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.[7] 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.
The Harrying of Xibalba
The doings of Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque, in Xibalba, may be regarded either as the Kiché account of the adventures of two veritable heroes in a new land, or as the visitation of divine beings to Hades for the express purpose of conquering death. But by the period of the formation of the myth it is probable that Xibalba had become confounded with the Place of the Dead, and was regarded as a fit theatre for the prodigies of craft and valour of the young hero-gods. The Kiché Hades had, in fact, evolved from the old northern home, exactly as had the Mexican Mictlan, which, although a subterranean locality, was also, and separately, a northern country. A complete Place of the Dead had been established, and the gods, to show their contempt of death, must descend thereto and emerge triumphant. The idea of metempsychosis was known to the American aboriginal mind. “We Indians shall not for ever die; even the grains of corn we put under the earth grow up and become living things,” is the noble and touching reply of a chief to the interrogation of a Moravian Brother, regarding the native belief in immortality.[8] Man must have the example of the gods, if he wishes to live in peace and quiet assurance of immortality. And just as we believe that our God descended into Hell and vanquished Sin and Death, so did these simple people gain strength to face Eternity from the thought that they had been preceded in the dark journey by the Immortals.
It is evident that the divine brothers feared ridicule, and profiting from the disasters of their father and uncle made sure of knowing the names of the chief Xibalbans ere they set out. In like manner they avoided making an obeisance to the dummy figures to which their predecessors had bowed so profoundly. The American savage, grave and reserved, cannot abide ridicule. He shrinks from it in a manner which a less self-regarding or a more self-assured people cannot comprehend. The other tests—the “House of Tigers,” and the “House of Cold,” and the various torments mentioned in the Second Book are much what might be expected from a barbarian idea of death—no more horrible, perhaps, than the European idea of Hell in the Middle Ages, certainly not more fear-compelling than the picture of Dante.
The American peoples are at one in their belief in a Paradise, a Place of Joy, if not of Reward. Their Hades appears to have been reserved almost entirely for the unillustrious. Paradise in some American mythologies, notably in that of Mexico, and perhaps in that of Peru, is nothing more than a preserve of the great; the poor might not enter therein, no more than might the coward pass the gates of the Norse Valhalla. It was to Mictlan or Supay, then, that the popular mind turned. How did the American peoples regard this drear abode? To enter it one must cross a deep and swift river by means of a bridge formed of a slender tree, said the Hurons and Iroquois to the first missionaries. On this frail passage the soul must defend itself from the attacks of a savage dog.[9] The Chepewayan Athapascans told of a great water which the soul must cross in a stone canoe; the Chilians, of a western sea, where toll must be given to an evil hag, who plucked out an eye if payment were not forthcoming; the Algonquins, of a stream bridged by an enormous snake. The Aztecs called this river Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers, where the departed must pay toll to a dog and a dragon. It will be recollected that the brothers in the “Popol Vuh,” cross a river of blood. This almost certainly alludes to the ocean under the red beams of the setting sun, towards which all these voyages are made.