Popol Vuh Themes

It's important to consider the Popol Vuh as the guiding cultural and religious document that it was for the Mayan people, and specifically the Quiché tribes that recorded it. For much of history, the story existed as an oral story as well as one that was recorded hieroglyphically; it was only written down phonetically after the Spanish invasion. Quiché leaders and seers used the text in its oral and hieroglyphic forms to guide how they…

Because the Popol Vuh follows several generations of both divine and human heroes, it offers a number of heroic and villainous characters for consideration as it explores what it means to be a hero. Overwhelmingly, the story ties heroism to three qualities: familial loyalty, religious devotion, and cunning trickery. All the heroes are adept and successful tricksters, loyal to their family members, and particularly in terms of the human heroes, they're overwhelmingly devout. By tying…

Because one of the primary problems the gods face is the question of how to create humans, the Popol Vuh is necessarily concerned with discovering what makes humans humanlike, gods godlike, and what makes either humans or gods into the best version of themselves. At the beginning of the Popol Vuh, after the gods draw land out of the ocean, they decide that they must next create humans to take care of the land…