纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 009玛雅玉米神像（3）（在线收听）

The elite from ancient societies focussed upon corn as having sacred kinds of properties which they then associated with themselves.

古代社会精英团队把玉米的地位提升到神圣的财产，并且将自己与玉米联系起来。

And this is pretty obvious in the young maize god-the sculpture was apparently a manifestation of mythological beings resulting from the third Maya creation.

这点很显然地在这年轻的玉米神身上体现出来；你看，这雕像明显是第三玛雅人造神运动的成果。

There were eight mythological beings, four women and four men, who are the ancestors of all the Maya people.

玛雅历史上有八位神灵，四男四女，被奠为全体玛雅人的祖先。玛雅人认为他们祖先基本上是从玉米进化而来的，由黄玉米与白玉米面团做成的。

The Maya believed that their ancestors essentially came from corn, and they were formed of yellow and white maize dough.

玉米曾经是古代中美洲人礼仪与宗教崇拜的重中之重，

Maize was certainly a primary focus of ritual and religious veneration by ancient Meso-American people,

可一种追溯回前玛雅，

going back all the way before the Maya and even into the Olmec civilisation.'

甚至奥尔梅克文明时代。

So our maize god is not just a hauntingly beautiful statue, he gives us a real insight into the way ancient American society thought about itself and its environment.

因此，我们的玉米神可不只是一位高高在上的美丽雕像，他允许我们去真正体会到古代美洲社会人们是如何思考社会本身及周遭环境的。

The maize god represents both the fact of the agricultural cycle of planting, harvesting and replanting,

玉米神象征着农作物种植、收获与补植这种生生不息的循环过程，

and the faith in a parallel human cycle of birth, death and rebirth,but more, he is the very stuff of which the Central Americans are made.

同时也象征着另一种生命的循环—人类的出生、死亡与新生命的重新诞生这种生死轮回。

Where the Hebrew god made Adam out of dust, the Mayan gods used maize to make their humans.

更重要的是，玉米神是中美洲人民存在性的最本质事物。

The mythical story is told in the most famous epic in the whole of the Americas, the Popol Vuh.

希伯来的上帝用尘埃造出了首位人类亚当，玛雅神用玉米来创造人类。

For generations, this was passed on through oral traditions before finally being written down in the seventeenth century. Here's a taste of it:

在整个美洲神话中，著名史诗《波波尔乌》讲叙了这个神话故事。悠悠岁月里，这故事在一代又一代人中口口相传，一直流传到十七世纪，终于被记载入书本。让我们来品味一下其中一小段：

'And here is the beginning of the conception of humans and of the search for the ingredients of the human body...

于是众神就开始有了最原始的关于人类的概念，也就着手进行寻找人类肉体的工作。

So they spoke; the bearer, begetter, the makers, modellers-and a sovereign plumed serpent-they sought and discovered what was needed for human flesh.

众神开口说：人类应该是负重者、继承者、创造者与模范者，拥有主权意识及灵蛇般的灵性。经过千辛万苦的苦苦寻找，众神最终找到并发现了一种人类肉体需要的物质。

It was only a short while before the sun, moon and stars were to appear above the makers and modellers.

那时众神初混沌，创造出日月星辰，山川河流。在那苦水之滨，养育了黄玉米与白玉米。

Split place, bitter water place, is the name, the yellow corn, white corn, came from there.

众神寻找到那里，寻找到这些粮食并进行种植。

And this was when they found the staple foods, and then the yellow corn and white corn were ground.

随后他们念起了咒语，用黄玉米与白玉米造出了人类的肉体，

After that they put into words the making, the modelling of our first mother-father, with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh,

再用其他食品做成人类的四肢，赋于了生命。

food alone for the human legs and arms for our first fathers, the four human works.

这就是我们最早的父母亲，众神最初的四件人类作品。

But why did maize become the favoured food and the revered grain of the Americas? Why not wheat or a certain type of meat?

但为什么唯独玉米成为所有美洲人最为青睐的食品与崇敬的谷物？为什么不是小麦或者其它类型的肉类呢？