The Hero Twins and the Lords of Xibalba

In the time before the current creation, Hun Hunahpu (One Hunahpu) and his brother Vucub Hunahpu (Seven Hunahpu) were great ballplayers. Day after day, they played on the ball court at the edge of Xibalba, the underworld. The constant pounding of the rubber ball disturbed the lords of death below.

One Death and Seven Death, rulers of Xibalba, sent their owl messengers to summon the brothers. "Come and play ball with us," they demanded. But it was a trap.

The brothers descended the steep road to Xibalba, crossed rivers of pus and blood, and entered the council hall. But they greeted wooden mannequins, not realizing the lords of death watched and laughed. They failed the test of the Dark House, lighting their torches when told not to burn them. At dawn, they were sacrificed.

Hun Hunahpu's head was placed in a calabash tree as a trophy, forbidden to all.

Xquic (Blood Moon), daughter of one of the Xibalba lords, heard of the wondrous skull in the tree and went to see it. "What fruit is this?" she asked, reaching out.

"Do you want it?" the skull asked.

"Yes," she said.

The skull spat into her palm, and she became pregnant. When her father discovered this disgrace, he ordered her sacrificed. But the owls sent to kill her took pity. They substituted tree sap shaped like a heart, and Xquic escaped to the surface world.

There she found Xmucane, Hun Hunahpu's mother, and gave birth to the Hero Twins: Hunahpu (One Blowgunner) and Xbalanque (Jaguar Deer).

The twins grew up poor and mistreated by their half-brothers, who resented them. But Hunahpu and Xbalanque were cunning. They tricked their brothers into climbing a tree after birds, then magically made the tree grow until their brothers were stranded. "Transform into monkeys," the twins said, and so they became the howler monkeys, ancestors of all monkeys.

The twins discovered their father's ballgame equipment hidden in the rafters and learned to play. Again, the ball's thunder disturbed Xibalba, and again the death lords summoned players.

But where their father failed, the twins succeeded through cleverness.

First, they sent a mosquito ahead to bite each of the death lords. As each cried out and was named by the others, the mosquito learned all their names. When the twins arrived, they ignored the wooden mannequins and greeted each lord by name.

In the Dark House, they did not light their torches but substituted macaw feathers for flames and fireflies for the burning ends of cigars. In the morning, their torches appeared unburned, and the lords were confounded.

They survived the Razor House, convincing the obsidian blades to spare them in exchange for animal flesh. They survived the Cold House, the Jaguar House, and the Fire House.

In the House of Bats, Hunahpu made a fatal error. He peeked out from inside his blowgun to see if dawn had come, and Camazotz, the death bat, swept down and severed his head.

Xbalanque, alone, called upon the animals. A turtle agreed to become Hunahpu's temporary head. Meanwhile, the lords of Xibalba placed Hunahpu's real head in the ball court for the next day's game.

During the ball game, Xbalanque managed to substitute a squash for his brother's head and retrieve the real head, restoring Hunahpu. But the twins knew they could not defeat death by force.

They allowed themselves to be sacrificed, thrown into a fire, their bones ground to powder and scattered in the river. But five days later, they returned, first as catfish, then as two ragged wanderers who performed amazing feats.

The lords of Xibalba heard of these wanderers who could burn a house and restore it, who could sacrifice a dog and bring it back to life, who could sacrifice a human and revive them. They summoned the performers.

"Sacrifice yourselves!" the lords demanded, eager to see the trick.

Xbalanque killed Hunahpu and brought him back. The lords, delighted, demanded the same be done to them.

"Sacrifice us! Bring us back to life!"

The twins killed One Death and Seven Death. But they did not revive them.

Thus the lords of Xibalba were humbled. Their power was broken, and death no longer held absolute dominion.

The twins descended to where their father and uncle lay buried beneath the ball court. They resurrected Hun Hunahpu, the Maize God, who rose from the cracked earth like a maize sprout from the seed.

Then Hunahpu and Xbalanque ascended into the sky. One became the Sun, the other the Moon (or in some versions, the planet Venus). The Hero Twins, who had defeated death, became the celestial order that governs all time.