The Mud People
I remember hearing this story when I was around 7 or 8 years old. I had a really good history teacher who liked to focus on prehispanic cultures. I thought it was a very interesting story at the time, funny even. The thought of mexicans being made out of corn amused me greatly. Back then I didn’t quite realized how much of a metaphor the mud and the Wood played in the story and my culture. A couple of years later I encountered the story again as one of my cousins told me about his trip to the Yucatan Peninsula. The story popped into my mind once again and I decided to really thing about it, since it was a very important part of our culture. This story appealed to me because I thought it was a good reflection on contemporary mexican culture. I thouht about the reconstruction aspect of the story and how the mud and the corn seemed to popular themes all around mexican culture. It made me think about the foundations of how we think as a country and how we often our roots. This is not a very known story since it’s prehispanic culture. History is something mexicans don’t really like or appreciate. The Popol-vuh is filled with amazing stories and wisdom but it is often left out of school curriculum. I haven’t talked about this story a lot either but I do like to talk about how folk stories.
I think this story has the potential to push mexicans to being better since it talks about a lot of core symbols and materials in mexican culture. Since it is an origins story I think mexicans can really empathize with it, specially communities that actually have mayan roots. I think it's important to reimagine and take this core stories and exploit them with contemporary narratives, perhaps in cartoons or comics. I think it could be very useful to get mexicans on their feet and proud of their culture but also willing to be better and push themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEot1dOkmBk
mexican culture, popol vuh, mythology, progress.