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',.. there were plants, animals and fish in the water and they multiplied. The only thing that was lacking was man. Then Tangaloa created "Tiki", who was our first ancestor ...' schools. The Popol Vuh contained another wonderful account. This book, which is one of the 'great writings of the dawn of mankind' (Cordan) and is in the nature of a secret book was the holy scripture of the Quiche—Indians of the great Mayan family around Lake Atitlan in the Central American state of Guatemala. Its comprehensive creation myth claims that men only partially stem from this earth, that 'gods' created the ‘first beings endowed with reason’, but destroyed all the unsuccessful examples and after performing their earthly tasks rose into heaven again, to the place where the ‘heaven's heart’ is, namely to Dabavil, to him 'who sees in the darkness’. Is this the reason why the Quiche Indians were imbued with the concept of gods who dwelt in stone spheres and who could emerge from the stone? Does the ball game cult of this tribe, of which the Popol Vuh tells, have its roots in this creation myth? The ball game as cosmical and magical rite, as symbol of the flight to the stars? Among the creation stories that strengthen my theory, another myth—that of the Chibcha (i.e. men)—is a real jewel. The historical home of these people, whom the Spaniards discovered in 1538, is on the east Colombian plateau. The Spanish chronicler Pedro Simon describes the myth of the Chibcha in his Noticias historiales de las conquistas de tierra firme en las Indias Occidentales: It was night. There was still something of the world. The light was closed up in a big "something house" and came out of it. This "something house" is "Chiminigagua", and it hid the light in it, so that it came out. In the brightness of the light things began to come into being ...' I can see that it must have been difficult for translators and interpreters to find a clear-cut equivalent for the word ‘something house’. But how lucky for us that they left this concept that is so hard to understand and did not replace it by a fanciful synonym. Otherwise we might not be able correctly to interpret the significance of this tradition and grasp its full importance. But now we can measure the 'something house’ against our present knowledge. As the Chibchas had never seen a space-craft before, they obviously did not know what to call it. So they paraphrased it in words that were familiar to them: something like a house had landed and the 'gods' came out of it. The traditions of the Incas in Peru say that even before the world was created a man named Uiracocha existed (i.e. Viracocha, later the god Quetzalcoatl), whose full name Uiracocha Tachayachachic means 'Creator of the world things’. This god had originally been both man and woman. He settled in Tiahuanaco and created a race of giants there. We should never forget this myth of the creation. Perhaps it would be a good thing to tell it in our