The Second Book of the "Popol Vuh" is the most interesting of the four
from a mythological point of view. That it treats of the dealings of
the Kichés with the aboriginal people of the district they afterwards
inhabited is not unlikely. Although the opinion of Brasseur that
Xibalba was a prehistoric state which had Palenque for its capital is
an exaggeration of whatsoever kernel of fact may be contained in the
myth, yet it is not unlikely that the Abbé, who so often astonishes
without illuminating, has in this instance come near the truth. The
cliff-dwellings of Mexico and Colorado have of late years aroused
speculation as to the aboriginal or directly prehistoric peoples of
these regions. The "Popol Vuh" definitely describes Xibalba as the
metropolis of an "Underworld"; and with such examples as that of the
Cliff Palace Cañon in Colorado before us, it is difficult to think that
allusion is not made to some such semi-underground abode. There the
living rock has been excavated to a considerable distance, advantage
being taken of a huge natural recess to secure greater depth than
could possibly have been attained by human agency, and in this immense
alcove the ruins of a veritable city may still be seen, almost as well
preserved as in the days of its evacuation, its towers, battlements
and houses being as well marked and as plainly discernible as are the
ruins of Philæ. It is then not unreasonable to suppose that in a more
northerly home the Kichés may have warred with a race which dwelt in
some such subterranean locality. A people's idea of an "otherworld"
is often coloured by the configuration of their own country.
One thing is certain: a hell, an abode of bad spirits as distinguished
from beneficent gods, Xibalba was not. The American Indian was
innocent of the idea of maleficent deities pitted in everlasting
warfare against good and life-giving gods until contact with the
whites coloured his mythology with their idea of the dual nature of
supernatural beings. [16] The transcriber of the "Popol Vuh" makes
this clear so far as Kiché belief went. Dimly conscious that the
"Popol Vuh" was coloured by his agency with the opinions of a lately
adopted Christianity, he says of the Lords of Xibalba, Hun-Came and
Vukub-Came: "In the old times they did not have much power. They
were but annoyers and opposers of men, and, in truth, they were not
regarded as gods." If not regarded as gods, then, what were they?
"The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is called by them Xibilba,
which means he who disappears or vanishes." The derivation of Xibalba
is from a root meaning "to fear" from which comes the name for a
ghost or phantom. Xibalba was, then, the Place of Phantoms. But it
was not the Place of Torment, the abode of a devil who presided over
punishment. The idea of sin is weak in the savage mind; and the idea
of punishment for sin in a future state is unknown in pre-Christian
American mythology.
"Under the influence of Christian catechising," says Brinton, "the
Quiché legends portray this really as a place of torment, and its
rulers as malignant and powerful; but as I have before pointed out they
do so protesting that such was not the ancient belief, and they let
fall no word that shows that it was regarded as the destination of the
morally bad. The original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points
unmistakably to the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and
corresponds in harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear,
Scheol, Hades, Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed
with more grim associations by the imaginations of later generations."
The idea of consigning elder peoples, who have been displaced in the
land to an underworld, is not uncommon in mythology. The Xibalbans,
or aborigines, were perhaps cave- or earth-dwellers like the
Picts of Scottish folk-lore, gnomeish, and full of elvish tricks,
as such folk usually are. Vanished people are, too, often classed
with the dead, or as lords of the dead. It is well known, also,
that legend speedily crystallises around the name of a dispossessed
race, to whom is attributed every description of magic art. This
is sometimes accounted for by the fact that the displaced people
possessed a higher culture than their invaders, and sometimes,
probably, by the dread which all barbarian peoples have of a religion
in any way differing from their own. Thus the Norwegians credited the
Finns--their predecessors in Norway--with tremendous magical powers,
and similar instances of respectful timidity shown by invading races
towards the original inhabitants of the country they had conquered
could readily be multiplied. To be tricked the barbarian regards
as a mortal indignity, as witness the wrath of Thor in Jotunheim,
comparable with the sensitiveness of Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque lest they
should be outwitted by the Xibalbans.