the following discussion will focus on Popul Voh narrative for the purpose of explaining whether it qualifies to be a myth

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Introduction

It has been found that people do not respond to facts as much as they do to the belief systems provided by their cultural backgrounds. Every society has a way of explaining the cause of various social phenomena including the stories of origin of mankind. However, such statements can not be substantiated by facts and they remain biased and subjective in nature. The society’s way of explaining things is marred with a lot of social prejudice and stereotyping which fails to give the true nature of life. For that reason, the following discussion will focus on Popul Voh narrative for the purpose of explaining whether it qualifies to be a myth.

A myth can be said to be any piece of information which can is not objective, meaning that it can not present any facts to support the claims. This does not however imply that every information must be pass the science test for it to accurate, valid and sound. On the contrary, qualitative information should also have a way of proving the authenticity of the information for the purpose of convincing the audience. A myth is in many occasions trying to explain the origin of various social occurrences in a way that can be understood by the society. Therefore, the measure of whether a given piece of information is a myth or a reality is the sound proves that can be attached to it. For that reason, I am confident that the narrative in question qualifies to be a myth as it is going to be explained shortly.

Popul Vuh is one of the most ancient narratives that was written in local language but has been translated in several others including and not limited to English. It is said to address many social issues that range from stories of creation, ancestry and history. For instance, in the story of creation, it is said that the world was initially formless. There was nothing apart from water and total darkness. No noise could be heard since there was no life present.

It is said that there were three supernatural beings who were discussing on how they could bring life to the earth (Goetz 81-84). They included Tepeu, Gucumatz, and the Forefathers all whose origin is not explained. They can be said to be without the beginning but since we no longer hear about them today, then we can conclude that they had an end. The first two are said to have ordered for the existence of the light so that there could be the presence food and it was done.

In the creation of living things, we are told that the animals were created first and later on followed by human beings. “This, the Forefathers did, Tepeu and Gucumatz, as they were called. After that they began to talk about the creation and the making of our first mother and father…” (Goetz 85-89). However, the first group of human beings made of mud and it is said that they perished because the material soaked in the water and dissolved. This made the two gods to reason together again on how best they can make a man. They settled on wood, and made the second group of humans. However, it would later emerge that this group of people had no souls or mind which meant that they could not reason and they appeared more of animals. It is stated that the reason why the man was created is to offer the praises to the gods who made them.

The above story of creation qualifies to be a myth for a number of reasons. First of all it contradicts with the conventional beliefs of creation especially from the religious point of view. The religious groups believe that the world was created by God who has neither beginning nor the end. The existence of the elders in this story poses a question of where they came from as it is not explained. The other reason is the fact that if the first man was created of mud and was indeed in that state before he perished, how did his body systems, such as blood circulation take place? We are not told what the man fed on and the kind of the picture we get causes doubts of whether they were real beings. The story therefore becomes hard to believe as it has a lot of questions.

The other fact is that the origin of light is not explained. The gods are only said to have given a command, “let there be light,’ (Goetz 76-80) and there it was. Such an act is not convincing especially to those who rely much on truth from the fact gathered from the scientific experiments.

The other reason why this story qualifies to become a myth is the fact that it lacks its own originality. When one reads the story, you can not miss to get the reflection of the account of creation provided in the book of Genesis. The creation of man in genesis was done after all other things were made just as in Popol Vul. The purpose of the creation of man in both accounts was to offer worship to the creator.

In conclusion, the above narrative qualifies to be a myth due to lack of authenticity and the facts to support all the claims there in.