Comparing Meso And South American Mythology - amazonia.fiocruz.br

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Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in North America. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished for more than years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoamerica was the site of two of the most profound historical transformations in world history: primary urban generation, and the formation of New World cultures out of the long encounters among Indigenous, European, African and Asian cultures. Norte Chico Caral-Supe in present-day Peru , arose as an independent civilization in the northern coastal region. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. Beginning as early as BCE, the domestication of cacao , maize , beans , tomato , avocado , vanilla , squash and chili , as well as the turkey and dog , resulted in a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal groupings to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages. In the subsequent Formative period, agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition , a vigesimal numeric system, a complex calendric system , a tradition of ball playing , and a distinct architectural style , were diffused through the area. Also in this period, villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms. Comparing Meso And South American Mythology.

The Popol Vuh is the story of creation according to the Quiche Maya of the region known today as Guatemala. The Quiche referred to the book as an Ilb'al - an instrument of sight - and it was known as "The Book of the Mat" because of the woven mats the people would sit on to hear the work recited at the council house.

This is the beginning of the ancient word, here in this place called Quiche. Here we shall inscribe, we shall implant the Ancient Word, the potential and source for everything done in the citadel of Quiche, in the nation of Quiche people We shall Comparing Meso And South American Mythology about this now amid the preaching of God, in Christendom now.

The work recounts the creation of the world, the exploits of the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the underworld and their triumph over the Lords of Deaththe creation of humans, and the early history of Quiche migration and settlement up until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century CE. Still, it seems from the work itself that the continued practice of the indigenous religion was suppressed in the land of the Quiche as it was elsewhere and the anonymous author of the work felt the need to set down the myths of his people before they were lost. The Popol Vuh was probably written c. Dennis Tedlock determines this date based upon textual evidence toward the end of the work in which the author details migrations, genealogies, and settlements.

It came to the attention of a Spanish priest early in the 18th century CE. Tedlock writes:. Between anda friar named Francisco Ximenez happened to get a look at this manuscript while he was serving as the parish priest.

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He made the only surviving copy of the Quiche text of the Popol Vuh and added a Spanish translation. His work remained in the possession of the Dominican order until after the Guatemalan independence, but when liberal reforms forced the closing of all monasteries in Cimparing, it was acquired by the library of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City.

Carl Scherzer, an Austrian physician, happened to see it there inand Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a French priest, had the same good fortune a few months later. In Scherzer published Ximenez' Spanish translation under the patronage of the Hapsburgs in Vienna, members of the same royal lineage that had ruled Spain at the time of the conquest of the Quiche kingdom, and in Brasseur published the Quiche text and a French translation in Paris.

The manuscript itself, which Brasseur spirited out of Guatemala, eventually found its way back across the Atlantic from Paris, coming to rest in the Newberry Library in The manuscript, which presently is divided into four books, originally Com;aring no divisions and was a seamless narrative recorded from oral tradition. The work itself, however, mentions an "original book and ancient writing " which suggests that the author of the Popol Vuh was working from some earlier written source. The author also states that this earlier work is in the possession of one who "has a hidden identity" learn more here that the religious works of the Maya needed to be hidden from the Christians who would destroy them; as de Landa did at Mani in CE. De Landa records burning over forty books and writes, "We found a large number of books and, as they contained nothing in them Comparing Meso And South American Mythology were not superstitions and lies of the devil, we Mytholofy them all, which [the Maya] regretted to an amazing degree and which caused them much affliction" Christenson, The Maya had trusted de Landa and voluntarily showed him their books; an honor not accorded to every Christian missionary.

He burned over forty Comapring works and thousands of statues and paintings in a single night. Only four works of the Yucatan Maya survive in the present day the Dresden, Madrid, Comparing Meso And South American Mythology Paris Codices, so-named for the cities they were brought to, and the Chilam Balam and only one of the Quiche: the Popol Vuh. The work is divided into a brief preamble and four books. The preamble states the intention of the author in writing the work, sets the time period as post-conquest, and makes the point that https://amazonia.fiocruz.br/scdp/essay/media-request-css/the-omnibus-crime-control-and-safe-streets.php original work "takes a long performance and account to complete the lighting of all the sky-earth" This has suggested to some scholars that the original work was much longer than the present Popol Vuh but, to others, it simply means that one should take one's time in hearing the work in order to appreciate the story.]