Творение людей в мифологии древних майя

Этнографическое обозрение. 2017. № 4. С. 40–55.

Davletshin A., Beliaev D.

In studying Classic Maya mythology scholars meet two main problems. First, we don’t dispose with long narrative texts that are known from other early civilizations. Second, Maya mythology is still (re)constructed on the basis of Popol Vuh. In our paper we argue that the use of typology of mythological motives and themes can be very helpful in further studies. In the early 2000s several epigraphers independently recognized a possible mention of the shaping of the first people in the hieroglyphic texts on the Classic Maya pictorial ceramics. We argue that this motif has strong parallels it the Tzotzil creation myths documented in the 20th century. Comparative study of the hieroglyphic texts and iconography on ceramics and the Maya folklore shows that among the Classic Maya there existed three main types of anthropogonic motifs: (1) origin from the deer people, (2) emergence of the first people from a cave and (3) creation of humans from clay by gods.

Keywords: иконография, сравнительная мифология, древние майя, эпиграфика майя