Have you read the Popol Vuh?

Question

The Popol Vuh is the creation myth of the Quiche Maya of Central America, according to the Popol Vuh the gods created man through trial and error. Each of the earlier generations of men were a dispointment unable to fulfill the gods' primary purpose so the gods, in their disapointment, destroyed them. After a number of false starts the gods finally created the ancestors of humans as they are today.

If we read this account as metaphor, it seems that the Quiche Maya had some concept of evolution, perhaps not natural selection, but some idea that humans have changed through time. The Maya are well known for their detailed observations of natural phenomena such as the movement of the stars and planets.

Is it possible that they had turned their keen intellects to the question of human origins as well? Did the Maya have at least some knowledge/evidence that man has changed through time? Were they able to express the idea we call evolution in a metaphorical/mythic sense?

Answer 1

Yes, I read it, for a mythology course.  Never thought of it from an anthropological viewpoint.  Why wouldn't an ancient civilization have the same concepts more modern societies have?

Primitive doesn't mean stupid.  The Mayans lived where most of the animal species of the world live.  Like Darwin, they were able to study the adaptations of different animals.

It may also have been their way to explain the imperfections of some people, those born deformed in some way.

Answer 2

no

Answer 3

Yes. It is like the Bible with similar myths about creation

Answer 4

I read your paragraph and I did not get anything close to an evolutionary progression from the myth. I am an evolutionary biologist and what you are proposing is a form of catastrophism. This concept has been refuted in biology many times. If an organism goes extinct, such as dinosaurs, then another organism is radiated out from that catastrophe; the same organism is not "recycled ". This myth does not even work well as metaphor. The real thing is so much more fascinating and inspiring.

Answer 5

Many , many, questions...Every ancient religion has a Creation Myth!

The most imortant thing about the Mayans right now, is that their 5,125 year calendar cycle, ends on the Winter Solstice, December 21st, 2012...

I hope we will be around, to see what happens!

Answer 6

I read the book when I was in high school, a looong time ago. Loved it. I think mankind brings within their genes some kind of collective consciousness that is very very old. We don't have to understand it, but certainly, man has always looked for answers about its origins. All religions, ancient and new ones, try to explain how is is that were got here in a metaphoric way.We accept the presence of God (or nature) and explain how did we get here through time in a simple way (I am pretty sure were were not crafted from mud...but is very interesting to think that we are made from a primordial "material"). Mayan were very evolved individuals (despite some brutal aspects of their society) and I think they asked themselves the same questions that modern man ask today, and perhaps they tried to look for answers as well, with the means they had at the time. I said "modern man"...Mayans were modern, as modern as we are today, in a big scheme of things and time. I would tend to think that they had the same conflicts and needs that we have today in our society.  So all this said, yes, they were intellectuals, as much as we are today (at least some of us) and they probably posed the same philosophical questions that make us turn in bed sometimes....

NOTE:jonmcan49...i have no idea what are you saying. I am a biologist too (PhD, Yale University, 1999) and see no connection in your answer...