COLLECTION
Explore the stories, beliefs, and extraordinary beings of this tradition.
Two brothers shot down a bird who claimed to be the sun, went down to the lords of death who had killed their father, beat them at their own game and rose as the sun and the moon. The K'iche' book that tells it was written in the 1550s, but Maya artists had been painting the twins for centuries.
Read story 15 min readBefore the first sunrise, the gods of the K'iche' Maya made animals, then a body of mud, then people of wood, and only at the last attempt people of maize who could speak and give thanks. The book that tells it was written in the 1550s, after the Spanish conquest, and survives only in a priest's copy made in the early 1700s.
Read story 14 min read
