game constantly, grew annoyed and summoned the two to Xibalba (pronounced shi-BAHL-buh), the land of the dead. The brothers fell into a series of tricks and traps, which allowed the lords of death to sacrifice them and to hang Hun-Hunahpu’s head from a tree. But the maize god’s twin sons, Hunahpu (pronounced WAH-nuh-pwuh) and Xbalanque (pronounced shi-BAY-lan-kay), grew up to be even more skilled ballplayers.
When in turn the lords of death summoned the twin sons to the underworld, Hunahpu and Xbalanque had tricks of their own. They played the ball game every day, and each night they passed some test. Eventually, they decided to set a trap for the lords. In the final part of their trick, the twins cut themselves in pieces and then restored themselves to wholeness. The underworld gods wanted to try the same trick. However, after the twins cut up the gods, they simply left them in pieces. The twins then restored their father and their uncle to life before passing into the sky to become the sun and moon.
World History
