The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American

by Hartley Burr Alexander

Hunhun-Ahpu and his brother, Vukub-Ahpu, being devoted to tlachtli, exercised themselves at this sport every day. As they played, they journeyed toward Xibalba, the underworld, whose lords, Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé, also were clever at the ball game. Therefore, thinking to trap the upper-world champions, they of the nether realm sent them a challenge—four owls were their messengers—to meet in an underworld match; and the brothers accepting the challenge, set out for Xibalba. Passing down a steep descent, they soon crossed a river in a deep gorge, next a boiling river, and then a river of blood, after which, beyond a fourth river, they came to cross-roads, red, black, white, and yellow. The guardian of the black road said: "I am the way to the king"; but it led them to a place where two wooden images were seated. These the brothers saluted; and receiving no response except the ribald laughter of the Xibalbans, the heroes knew that they had been made butts of ridicule. The brothers angrily issued their challenge, and the Xibalbans invited them to seats on the throne of honour; but this proved to be a heated stone, and when they burned themselves, the princes of Xibalba could scarcely contain their merriment. The brothers were then given torches and conducted to the House of Gloom, with injunctions to keep the lights undiminished until the dawn; but the torches were speedily consumed, and when, next day, they were brought before Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé who demanded the lights, they could only reply, "They are consumed, Lords." Thereupon, at the command of the underworld-gods, the brothers were sacrificed, and their bodies were buried; only, the head of Hunhun-Ahpu was placed in a fruit-tree, where it was immediately transformed so as to be indistinguishable from the gourd-like fruits which the tree bore.

The Xibalbans were prohibited from approaching this tree, but a certain maiden, Xquiq ("Princess Blood"), having heard of it, said to herself: "Why should I not go to see this tree; in sooth, its fruits should be sweet, according to what I hear said of it." She approached the tree in admiration: "Are such the fruits of this tree? And should I die were I to pluck one?" Then the head in the midst said: "Do you indeed desire it? These round lumps among the branches of the tree are only death's-heads!" Nevertheless, Xquiq was insistent, whereupon Hunhun-Ahpu's head demanded that she stretch forth her hand, and, by a violent effort, he spat into it, saying: "This saliva and foam which I give thee is my posterity. Behold, my head will cease to speak, for it is only a death's-head, with no longer any flesh. So it is also with the head of even the greatest of princes; for it is the flesh alone that adorneth the visage, whence cometh the horror which besetteth men at the moment of death." He then directed the maiden to flee to the upper world, knowing that she would be pursued by the underworld-powers; and these, indeed, when they heard that Xquiq was enceinte, demanded that she be sacrificed, sending Owl-Men to execute their doom. But the princess beguiled the Owls, inducing them to substitute for her heart the coagulated sap of the bloodwort, the odour of which they took to be the scent of blood, while she herself fled to the protection of the mother of Hunbatz and Hunchouen. The latter demanded proof that the new comer was indeed her daughter-in-law and sent Xquiq into the field for maize. There was but one hill in the field, whereupon the maiden appealed for aid to the gods, by whose miraculous help she was enabled to gather a full burden without disturbing the single hill. This miracle satisfied the mother-in-law; who said: "It is a sign that thou art indeed my daughter-in-law, and that those whom thou dost carry will be wise"; and shortly after this, Xquiq gave birth to the twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanqué.

The new comers were welcomed by all excepting Hunbatz and Hunchouen, who regarded their half-brothers as rivals and plotted their death; but Hunahpu and Xbalanqué, who from birth had shown their prowess as magicians, transformed the two flute-players into monkeys, condemning them to live in the trees. Hunbatz and Hunchouen, says the chronicler, "were invoked by musicians and singers aforetime, and also by painters and sculptors; but they were changed into beasts and became monkeys because of their pride and their maltreatment of their brothers." It is probable that the two were monkey-form gods of the arts, though it is also possible that the transformation is associated with that of the primeval age which ended with the metamorphosis of men into monkeys.

The next episode in the career of the two youths was the clearing of a field by means of magic tools which felled trees and dug the soil while their owners amused themselves at the chase; but at night the animals restored the vegetation. Accordingly the brothers concealed themselves to watch for the undoers of their work; and when by night the lion (puma) and the tiger (jaguar), the hare and the opossum, the deer, the coyote, the porcupine, and the peccary, together with the birds, appeared and called to the felled trees to raise themselves, the brothers attempted to trap them. They succeeded only in seizing the tails of the deer and the rabbit (which, of course, explains the present decurtate state of these animals), but finally they captured the rat, which, to save its life, revealed to them the hiding-place of the rings and gloves and rubber ball with which their fathers had played tlachtli, and which their grandmother had concealed from them lest they, too, become lost through the fatal lure of the game. By a ruse the twins succeeded in getting possession of the apparatus, and like their fathers became passionately devoted to the sport.

When the Lords of Xibalba learned of this, they said: "Who, then, are these that begin again to play above our heads, shaking the earth without fear? Are not Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hunahpu dead, who wished to exalt themselves before us?" Forthwith they dispatched a challenge to the new champions which the twins accepted; but before they departed for the underworld, each planted a reed in the house of their grandmother, saying that if any ill befell either of them, his reed would wither and die. They passed the underworld rivers, and coming to the four roads (here named black, white, red, and green), they set out upon the black path, though they took the precaution to send in advance an animal called Xan, with instructions to prick the leg of each lord in the realm below. The first two throned beings made no response, being manikins of wood; but the third uttered a cry, and his neighbour said: "What is it, Hun-Camé? What has pricked you?" The same thing happened to Vukub-Camé, Xiqiripat, Ahalpuh, Cuchumaquiq, Chamiabak, Ahalcana, Chamiaholom, Patan, Quiqxic, Quiqrixgag, and Quiqré (for such were the names of these princes): "it is thus that they revealed themselves, calling one another by name," each in turn. When the hero twins came, refusing to salute the wooden men, they addressed the Lords of Xibalba each by his title, much to the chagrin of these; and, further, they declined a place on the heated stone, saying, "It is not our seat."

In succeeding episodes Hunahpu and Xbalanqué underwent the ordeals of the houses of the underworld. The House of Gloom was first; but the twins substituted red paint for the fire on the torches given them and thus preserved these undiminished. "Whence indeed, are you come?" cried the astonished Xibalbans; "who are you?" "Who can say whence we are," they answered; "we ourselves do not know." So they refused to reveal themselves and in the game of ball which followed they altogether defeated the Xibalbans; but since this only augmented the desire of the latter for the lives of the pair, the underworld lords demanded of the two heroes that they bring them four vases of flowers. Accordingly they sent the youths under guard to the House of Lances; but the brothers overcame the demons of this abode by promising them the flesh of all animals, while at the same time they persuaded the ants to bring the needed flowers from the gardens of Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé. Having failed with this test, the Xibalbans then dispatched their guests to the House of Cold, which they survived by kindling pine-knots. The next trial was the House of Tigers, but its ferocious denizens were diverted by bones which the brothers cast to them. The House of Fire was also harmless to them; but in the sixth, the House of Bats, or House of Camazotz, as its lord was called, they met their first discomfiture. All night the heroes lay prone, longing for the dawn; but at last Hunahpu for a moment raised his head, which was instantly shorn off by the vigilant Camazotz. Xbalanqué, in desperation, summoned the animals to his assistance; and the turtle, chancing to touch the bleeding neck of Hunahpu and becoming attached to it, was transformed into a head with the magic aid of the animals. The real head the Lords of Xibalba had suspended in the ball court, where they were reviling it when Xbalanqué and Hunahpu, with his turtle's head, appeared for the last round at the game; and with the assistance of the animals Xbalanqué succeeded in winning the victory once more, and recovering Hunahpu's head, he restored it in place of the turtle's.

Having now met the ordeals set by the Xibalbans, the brothers undertook to show their own prowess, and, first of all, their contempt of death. Anticipating the action of the Lords of Xibalba in condemning them to death, they sought the counsel of two magicians, Xulu and Pacam, with whom they arranged for their resurrection; after which, sentenced to be burned, they mounted the funeral pyre and met their death, whereat all the Xibalbans were filled with joy, crying, "We have triumphed, indeed; and none too soon!" The bones, ground to powder at the advice of the two magicians, were cast upon the underworld waters; wherein on the fifth day two fish-men were to be seen, while the next day a pair of wretched beggars, poor and miserable, appeared among the Xibalbans. These beggars, however, were wonder-workers: they burned houses and immediately restored them; they even sacrificed and then resuscitated one another. Their fame soon reached the ears of Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé, and when the mendicant-magicians were brought before these lords, they were implored by the Xibalban kings to perform their miracles. Thereupon the beggars began their "dances": they killed and revivified the dog of the underworld princes; they burned and restored the royal palace; they sacrificed and brought to life a man—each deed at the command of Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé. Finally, overcome with excitement, the Lords of Xibalba cried, "Do likewise with us; immolate us also!" "Can death exist for you?" asked the beggars ironically. "Nevertheless, it is your right that we amuse you." But when they had sacrificed Hun-Camé and Vukub-Camé, they restored them no more to life. "Then fled all the princes of Xibalba, seeing their kings dead, and their bodies laid open; but in a moment they themselves were sacrificed, two by two, a chastisement which was their due." A single prince escaped, begging for pity, while the host of their vassals prostrated themselves before their conquerors.

Then the heroes revealed themselves, disclosing their names and the names of their fathers, saying, "We are the avengers of the sufferings of our sires; harken, now to your doom, ye of Xibalba! Since your fame and your power are no more, and ye merit no clemency, your race shall have little rule, and never again shall ye play the Game of Ball. Yours it shall be to make objects of burnt clay, pots and pans, and maize-grinders; and the animals that live in the brushwood and in solitude shall be your share. All the happy, all the cultivated, shall cease to be yours; the bees alone will continue to reproduce before your eyes. Ye, perverse, cruel, sad, wretched, who have done ill, now lament it!" Thus were degraded those who had been of bad faith, hypocritical, tyrannical; thus their power was ruined.

Meanwhile, in the upper world, the grandmother of the twins watching the two reeds, had mourned and rejoiced in turn, twice seeing them wither and twice revive. "The Living Reeds, the Level Earth, the Centre of the House, shall be the names of this place," she said. The twins talked with the heads of their father and uncle, paying them funeral honours and elevating them to the sky, the one to become the sun, the other the moon; and they raised up also the four hundred youths buried by Zipacna, to become stars in heaven, saying: "Henceforth ye shall be invoked by civilized peoples; ye shall be adored; and your names shall not perish."

Such, in its general character, is the mythic portion of the Popul Vuh. It is built up of elements found far and wide in North America and it reflects ideas practically universal among the civilized Nahuatlan and Mayan tribes; but it possesses one great distinction—that of presenting these concepts with an imaginative intensity unmatched by any other version, a quality which in some measure argues that the whole cycle is original with the Mayan stock. The myth certainly gives a broad view of the south Mayan pantheons; and most of the elements in the proper names which can be interpreted are indicative of the cosmic nature of the personalities. According to Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hun signifies "one," Vukub is the word for "seven"; Hunahpu is "One Blowgun-Shooter," and it is quite likely that the blowgun was associated with celestial phenomena, as the game of tlachtli certainly is; Hunbatz is "One Monkey"; Hun-Camé is "One Dead," and so on. Vukub-Cakix ("Seven Macaws"), Vukub-Hunahpu ("Seven One-Blowgun-Shooter"), and Vukub-Camé ("Seven Dead") are clearly corresponding, or complementary, cosmic powers. The Abbé believes that Hurakan (from which comes our word "hurricane") and Cabrakan ("Earthquake") are deities imported from the Antilles. Camazotz ("Ruler of Bats,"—Brasseur; "Death Bat,"—Seler) is clearly the Elder of the Bats—the bat-god known to have been a dread and potent deity among the Maya, and, as the vampire, feared and propitiated far into South America.[102] Balam means "tiger"—that is, the jaguar, which, perhaps because of its spots, is symbol of the star-studded night and of the west. The four Quiché ancestors are clearly cosmic deities—Balam-Quitzé ("Smiling Tiger") perhaps of the east; Balam-Agab ("Night Tiger") of the west; Iqi-Balam ("Moon Tiger"); and Mahucatah ("Renowned Name," an epithet, in the Abbé's opinion). The Hero Brothers are, of course, familiar figures everywhere in American myth.