The Hero Twins in Xibalba

Before the world was fully formed, before the sun and moon had risen, there were the Hero Twins: Hunahpu and Xbalanque. They were born of extraordinary lineage. Their father Hun Hunahpu and their uncle Vucub Hunahpu had been great ballplayers whose noisy game disturbed the Lords of Xibalba, the rulers of the Maya underworld. The lords summoned the brothers down and subjected them to a series of deadly trials. Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu failed, and the lords sacrificed them, burying them in the ball court of Xibalba. The severed head of Hun Hunahpu was placed in a calabash tree, where it miraculously caused the tree to bear fruit.

One day, the maiden Xquiq (Blood Moon) passed beneath the tree. The head spoke to her, reached out, and spat into her hand. This divine saliva caused her to conceive the Hero Twins. When her father discovered her pregnancy, she fled to the surface world and sought refuge with Xmucane, the mother of Hun Hunahpu, who tested her with a trial of harvesting corn before accepting her.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque grew up as remarkable boys, feared and resented by their jealous half-brothers One Monkey and One Artisan. The twins outwitted their half-brothers repeatedly, eventually transforming them into monkeys. Like their father before them, the twins became expert ballplayers, and once again the thunderous sound of their game reached the ears of the lords of Xibalba.

The lords of death sent their owl messengers to summon the twins to the underworld. Hunahpu and Xbalanque knew the dangers that awaited them, but they descended willingly, determined to avenge their father. They brought with them their blowguns, their rubber ball, their cleverness, and the knowledge that death in Xibalba need not be permanent for those who understood its secrets.

The lords of Xibalba tested the twins in the Dark House, where they had to keep their torches and cigars burning all night without consuming them. The twins tricked the lords by attaching macaw feathers to their torches and fireflies to their cigars. Next came the Razor House, where the sharp blades were meant to slice them apart, but the twins spoke to the razors and persuaded them to rest. In the Cold House, they survived the freezing cold. In the Jaguar House, the jaguars were pacified with bones. In the Bat House, Camazotz, the great bat god, swooped down and bit off Hunahpu's head. Quick-thinking Xbalanque fashioned a replacement head from a squash, and the twins continued their trials.

The final test was the Oven of the lords of Xibalba. The twins knew they could not survive it, but they had a plan. They leaped willingly into the great fire. Their bones were ground to powder and scattered in the river of Xibalba. But on the fifth day, the twins rose from the waters, reborn. They appeared before the lords of Xibalba disguised as traveling performers and magicians. They performed miraculous tricks: sacrificing a person and bringing them back to life, burning a house and restoring it, killing and reviving a dog. The lords of Xibalba were so amazed that they demanded the trick be performed on themselves. The twins obliged — they sacrificed the lords of death one by one, but this time they did not bring them back. Death itself was defeated. The twins then revealed their true identities, bowed before their father's remains, and ascended into the sky, where Hunahpu became the sun and Xbalanque became the moon. Their father's head was restored and buried with honor, and maize — the sacred corn that sustains all life — sprang from the ground where he was laid to rest.