The Hero Twins

This tale is from Popol Vuh, the Council Book of the Quiché Maya, the natives of the Guatemala highlands. Be warned: This is a long story with lots of games, blood, gore and rolling heads!

Somewhere at the beginning of time, which is a very, very long time ago, there lived a pair of twins called Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu. They played ball all day long and did nothing else. They were really good at the game, though they made a ruckus all the time. The noise annoyed some very serious folks who lived in the underworld of Xibalba. These serious men were the Lords of Death and they sent their messengers up to the twins and invited them for a game below.

The unsuspecting twins, who loved nothing more than the challenge of a good game, agreed without a second thought and left for the underworld immediately. They had been told to bring their ball and protective gear with them. But the twins didn’t want to lose them and so they left them behind, hidden in the rafters of their mother’s house.

The journey to Xibalba was fraught with dangers. First they had to cross a river full of spikes, then a river of blood and finally a river of yucky pus! They managed all of this successfully and found themselves in the land of Xibalba.

As they entered the throne room, they greeted the Lords of Death by their names. But they turned out to be mere statues made of wood! The lords walked in, shaking their heads. ‘Did you think we were wooden heads?’ they asked. The boys quickly apologized. ‘Now, take a seat,’ said one of the lords with a sly smile, pointing to a bench. They sat down but jumped up instantly because it was scalding hot!

‘You may sleep in the Dark House tonight,’ said the lord, giving them a torch and two cigars for light. ‘And remember, I need these back tomorrow, both the torch and the cigars,’ he said as he left them at the door of the Dark House. But the twins burned out the torch and smoked the cigars. When morning dawned, the Lords of Death came to them and were angry that they had burned away the torch and the cigars. ‘You wicked, wicked boys! You have failed all the tests we gave you . . . Off with your heads!’ The foolish twins were killed at the ball court of Xibalba and the head of Hun Hunahpu was cut off and placed on the branch of a tree. The tree’s fruit became the first gourds.

One day, a girl from Xibalba by the name of Xquic came upon the gourd tree and peered closely at it. When she tried to pick a gourd, Hun Hunahpu’s head spat at her. Soon enough, Xquic became pregnant and her angry father ordered she be put to death. But the maiden escaped to the land of the living and went to live with Hun Hunahpu’s mother. Soon, she too gave birth to a pair of twins.

Their grandmother made the twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, work in the garden all day, just so that they wouldn’t get up to mischief like their father and uncle. But the boys were awful gardeners. Every time they tried to clear the underbrush, the forest animals would put it back all over again. They tried to snare the animals but met with no success.

One day, they managed to catch a rat and were proceeding to roast it over a fire. The rat was a clever fellow and a smooth talker. ‘Don’t do this! You two are not cut out to be gardeners anyway! There’s something you will be better at . . . and I’ll tell you what if you give me something to eat!’ And so it was that the twins heard the story about their ball-playing father and uncle. The rat helpfully undid the rope that held the ball and the playing gear, hidden away in the rafters so long ago.

Much to the exasperation of their grandmother, the twins began to play ball all day, just like their father and uncle before them but with twice as much noise and cacophony. It was no surprise that the din reached the ears of the Lords of Death, who summoned them down for a game.

The twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, packed carefully for their trip down to Xibalba, the underworld. Cheerfully waving their goodbyes to their inconsolable grandmother—who was sure these fun-loving, noisy, merrymakers, who were just like her sons, would meet the same fate—they left for the great ball game in the underworld.

The rat had helpfully told them what exactly had happened to their uncle and father, so they knew what to expect. They managed to cross the rivers of spikes, blood and pus. Before they entered the throne room of Xibalba, they paused. ‘Now, let’s find out which of these are the real lords,’ whispered Hunahpu to his brother and pulled out a hair from his shin.

The hair turned into a mosquito and went inside the throne room and bit one of the lords seated there. No reaction. Ah . . . fake and wooden! The twins smiled at each other. The mosquito flew to another and bit him. ‘Ouch!’ shrieked the lord. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked the one seated next to him, calling him by name. The twins, listening at the door, learned the name of that particular lord of death. The mosquito flew around biting all those seated. The wooden replicas didn’t react but the real ones cried out and the other lords near them called their names and asked them what had happened. Once the mosquito had done a proper head count, the boys entered the throne room.

Politely, they greeted all the real lords by name and ignored the wooden replicas. ‘Isn’t it rather rude that you ignore some amongst us?’ asked a lord with a smile that was most definitely fake.

‘We are not in the habit of greeting wooden dummies!’ said Xbalanque, returning the smile. If the lord felt miffed, he didn’t show it. ‘Do sit down on that bench and make yourself comfortable,’ said another lord pointing to a bench.

‘No! We’re not pancakes; we won’t sit on that hot girdle,’ the twins shouted aloud together.

The lords of the Dark World dared not show their disappointment and soon, the twins were ushered into the Dark House like their uncle and father before them—again they were given the torches and cigars which, they were told, had to be returned the next morning.

Having spent their entire childhood as aspiring gardeners, the twins had made friends with many animals and birds. They had brought with them a macaw’s red tail feathers, which they passed off as the torch’s flame, and they stuck fireflies to the end of the cigars to show they were still alight the next day.

But the ordeal was far from over. They were sent to the Razor House where they reasoned with the razors, telling them that their job was to cut up animals and not them, the hero twins. Next was the Jaguar House where they fed the jaguar bones that they had brought with them.

They were then sent to the Cold House, a freezing place, without even a blanket for cover. But the twins found some knots of pine under the dust, which they burned to keep themselves warm. After the cold, it had to be the hot house and so they were sent to the Fire House. But the fire didn’t burn them to ashes as the Lords of Death had hoped it only turned them a golden brown.

Finally, they were sent to the most dreaded of them all, the Bat House. And this was where they would make their first mistake. The bats were a ferocious lot and the twins decided to sleep inside their blow guns to escape the bloodthirsty creatures.

Hunahpu, impatient as he was, couldn’t wait for morning. He decided to take a little peek outside to see if it was daylight yet. Just at that moment, Camazotz, the death bat, swooped down from above and cut off his head. The severed head rolled right off into the ball court.

Xbalanque summoned his animal friends and sought their help. A Coati, a raccoon-like creature, brought a squash, which they fitted as Huangpu’s temporary head. A little rabbit was, meanwhile, told to hide in the ball court.

When the game began, the Lords of Death used Hunahpu’s head as the ball. ‘This ball proves that we’re the victors already,’ they laughed derisively. One of them hit the head towards Xbalanque, who deflected it towards the rabbit’s hole. At that moment, the rabbit dashed out and the lords assumed that the flash of fur was the ball and started chasing it!

Meanwhile, Hunahpu’s head was fixed back—with a little help from the gods above, one must add—and he was back in the game. The squash was used as the ball instead and when Xbalanque kicked with all his might, it split wide open, scattering seeds all around. ‘We’ve won!’ shouted the twins in unison.

But the Lords of Death were not finished yet. They challenged the twins to another game. Xbalanque and Hunahpu knew what fate had in store for them and how they would have to fulfil their destiny. Whatever the new game was, it would be a nasty trick for sure.

‘See this oven here? Now, you two have to jump right over it,’ instructed one of the lords. The twins looked at each other. Time to die! Holding hands, they jumped right into the fire. The Lords of Death were happy that the boys finally were well and truly finished. But, sadly for them, that was not how the story would end.

Now it was the lords’ turn to make a mistake. Instead of throwing their charred bodies over a cliff, or even hanging them from a tree like they had done to their father before them, the lords ground their bones on a grinding stone and sprinkled them in the river.

This was just what the twins were destined for. They became catfish and later turned into their old selves again. But now, they hardly looked like the boys they used to be.

They became travelling magicians who could perform amazing tricks. They burned down a huge mansion, which they restored to its former glory shortly after. They cut each other up with blades and soon were back whole, not a scar to show for it.

Soon, the news of these performers reached the ears of the dark lords of Xibalba. They sent word to have them come down for a show.

When the twins arrived, the dark lords did not recognize them. ‘Show us what you can do!’ commanded the lords. Xbalanque beckoned a dog standing nearby, a pet of one of the lords.

‘With your permission, we’ll cut up this dog,’ he said and chopped it into little pieces. Shortly after, with a whoosh and a flourish, the dog came back as good as new. Next, they sacrificed a human whom they also brought back to life.

‘Let’s see if you can kill your own selves,’ said the lords.

‘Sure, if you so wish,’ Hunahpu smiled at his brother. Xbalanque walked up to his twin with a shiny blade and cut him up, taking his heart out very carefully. He then began to dance around the room. ‘Come on, brother! It’s a jolly tune. Why don’t you join me?’ asked he. And lo and behold, Hunahpu got up all in one piece, alive and kicking. The dark lords applauded. Blood and gore, how they loved the scene!

‘Now us, do us!’ they cried out in excitement. ‘Of course, our pleasure,’ said Hunahpu, and the twins chose two of the most powerful lords and cut them up. Only, they were not restored to life thereafter. The rest of the lords of Xibalba knew they were defeated.

The twins found their father’s head on the tree where it hung and restored him to life. He stayed on at the ball court of Xibalba in a place of honour. As for the hero twins, they ascended to the sky to became the sun and the moon.