How Our Mother Beloved Maiden was Saved from an Untimely Death:  A christianized version of the Xkik’ tale of the Popol Wuj

Etiology

Similarly, the modern version also seems to yield a greater variety in the impossible tasks Beloved Maiden has to do. In the Popol Wuj, Xkik’ arrives at the house of Xmukane, but finds a suspicious grandmother when she explains that the offspring in her belly is Jun Junajpu’s. Xmukane wants proof from her that she is indeed the mother of the hero twins. When she sends her to their cornfield to fill up a net with corncobs, there appears to be only one stalk carrying one ear. Xkik’s heart drops. But then she calls forth the guardians of the food and, miraculously, starts filling up the net with cobs. Once the task has been completed, she has animals carry the net to Xmukane’s house (Edmonson, 1971:lines 2499-2546).

In the Beloved Maiden text, Our Mother Beloved Maiden is on her way to Jerusalem. When night falls, she begs for a place to sleep at the residences of wealthy people. They are also very suspicious, but let her in after Our Mother Beloved Maiden implores some more. They then give her a task to do which seems impossible for a human being to complete in just one night. When she does complete the task, they chase her away with the words laj xa na at ta winaq, "you are probably not human". And strictly speaking, she is not human indeed, but rather the mother of a divine child.

Like Xkik’ in the Popol Wuj, Our Mother Beloved Maiden is able to accomplish the tasks with the help of animals. Every time she is left with her chores, she sits down crying, much as Xkik’s heart sank when discovering the single stalk in the cornfield. But throughout the tale she is assisted by animals, plants and trees; everything that grows and walks on the face of the earth. In fact, the creational nature of the Beloved Maiden tale is emphasized by the many etiological elements in it. As every time she is helped out by these animals and plants they ask for a favor in return (kooch, loq’oxik, "reward", "recompense"). Our Mother Beloved Maiden distributes the goods, e.g. the tup-plant gets its location near wells and rivers, spiders get their webs, pigeons the corn that is dropped by the people, the basilisk the ability to walk on water and Lord Dragon fish as his main nourishment. In other words the tale explains why plants or trees grow where they grow and why animals behave as they do. The Popol Wuj is equally full of etiological elements, like in the Xkik’ tale the sudden appearance of gourd fruits in the gourdtree after Jun Junajpu’s head was hung in it.

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