Then Balam-Quitzé left a sign of his existance: This is a memento I leave for you. It will be your power. I bid farewell to you with sadness, he added. Then he left the sign of his being, the Pizom-Gagal, whose content was invisible, because it was wrapped and could not be unfolded.

They remembered their fathers; the glory of the Bundle was great. They never unfolded it since it stayed wrapped with them. They called it Bundle of Greatness; this was the way they named the sign of existance left by their fathers.

Textile bundle filled with cloths from Chichicastenango

Text from POPOL VUH (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica)

Photographic image by Barbara Layne

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