- Kinda a carryover from last week, but the Christian references in the work seemed more glaring. The Jaguar house reminded me of Daniel and the Lion’s Den, the fire house of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and then finally, when The Shaper and Framer notice their creations can see more than they should, and take away this vision, it reminded me of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden.
- One thing I kept wondering through the work was the elision of any detail surrounding the female characters in the work. Their identities are all tied to men in one way or another. Like we spoke about in class last week, it’s difficult to know what, if any, parts of the story were altered by the priests who recorded the work. It makes me hesitant to use this work as a framework for understanding Quiche society, as its reliability is incredibly dubious
- I also drew similarities in the representation of Hunahpu and Xbalanque with the trickster in Cree storytelling (Weesageechak). Whereby the characters mess around and have fun, but at the same time, this play entails some moral lesson, warning or encouraging their audiences to engage in similar activity
- Planting is also a big theme in the work. The inseparability of man from nature means everything, including life, is planted (although again this may be a translation thing). Based on this, I was wondering if this is why it is so significant threat Hunahpu and Xbalanque become the sun and the moon, since planting and harvesting is done by moon cycles and the sun provides the growth, idk.
- There was a part of this section that I was left a bit perplexed by. The 400 boys who tried to kill Zipacna and then were killed themselves become immortalized in the stars, but I guess I’m still confused why they get rewarded, especially to this degree, for what they did. Because as I understand it, they tried to kill someone who helped them, but because, conveniently, he was also super self-involved they get rewarded? I guess I don’t see what an audience is meant to take away from this, but again I also know I’m not the intended audience
- Finally, I kept picking up on the way immortality is presented in the work. Because for the Lords of Xibalba, who are still very much alive at the end of the work, the twins proverbially ‘kill’ them, by “ruining their reverence” they diminish the mentioning of their name, functionally killing them. In the same vein, when they go to visit their father and Seven Hunahpu (very much dead), they immortalize them by making sure their “name will not be lost”. It seems true immortality is achieved
Popol Vuh: Part 2
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