Document 1.1: Maya Creation Beliefs
[The creation beliefs of the Quiché Maya indicate the intimate relationship between corn and the
Mesoamerican societies that bred it. The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiché, describes
how Xmucane, one of the divine grandparents, ground yellow corn and white corn nine times
and then fashioned the flesh of the first human from the mixture:]
The yellow corn and the white corn were ground, and Xmucane did the grinding nine times.
Corn was used, along with the water she rinsed her hands with, for the creation of grease; it
became human fat when it was worked by the Bearer, Begetter, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, as
they are called.
After that, they put it into words:
the making, the modeling of our first mother-father,
with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh,
food alone for the human legs and arms,
for our first fathers, the four human works.
Source: Dennis Tedlock (trans.) (1985) Popol Vuh. New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 163–64.
Document 1.2: Aztec Creation Beliefs
[The Aztecs believed that the earth had been created and destroyed four times. They thought the
earth they inhabited was the result of a fifth creation. Pre-Columbian expert Richard F.
Townsend described the five creations, which were sometimes referred to as suns:]
Among the Aztecs the first earth was called ―four jaguar.‖ At that time, giants walked the earth
but did not till the soil or sow maize, only living by gleaning wild fruits and roots. This imperfect
era ended when a jaguar devoured the giants. The hieroglyphic sign for the era was therefore a
jaguar head. The second era, ―four wind,‖ was also flawed, and was destroyed by hurricanes that
magically turned the imperfect existing men into monkeys—human-like, but not fully human
creatures. The sign of this earth was the mask of Quetzalcoatl, lord of the winds. The third
imperfect earth ended in rain and fire, and its people either perished or were changed into birds.
This happened on the day ―four rain,‖ therefore the sign of this sun was the mask of Tlaloc, lord
of rain. The fourth era was one of rains so abundant and frequent that the earth was deluged and
people were changed into fish. For this reason its sign was the head of Chalchiuhtlicue, ―Jade
Skirt,‖ the deity of lakes, rivers, springs and seas. The fifth, or present earth, was prophesied to
end in earthquakes, and its sign was the hieroglyph ollin, ―movement‖ (of the earth). It was at the
beginning of this earth that the actual sun, moon, and human beings were finally created.
Source: Richard F. Townsend (2009) The Aztecs (3rd ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson, p.
123.
Document 1.3: Mixtec Creation Beliefs
In the beginning, the gods inhabited a high crag which overlooked the beautiful Apoala Valley in
the Mixtec homeland. One day they decided to create the Yutatnoho, or River of the Lineages,
which emerged from the bowels of the earth. Its flow nourished the leafy trees which the gods
themselves had planted along its bank. From those majestic, sacred trees emerged the first
caciques, a man and a woman, from whom the noble Mixtec nation is descended.
Source: Juan Arturo López Ramos (1987) Esplendor de la Antigua Mixteca. Mexico City:
Trillas, p. 31.
Document 1.4: Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s description of the principal Aztec market
When we arrived at the great marketplace, called Tlatelolco, we were astounded at the number of
people and the quantity of merchandise that it contained, and at the good order and control that
was maintained, for we had never seen such a thing before. The chieftains who accompanied us
acted as guides. Each kind of merchandise was kept by itself and had its fixed place marked out.
Let us begin with the dealers in gold, silver, and precious stones, feathers, mantles and
embroidered goods. Then there were other wares consisting of Indian slaves both man and
women; and I say that they bring as many of them to that great market for sale as the Portuguese
bring negroes from Guinea; and they brought them along tied to long poles, with collars round
their necks so they could not escape, and others they left free. Next there were other traders who
sold great pieces of cloth and cotton, and articles of twisted thread, and there were cacahuateros
who sold cacao. In this way one could see every sort of merchandise that is to be found in the
whole of New Spain, placed in arrangement in the same manner as they do in my own country
…
There were those who sold clothes of henequen and ropes and the sandals with which
they are shod, which are made from the same plant, and sweet cooked roots, and other tubers
which they get from this plant, all were kept in one part of the market in the place assigned to
them. In another part there were skins of tigers and lions, of otters and jackals, deer and other
animals and badgers and mountain cats, some tanned, and others untanned, and other classes of
merchandise.
Let us go on and speak of those who sold beans and sage and other vegetables and herbs
in another part, and to those who sold fowls, cocks with wattles, rabbits, hares, deer mallards,
young dogs and other things of that sort in their part of the market, and let us mention the
fruiterers, and the women who sold cooked food, dough and tripe in their own part of the market;
then every sort of pottery made in a thousand different forms from great water jugs to little jugs,
these also had a place to themselves; then those who sold honey and honey paste and other
dainties like nut paste, and those who sold lumber, boards , cradles, beams, blocks and benches,
each article by itself, and the vendors of ocote [pitch pine for torches] firewood, and other things
of a similar nature … Paper, which in this country is called amal, and reeds scented with
liquidambar, and full of tobacco, and yellow ointments and things of that sort are sold by
themselves, and much cochineal is sold under arcades which are in that great marketplace, and
there are many vendors of herbs and other sorts of trades. There are also buildings where three
magistrates sit in judgment, and there are executive offices like Aguacils who inspect the
merchandise. I am forgetting those who sell salt, and those who make stone knives, and how they
split them off the stone itself, and the fisherwomen and others who sell some small cakes made
from a sort ooze which they get out the great lake, which curdles, and from this they make a
bread having a flavor like that of cheese. There are for sale axes of brass and copper and tin, and
gourds and gaily-pained jars made of wood. I could wish that I had finished telling of all the
things which are sold there, but they are so numerous and of such different quality and the great
marketplace with its surrounding arcades was so crowded with people, that one would not have
been able to see and inquire about it all in two days.
Source: Bernal Díaz del Castillo (2008) The History of the Conquest of New Spain, ed. Davíd
Carrasco. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 173–75.