Peruvian or Maya Story?

        A long time ago, in 1986, Linda Quist did a dictionary of sorts about the various Maya glyphs and where they were to be found.

        By the time 2012 came around, prophecies were the big deal:  the world was going to end on December 21st, even though the Maya themselves told everyone who would listen, that it was just the end of a calendar sequence, no more, no less.  

        What I had discovered in the meantime, was a comet passing the Ring Nebula in 2006, just as one fit the description of the double comet in the Popol Vuh. Two years later, in 2008, it again repeated the sequence from the Popol Vuh as it was very close to the earth arriving at our northwestern states with a light so bright that he seemed to be 1,000 transformers exploding at once., It also created a noise that was just as deafening. It  seemed to me that it was the PV comet that returned and died on it final journey since no debris fell from the sky. . . or was just never reported in the papers or on the television programs since the comet had damaged nothing on earth, even though it came very, very close.

         In September of 2012, Gary C. Daniels wrote about the upcoming prophecies, and wrote this lovely thoughtful gem:

>>> … before we can properly decode and understand this prophecy we must first dive deeper into Mayan religion and mythology to build a solid base of knowledge from which to interpret this ancient text …[which many believed contained such prophecies of total destruction for 2012.) [1]

     Myths are for children. Parables are for grown-ups and Truth is to be ignored as "Logic" laboriously pulled out of a complex system of analogies, syllogisms, and other complex methods of reasoning. This method of reasoning was introduced during the Middle Ages in Europe.

        It was sometime after 1994, when I joined the Austin Writers' League, that we were sent out to the various schools to promote writing skills to the students. For some unknown reason, I ended up in a kindergarten class. Since I cannot sing or even tell funny children's stories, to connect to that age group, I had no idea what to say to them about writing.  It seemed to me that all those young ones were Hispanic; their young fresh faces looking up at me in anticipation of another game or silly rhyme that  would bring laughter to their tiny serious souls.

     Pushing my calendar backwards again to 1982, one of my fourth grade students had copied out a poem by a Peruvian poet about the two lovers who had become two mountains called Popocateptl and Ixtacuihautl. I thought of it as a similar tale that Disney created for the Silver Screen: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.   It was perfect for this class. So I asked the question, Who knows about Mexico?

     Not one hand was raised. But when I asked if anyone knew about Snow White, every child raised their hand and waved them. It had just popped out, but apparently I had a inkling somehow that Snow White was the Mexican Princess of the Disney version. I told them all about what I knew about the Comet (as the stepmother); the Hunter (Orion) and the Seven mini-miners of wealth in the seven mountains.

Snow White as Ixtacuihatl the White Lady
with the Stepmother who was the female version of the Comet  Quetzalcoatl
Looking into the "Magic Mirror" Lake called Texcoco

    The mirror on the wall, was Lake Texcoco, that could see the passing comet, and the beautiful snow capped mountain that looked like a sleeping lady. The story from fourth grade told of the prince who was sent to battle by the father who did not want his daughter to marry a soldier. When he returned with many honors and awards, the lovely princess [Ixtacuihuatl] had died. He carried her to the mountain and sat nearby [as Popocatepetl] for days on end.

His horse waited patiently behind him.

       Finally, the dwarves had to tell him it was time for him to go. So he asked that they raise the cover of her crystal casket. He then kissed her and the poisoned apple fell out of her mouth and she lived again. The prince [Popocateptl] and the princess [Ixtacuihuatl] got married and lived happily ever after. Oh, we cannot forget the prince's horse that took them away on their honeymoon: La Nevada de Toluca, where the horse is still waiting patiently for his master.

   But the hour was over and I had to leave the class of youngsters who thoroughly enjoyed the story about their prince and princess of the land they heard about, but had never gone there.  As I was leaving the teacher stopped me at the door. "Did you know that the stepmother was punished by having to dance in fiery metal shoes until she died?"  I stared at her aghast. She had just supplied me with the one thing that was lacking for my "imagined" comet.

   The comet over Mexico, during the great disaster, had dropped magnetic metal meteorites on the land. Those pieces of metal, when found, were considered to be part of "the heart of the sky." Every temple had one as their sign that the Gods had not forsaken them. Their [star] god had sacrificed pieces of his own heart so that the people of Meso-america could live happily ever after.

      And so the tale is complete, Disney saw it as a European story; the Meso-Americans saw it as the  story of the mountains, and, for those who lived along the Amazon River in Brazil, only saw it as a girl coming back to life when her father blew smoke into her lungs.[3] The Peruvians wrote the poem about that wonderful magic mountain range above the Equator. [4]

1 Gary C. Daniels, (2012-09-24). Mayan Calendar Prophecies| Part 1: Predictions for 2012 and   
   Beyond  (Kindle Locations 698-700). The Real Mayan Prophecies.com. Kindle Edition.

2  Daniel Ruzo, (1977) El Valle Sagrado de Tepoztlan, (2a. Edición), Editorial Posada, S. A.

3  Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (1971). Amazonian Cosmos:  The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano   
    Indians. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p. 29:  daughter [Ixtacuihuatl] 
     became a rock but Sun could revive her by smoking tobacco.

4  Peru,(1982)  The poem about the story of the lovers, Popocatepetl and Ixtacuihuatl, from one of my 4th grade
    students In Tapachula, Mexico.

     

   

H