Popol Vuh

The great sacred narrative of the K'iche' Maya of highland Guatemala, written down in the K'iche' language in Latin letters by anonymous nobles in the mid-sixteenth century, after the Spanish conquest. It survives through a copy and Spanish translation made by the Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez around 1700. The text begins with the creation of the world by the gods, among them Heart of Sky and the Sovereign Plumed Serpent. They try several times to make beings who will speak and honour them: animals who cannot speak, people of mud who dissolve, and people of wood who have no hearts and are destroyed. The middle part tells of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who defeat the arrogant bird lord Seven Macaw, descend to the underworld of Xibalba, survive its trials and outwit its lords, before rising as sun and moon. Finally, humans are made from maize. The last part traces the migrations and lineages of the K'iche' rulers.

It is one of the most important surviving works of Indigenous American literature, and its account of failed creations and maize-made humans raises lasting questions about what makes a being human.