INTRODUCTION

The two most prominent books recognized as the sacred books of the Mayan people are the Popol Vuh and the Chilam Balam. The objective of this study was to investigate the botanical knowledge implicit in the Popol Vuh, Popol Wuj or Pop Wuj, that means “the book of time” or “book of events”, widely accepted as a reference framework of the Mayan cosmogony (^{Sam Colop, 1999}). The manuscript was written around 1550 by an anonymous indigenous person based on oral tradition and remained hidden until 1701-1703, when the priest Francisco Ximenez transcribed it into Castilian Spanish. In 1857, The French Brasseur de Bourbourg denominated the indigenous document the Popol Vuh, a name that has remained to date (^{Recinos, 2002}). The plants mentioned in the sacred book are presented after the study carried out through the exhaustive analysis of the three editions of the book translated by Guatemalan scholars Adrián Recinos (^{Recinos, 2002}), Adrián Inés ^{Chávez (Chávez, 2008)} and Luis Enrique Sam Colop (^{Sam Colop, 1999}).

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The review focused on searching for plant names mentioned in the three editions of the original book written by Guatemalan scholars Adrián Recinos (^{Recinos, 2002}), Adrián Inés Chávez (^{Chávez, 2008}) and Luis Enrique Sam Colop (^{Sam Colop, 1999}), which were then entered into a preliminary database including the common names of each, both in Mayan and Spanish. To identify the referred species, comparative analyses of the common names reported in the published floras were carried out, including the flora and biodiversity of Yucatan (^{Durán-García et al. 2016}, ^{Standley, 1930}) and the Flora of Guatemala (^{Gentry and Standley, 1974}; ^{Nash and Williams, 1976}; ^{Standley and Steyermark, 1946a}; ^1946b; ¹⁹⁴⁹; ¹⁹⁵²; ¹⁹⁵⁸; ^{Standley and Williams, 1967}; ¹⁹⁷⁰; ^{Standley et al., 1974}; ^{Swallen, 1955}), as well as floristic and ethno-floristic listings (^{Barrera et al., 1976}; ^{Carnevali et al., 2010}; ^{Sosa et al., 1985}). The nomenclature of all the species names was verified in The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org/) database, now superseded by the World Flora Online (^{WFO, 2022}).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A total of 32 different plant species were identified. All the species are native to Mesoamerica and belong to 21 different plant families. The families with the highest number of species are Fabaceae with four, Moraceae and Solanaceae with three species each, and Bromeliaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Malvaceae and Poaceae with two species each (Table 1). The three editions of the book reviewed mentioned 22 of the 32 species; one species, tomato, (Solanum lycopersicum) is mentioned only in the edition of ^{Sam Colop (1999)}, pita (Aechmea magdalenae) is mentioned only in the version of ^{Chávez (2008}) and five other species are only mentioned by ^{Recinos (2002)}: squash (Cucurbita moschata), ramón or iximché (Brosimum alicastrum), amate (Ficus cotinifolia), chipilín (Crotalaria longirostrata) and cattail (Typha domingensis).^{Recinos (2002)} points to Typha dominguensis as the plant species used to create woman, whereas the versions by ^{Chávez (2008)} and ^{Sam Colop (1999)} mention zibak (Cyperus canus, sensu^{Standley & Steyermark, 1958}) as the plant used to create the female body. Agave (Agave americana) was mentioned by ^{Chávez (2008)} and ^{Sam Colop (1999)}, the first in reference to the place where all the events described in the Popol Vuh took place, and the second in reference to the beverage made from it.

The description of the attempts of how the gods created man asserts the close relationship of the Mayan culture with plant biodiversity. In the first attempt, they used clay but, this material lacked strength and reasoning; thus, they decided to destroy it. They used wood for their second attempt: tzité (Erythrina berteroana), a species of the Fabaceae family, to create man (^{Standley and Steyermark, 1958}), and zibak (Cyperus canus), a plant, to create woman. It narrates how these wooden beings, unable to invoke their creators, were destroyed by the gods. It was then that the gods created men from maize, which was brought to them by four animals from Pan Paxil Pan K’ayala’, a place full of trees producing edible fruit that, according to specialist scholars, is a mountain located in the Mexico-Guatemala border and is the place of origin of maize (^{López et al., 2012}, ^{Navarrete, 2002}). The text reads: “…Then, the yellow ears, the white ears, were ground. Nine grinds Ixmukane gave them…”. According to ^{Sam Colop (1999)}, the nine grinds allude to the nine lunar cycles that approximately correspond to the length of human gestation. According to Mayan mythology, we descend from these beings created from maize.

In addition to maize, tzité and zibak, 11 other species were identified that can be considered of cosmogonic significance. Plant species used in ceremonial acts related to deities were also identified, such as copal (Protium copal), a sacred species, whose resin is burned as an offering to the gods. Fourteen species of food plants were identified, which can be classified into five groups: fruit trees [zapote (Manilkara zapota), nance (Byrsonima crassifolia), jocote (Spondias mombin), anona (Annona reticulata), matasano (Casimiroa edulis)], grains and seeds [maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus lunatus), cocoa (Theobroma cacao), pataxte (Theobroma bicolor)], vegetables [squash, tomato, chilacayote (Cucurbita ficifolia)], flavourings [chili (Capsicum annuum)] and beverages (agave). Seven species were domesticated by the ancient Mesoamerican people: maize, squash, chilacayote, tobacco, beans, tomato and cocoa; moreover, they recorded several times the milpa, a unique multi-species Mesoamerican agroecosystem, practiced by their goddess, to produce maize, beans, squash and chili. The word milpa is mentioned several times in texts, as in the passage in which Ixmukané (the creator goddess) asks Ixkik (the mother goddess) to bring food from the milpa to prove her authenticity.

Another group of plants are those used to make utensils such as the jícaro (Crescentia cujete) - the container that the Mayans commonly used to eat their food and make offerings to the gods - and rubber (Castilla elastica), which together with Ipomoea alba, was used to manufacture rubber balls. (^{Hosler et al., 1999}; ^{Larqué-Saavedra, 2016}; ^{Venkatachalam et al., 2013}). In the words of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun: “…there is a gum from a tree that grows in the warm lands… Once coupled one with the other, which is something that curdles and ends black…”, “…these are made from the juice of a certain herb... said juice is cooked, which hardens upon boiling, and once converted into dough, it is given the desired shape” (^{Díaz, 2009}). The uses of the plants of the Popol Vuh are presented in Table 2 where it can be appreciated that the species have an average of 3.5 uses.

Another relevant characteristic of the flora is that 28 % of the species are evergreen trees, 22 % deciduous trees, 28 % perennial grasses, 19 % annual grasses and 3 % shrubs. Of the 32 species, 16 of them are native to this region, five species stretch to northern of South America, 10 other are distributed throughout tropical America, and one species is cosmopolitan. Agave is the only species that could be introduced into the Mayan Zone. Moreover, 26 species grow in tropical forests with warm, dry to humid climates. Four species are typical of temperate or cool climates: pajón (Muhlenbergia macroura), pericón (Tagetes lucida), chilacayote and agave; and other two, cattail (Typha domingensis) and zibak, are characteristic of aquatic or subaquatic environments.

The data presented in this study, identifying the plant species, reveal the deep knowledge that the Mayans possessed about the flora of both the lowlands and the highlands of the region, as well as on the value and significance of domesticated and wild plant species, undoubtedly relevant in cultural terms.