How much can we know about Mayan Mythology? Much of the Mayan way of life, along with its associated oral traditions, was wiped out by European invaders in the 16th century. But there are still Maya communities today, and we also have a few written sources, including the Popol Vuh. Many believe we can still glimpse a fascinating worldview through the beautiful stories it tells.

Here’s one of those stories: once upon a time there was a committee of gods, and they wanted to be praised. First they tried getting the animals to praise them, but all that yielded was a bunch of hoots and squawks. Then they made a person out of mud, but that guy wouldn’t hold together and just crumbled away. So next they tried making people out of wood. That worked better—in fact, they were able to build a whole civilization that way—but the people had no inner life. It took a fourth attempt for things finally to go right, as the gods made human beings out of maize. Now they were off and running, and ready to receive our praise and sacrifices.

So what are we supposed to learn from this? When it comes to myth, of course, everything tends to be a matter of interpretation. But here’s one way of looking at it: the gods were in a bit of a crisis, and they used their creativity to dig themselves out of it. Sometimes you’re faced with a really tough problem, and you have to try a bunch of different things before you get it right.

Thinking of which, here's another great story from the Popol Vuh. One day, twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque were playing a ballgame and making a bunch of noise. Their game was so noisy that it even bothered the gods of the underworld (Xibalba), who summoned the twins to explain themselves. So those boys were in a bit of a pickle—especially given that their father had been killed by exactly the same gods for exactly the same crime. Fortunately these boys were able to use their ingenuity to trick the gods of death, and not only escaped with their lives, but even got those gods to stop killing quite so many humans. How did the twins escape their pickle? The Popol Vuh puts it beautifully: “Such was the defeat of the rulers of Xibalba. The boys accomplished it only through wonders, only through self-transformation.” If we use our ingenuity, and are willing to change, we can work wonders—even in a situation of danger and crisis.

And the same thing is true, movingly enough, of the book itself. The people who wrote it were in the biggest crisis imaginable: European colonizers were decimating the population and systematically destroying their culture, to replace it with Christianity. The Popol Vuh itself records the devastation, in painfully understated words. Speaking about the Mayan leaders of the 16th century, it says “they were ruling when Tonatiuh arrived. They were tortured by the Castilian people.” (Tonatiuh is the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado.) Yet in the midst of this crisis, the authors of the Popol Vuh wrote down their own stories, using the very Latin alphabet that was intended to wipe out their history.

Even if your circumstances are tragic, there’s still a value to responding with creativity. People wrote poetry in concentration camps, and people sang songs even while enslaved. Storytelling is a way of preserving your dignity; it is a record of your existence on Earth; and your writing becomes a seed. Who knows when in the future it will sprout again?

This urge to respond to crisis with creativity is exactly what our guest has written about: it's Edgar Garcia, author of Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis.