April 11th Week

We went to the Popal Vuh and the Ixchel Textile Museum here in town on Monday.  The Popal Vuh is the written book of the Mayan's history from the creation.  When the Spaniards came they destroyed all the books they could get their hands on, quite effectively destroying the Mayan history.  A very few survived and someone wrote down all they could remember later.  It is the history since the creation and is told in glyphs in some of the ruins.  There were a lot of pottery pieces and things of that nature but we were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum.  You can read part of what it says at this site. http://www.criscenzo.com/jaguarsun/popolvuh.html

Popal Vuh

Jaguar image

The Textile Museum was very cool and showed the different designs of the huipiles (blouses) that designate different areas.  They are all basically one size fits all and made in a square to put over your head.  Some areas tuck them into their belts and some just leave them out.

Huipile

The older huipiles are hand embroidered.  More modern are machine done.

Huipile and skirt

Skirt, shoulder wrap, man's loincloth on bottom right.

It was a great excursion.  The rest of the week was mostly normal except on Friday and Saturday we were inundated with participants at the Temple.  We ran out of clothes in the roperia (clothing rental) and the laundry was kept very busy trying to bring us more clean cloths.  It was a good week.  I like it when we are busy.