Hun Hunahpu- Maya GodDeity"Maize God"

First Father

Hun Hunahpu is the Maya Maize God, the divine source of the grain that constitutes human flesh. In Classic Maya art, his elongated head takes the form of an ear of corn, with jade beads representing kernels and maize foliage sprouting from his crown. He appears eternally young, slender, and graceful.

The Summons to Xibalba

Hun Hunahpu and his brother Vucub Hunahpu spent their days playing the sacred ballgame on the court above Xibalba. The thunderous pounding of their rubber ball disturbed the lords of death below, Hun Came and Vucub Came, who dispatched owl messengers to summon the brothers to the underworld. The invitation was a trap, and the brothers knew it, but they could not refuse a formal summons without dishonor. Before departing, they buried their ball and gaming equipment in the rafters of their mother Xmucane's house.

The brothers entered Xibalba unprepared. They greeted the wooden mannequins the death lords placed to trick visitors, wasting their words. In the Dark House, they were given torches and cigars and told to keep them burning all night without consuming them. Unable to solve the puzzle, they used up their materials, and the death lords declared them defeated.

Death and the Calabash Tree

The lords of Xibalba sacrificed both brothers and buried their bodies beneath the underworld ballcourt. But they made a special example of Hun Hunahpu, severing his head and placing it in the fork of a barren calabash tree beside the road to Xibalba as a warning.

The tree had other plans. As soon as the head was placed among its branches, the dead wood burst into life, covering itself with round calabash gourds indistinguishable from the skull. Fruit and head became one.

The maiden Xquic, daughter of an underworld lord, heard rumors of the miraculous tree and went to see it. When she reached up to pick a gourd, the skull-head of Hun Hunahpu spat into her palm, and from this magical saliva she conceived the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who would descend to Xibalba, defeat the death lords, and raise their father from the dead.

Xquic and the Promise of Return

Xquic's pregnancy was soon discovered. Her father Cuchumaquic, an underworld lord, was outraged and ordered four owl messengers to kill her and bring back her heart in a gourd bowl. But Xquic persuaded the owls to spare her, and they substituted a ball of sap from the blood tree, which, when placed over the fire, bubbled and hardened into a convincing imitation of a human heart. The lords of Xibalba were deceived, and Xquic escaped to the upper world.

She sought refuge with Xmucane, the mother of Hun Hunahpu, but the old woman rejected her. As a test, Xmucane sent Xquic to a cornfield that held only a single stalk and demanded she fill an entire carrying net with ears of corn. Xquic called upon Chahal, the guardian spirit of the field, and the single plant produced an abundance. Xmucane accepted her, and the Hero Twins were born.

The Resurrection

The climax of the Hero Twins' triumph in Xibalba was the resurrection of their father. After destroying Hun Came and Vucub Came through trickery and sacrifice, Hunahpu and Xbalanque descended to the place where Hun Hunahpu lay buried beneath the ballcourt. Classic Maya ceramics depict this scene: the twins reach down into a crack in the earth, represented as the cracked carapace of a turtle, and pull their father upward toward the light.

Hun Hunahpu emerges from the turtle shell as a beautiful young man, his body restored to perfection. Maize plants sprout from his head, and attendant figures pour water over him, representing the rains that bring the buried seed back to life.

The Body of Corn

The Popol Vuh describes how, after failed attempts to create humanity from mud and wood, the gods finally succeeded using maize dough. The grandmother goddess Xmucane ground white and yellow corn, mixed it with water, and from this masa the first four human men were formed, so perfect that the gods had to cloud their vision to prevent them from rivaling divine omniscience. Human flesh was corn. Every meal of tortillas or tamales was consumption of the substance from which humans were made.