The Maya religion incorporates many magical supernatural features in its beliefs about the creation of Earth and life on Earth. The Popul Vuh document allows tracing Maya beliefs back to their development as the process of creation is the central and fundamental basis of any religion. Through depicting conversations about the creation of Earth and the settings in which these conversations take place, the Popul Vuh shows how the supernatural and divine intersects with settings at any different point of time, which reflects the close connection between settings and the divine in Maya religion.
While the portrayal of the process of creation in Maya religion in some ways echoes Christianity, it has distinct features that make it unique. Thus, while in Christian religion the God and the Creator is one only, in Maya religion there are two Gods, Heart of Sky and Heart of Earth, Framer and Shaper, who are directly involved in the process of creation. Having divine powers these Gods are able to create sky and mountains at their will as well as numerous creatures that populate the Earth. Possessing supernatural powers, these gods seek to create creatures who would worship them, but the process turns out to go not the way the Gods initially planned.
The setting plays a very important role in Maya religion as every new attempt at creating is described in the context of what the Earth looked like when the described creatures inhabited it. Thus, when the Gods created the animals, the Earth was full of animal sounds which displeased the Gods when they understood that the animals could not worship them. Creating a mud person, the Gods sought to instill life in it, but it fell to pieces causing frustration of the Gods’ plans. The most vivid depiction is that of the effigies of carved wood, who not only populated the Earth making it unrecognizable but also chased their creators from their abode.
The vivid depiction of the changes that each new attempt at creation brought to the Earth’s surface makes Maya religion very vivid and close to ordinary people. Indeed, when describing the divine and supernatural events, the Popul Vuh document recounts them in a manner that is close to the depiction of people’s everyday life. Thus, the Gods are unable to create what they want from the first time, which shows not only their magical but also fallible nature.