It begins by connecting the creation of men and things
with the appearance of light. In other words,
as in so many mythologies, the history of the world
is that of the day; each begins with a dawn. Thus
the Popol Vuh reads:—
“This is how the heaven exists, how the Heart
of Heaven exists, he, the god, whose name is Qabauil.”
“His word came in the darkness to the Lord,
to Gucumatz, and it spoke with the Lord, with Gucumatz.”
“They spoke together; they consulted and planned;
they understood; they united in words and plans.”
“As they consulted, the day appeared, the white
light came forth, mankind was produced, while thus
they held counsel about the growth of trees and vines,
about life and mankind, in the darkness, in the night
(the creation was brought about), by the Heart of
Heaven, whose name is Hurakan."[1]
[Footnote 1: Popol Vuh, le Livre Sacre des
Quiches, p. 9 (Paris, 1861).]
But the national culture-hero of the Kiches seems
to have been Xbalanque, a name which has the
literal meaning, “Little Tiger Deer,”
and is a symbolical appellation referring to days in
their calendar. Although many of his deeds are
recounted in the Popol Vuh, that work does
not furnish us his complete mythical history.
From it and other sources we learn that he was one
of the twins supposed to have been born of a virgin
mother in Utatlan, the central province of the Kiches,
to have been the guide and protector of their nation,
and in its interest to have made a journey to the
Underworld, in order to revenge himself on his powerful
enemies, its rulers. He was successful, and having
overcome them, he set free the Sun, which they had
seized, and restored to life four hundred youths whom
they had slain, and who, in fact, were the stars of
heaven. On his return, he emerged from the bowels
of the earth and the place of darkness, at a point
far to the east of Utatlan, at some place located
by the Kiches near Coban, in Vera Paz, and came again
to his people, looking to be received with fitting
honors. But like Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, and
others of these worthies, the story goes that they
treated him with scant courtesy, and in anger at their
ingratitude, he left them forever, in order to seek
a nobler people.
I need not enter into a detailed discussion of this
myth, many points in which are obscure, the less so
as I have treated them at length in a monograph readily
accessible to the reader who would push his inquiries
further. Enough if I quote the conclusion to which
I there arrive. It is as follows:—
“Suffice it to say that the hero-god, whose
name is thus compounded of two signs in the calendar,
who is one of twins born of a virgin, who performs
many surprising feats of prowess on the earth, who
descends into the world of darkness and sets free
the sun, moon and stars to perform their daily and
nightly journeys through the heavens, presents in these
and other traits such numerous resemblances to the
Divinity of Light, the Day-maker of the northern hunting
tribes, reappearing in so many American legends, that
I do not hesitate to identify the narrative of Xbalanque
and his deeds as but another version of this wide-spread,
this well-nigh universal myth."[1]
