Original illustrations of the Popol Vuh by Mia Nguyen

For my project I choose The Popol Vuh. When it comes to themes I think the main topic is being human or mortal. In the story one of the major issues faced by the gods was how to create humans. In the very beginning of the story once the gods drew out land from out of the ocean it was decided that the next thing they must create something that can care for the lands and praise the gods themselves, humans. The Popol Vuh focuses on theme by connecting what makes a human a human and what marks a god a god. It also looked at how gods and humans can go about becoming the best version of themselves. I believe the qualities wanted by the gods became the exact qualities of humanity and with the completion of those said tasks will come the judgment of whether the beings were human or not.

The Popol Vuh comes from ancient Mayan culture. Originally it was passed though generations by word of mouth but was eventually translated. Mayan tribe leaders would use the text to determine how they were supposed to rule and schedule dates for certain events as well as celebrations. Despite this the main meaning it holds for the ancient people was to teach the reader on how to be Mayan. The story cements the idea that a good Mayan person holds both divine as well as human history. We can lean many things from this text. Personally I take the message that if someone wants to comprehend what/who a person is or why a person many be the way they are we have to first understand where that person came from.

When starting this project I knew what story I wanted to do. Picking out a particular scene to draw a storyboard from was a little more difficult. I adore all the stories we have read in class so far but for some reason the Popol Vuh really stood out to me more than the rest. Though in some parts it may be a little hard to understand I feel like the story as a whole is quite captivating. In the beginning I wanted to somehow translate the entirety of the story but I soon realized with the amount of detail I wanted to put in that that was not going to be possible. Eventually I decided with a small section from the beginning. Re-creating the scene I chose was fun and exciting for me because I do not have too many opportunities to produce art even though I enjoy it as much as I do.

I chose to translate The Popol Vuh, specifically the beginning scene of the message being sent through the louse, toad, snake and the hawk. Like I stated before I originally wanted to make a storyboard consisting of the entire story but when I realized the amount of detail and work I wanted to put into the art I understood it wouldn’t be possible. So I chose one of my favorite scenes. I chose to go scene by scene the first depicting the grandmother holding the louse the second one depicts the louse speaking to the toad then being swallowed by it. The third shows the interaction between the toad and the snake the fourth shows the hawk eating the snake and eventually getting shot down. The last scene I drew was when the hawk’s eye was repaired and all the other animals were spit up to deliver the original message. I wanted to go for something a little cartoonish but I eventually decided that realism went better with the story. I also wanted to make it for high school grade and up so none of the pictures have words on them until the last one. I did this because i wanted the reader to interpret what was going on.

The only difficulty I really encountered was conveying the consent between animals. In the story it seems like they’re all okay with being swallowed for the motive of going faster but when it comes to the snake and the hawk part the wording is a little more confusing. To me it didn’t seem that the snake was willing to be swallowed by the hawk so I drew it with that in mind. Besides that I believe everything else went pretty smoothly and I am very proud with what my finished product is. Overall I enjoyed creating the detailed story board for The Popol Vuh.

Created for HUM124 with Leslee Johnson