Vlog time! We're introducing for the very first time the Anne Retells Some Myths In Too Much Detail portion of our show. Apologies to those of you who requested this and are about to find out that it is actually mostly just me waving my arms and talking really fast about owls and ancient basketball.
Question: Hey, I noticed you guys have not done a vlog recently and I wanted to pitch a vlog idea. It's kind of like storytime back when we were in elementary school, where you do not have to say the stories word for word but could paraphrase them and discuss their meaning. Be interesting to hear some of the stories, if it's not too big an undertaking!
Question: Since you are working on the Maya, could you share a Maya myth, please?
If you are as excited about all this stuff as I am, you can read the Popol Vuh for a glorious fee of no money at all here or here. Hooray for Maya mythology!
And in case I bored you with my face up there, here's a video of some sexy reenactors in Mexico playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.
Lol, sorry. I thought there was a longer break, lol. So I thought I would send a good idea cause it seems like you guys wanted a good one. I am glad that you do think its a good idea, I thought it would be. The only problem is I know the Popol Vuh, hahahaha.
ReplyDeleteHopefully you guys can do more of these, cause I would like other stories I do not know about. lol.
Well, in that case, the video of the ballgame is just for you. :)
DeleteSo, is their father the tonsured maize god that I have heard so much about?
ReplyDeleteProbably. Hun Hunahpu's head growing out of the world tree and maize plants often bears the distinctive headdress and hairstyle of the tonsured maize god, and it's likely that his death/rebirth cycle and heavily fertility connotations are carried over. We can't quite tell if they were always the same or if the Yucatec Maya evolved him into the maize god over time, but either way, he's there being all planty.
DeleteHis brother, Vucub Hunahpu, doesn't get the same return to importance. But then again, he was never the important twin - the Popol Vuh outright says "He was merely a companion, merely secondary. By his nature, he was like a servant to Hun Hunahpu."
Interestingly enough, one version of the Popol Vuh states that instead of turning into a tree, the Lords of Xibalba just decapitated both of them, dismembered the corpses, and hung the heads from a calabash tree. Xquic went there, Hun Hunahpu spat on her, she got pregnant, and seriously, gods will never need a fertility clinic ever.
DeleteThe Hero Twins reconstructed their father, but he was still dead and thus couldn't leave (My version states it was because he could not "speak his own name"... Interpret that as you will.
"Where did knifeball come from!?" Love it!
ReplyDeleteYour mention of the writing system brings me to one of the people that make me wish I had a time machine with which I could go and give them a swift kick in the stomach: Frey (as in friar) Diego de Landa.
See, the Maya DID have a large number of books detailing their mythology and medicine and culture... the problem is that this motherfucker burned them all. He was actually kind of a dick about it, too, having gained the trust of the Maya... librarians for lack of a better term. He convinced them that he was going to preserve them. No, not so much. Dude basically wiped out most of their culture and then, through his Inquisition, stomped much more of it out.
Fun fact, he was actually repudiated by the Catholic Church... for not asking for proper permission before conducting an Inquisition.
And the fact that we still end up having to use a lot of his writings on the Maya as sources because they're the only goddamn thing left is just salt in a knifeball-inflicted wound, too.
DeleteI go to the Yucatan every year, so hearing Mayan stories is always awesome and relevant...almost time for me to go back too.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I'm jealous!
DeleteHmmm...I really hope you guys do more Story Time. That was great.
ReplyDeleteAlso, probably way too early to ask but I'll do it anyway, do I see a potential Death Titanrealm in Xibalba, what with the antagonistic relationship you outlined between Death and Maya culture as a whole?
It is distinctly possible. :)
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