Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Why should you read the Popol Vuh?

The Popol Vuh is a sacred Maya text which tells the Maya story of creation. The Popol Vuh is considered essential reading for anyone who wants to learn about and understand the religion, ancient culture, and history of the Maya peoples. The Maya peoples live in South America, from Mexico to Honduras.
The Popol Vuh is thought to have been written in the sixteenth century. The first part of the book comprises the Maya creation story, which describes how the God of the Seas and the God of the Skies came together to create the Earth. After creating the mountains, rivers, and animals, the two gods turned their attentions to creating man. They tried at first to create man from clay, and then from wood. Finally, after these initial attempts failed, they made man, or four men to be precise, out of corn.
Creation stories are always interesting to read because they help us to understand how people made sense of the world and their place in it in a time before all of the scientific knowledge that we now take for granted. We can, for example, still read creation stories today in the Bible or the Quran, and these stories will help us to better understand those of Christian and Muslim faiths, respectively.

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