Mesoamerican PantheonUnderworld
Xibalba
The Maya underworld, 'Place of Fear,' ruled by the death lords One Death and Seven Death. Souls must pass through houses of darkness, knives, cold, jaguars, fire, and bats. The Hero Twins descended here to defeat death itself.
About Xibalba
Place of fear
Xibalba in the K'iche' Popol Vuh is the underworld of One Death and Seven Death. The Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque descend, survive the dark house, razors, cold, jaguars, fire, and bats, and defeat the lords at the ballgame. Their father and uncle died on the same road. It is a court of tests, not a Mexica Mictlan. Do not merge the two. The text is colonial-era alphabetic but draws on Classic Maya underworld imagery.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Popol Vuh (Tedlock / Colop tradition)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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