Hun Came- Maya GodDeity"Lord of Xibalba"

First Among the Death Lords

Hun Came, One Death in K'iche' Maya, ruled Xibalba alongside Vucub Came, Seven Death. Together they commanded the ten subordinate lords who administered specific forms of suffering: blood diseases, wasting sickness, fatal accidents, sudden death on the road. Nothing died on the surface without passing through their kingdom.

What disturbed him was noise. The sound of a rubber ball striking stone echoed down through the earth to Xibalba, and Hun Came could not abide it. Ballplayers on the surface were an affront to the lords below.

The Summons and the Tests

Hun Came dispatched his owl messengers, Arrow Owl and Skull Owl among them, to summon the ballplaying brothers Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu to the underworld. Even knowing they traveled toward danger, the brothers could not refuse a formal invitation.

Once they arrived, Hun Came subjected them to tests designed to ensure failure. At the crossroads of four colored roads, they chose wrongly. Offered seats, they sat upon burning hot slabs that seared their flesh while the death lords laughed. In the Dark House, they received torches and cigars with instructions to keep them burning through the night without consuming them. They burned both. They failed.

Victory and Its Consequences

Hun Came sacrificed both brothers. Their bodies were buried beneath the ballcourt, and Hun Hunahpu's head was placed in a calabash tree as a trophy.

But the severed head miraculously impregnated the maiden Xquic, who gave birth to the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. When the twins descended to Xibalba a generation later, they avoided the wrong road, recognized the burning benches, and used fireflies to create the illusion of light in the Dark House. Hun Came found himself unable to defeat opponents who had learned from every mistake their father made.

The Death of Death

The twins destroyed Hun Came through a final deception. Having demonstrated their ability to sacrifice themselves and be reborn, they offered to perform the same miracle on the death lords. Hun Came and Vucub Came, eager to experience resurrection, submitted to sacrifice. The twins cut them apart and did not restore them. The supreme lords of death died by their own desire, and with them died Xibalba's absolute power over the living.