POPOL VUH


clearly seen.[7] The original book, written long ago, existed, but its sight is hidden to the searcher and to the thinker. Great were the descriptions and the account of how all the sky and earth were formed, how it was formed and divided into four parts; how it was partitioned, and how the sky was divided; and the measuring-cord was brought, and it was stretched in the sky and over the earth, on the four angles, on the four corners,[8] as was told by the Creator and the Maker, the Mother and the Father of Life,[9] of all created things, he who gives breath and thought, she who gives birth to the children, he who watches over the happiness of the people, the happiness of the human race, the wise man, he who meditates on the goodness of all that exists in the sky, on the earth, in the lakes and in the sea.



[7] Ilbal zac petenac chacá paló, u tzihoxic ca muhibal, ilbal zac qazlem. Brasseur de Bourbourg enclosed the last seven words in quotation marks, but in the original these marks do not appear.

[8] Cah tzuc, cah xucut, in the original. The four cardinal points, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg. It is the same idea of the four Bacabs which in Maya mythology support the sky.

[9] When the Popol Vuh enumerates persons of the two sexes, it will be observed that it gallantly mentions the woman first.

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