Page 54 - STRATEGY Magazine (G)

SPECIAL FEATURE
THE MAYA
MUSEUM:
SAFEKEEPING THE LEGACY
The new Museo Maya de América will safeguard the millennia-old legacy of the Maya civilization in the world’s largest facility dedicated to celebrating the Maya culture.
The Popol Vuh, an ancient Maya text, narrates the story of the creation of the earth. After the creators had filled the earth with animals, they still felt a void. “Speak, then, our names, praise us, your mother, your father,” they asked the animals. But the animals could only hiss and cackle and scream.
“Let us try to make obedient, respectful beings who will nour- ish and sustain us,” the gods said. And so they fashioned be- ings from mud. But the mud was soft and did not keep its form. The creators were displeased and destroyed their creation.
Trying again, they made men of wood. These beings looked and talked like men, but they had no souls or minds. They could not honor or care for their creators. Still unhappy, the creators destroyed these beings in a great flood.
A third time, the creators wanted to create humans. “The time of dawn has come, let the work be finished, and let those who are to nourish and sustain us appear,” the gods proclaimed. The animals brought forth white ears of corn and yellow ears of corn, and the creators put the corn into the flesh of man, and
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