Hunahpu- Maya HeroHero"Hero Twin"

Miraculous Conception and Childhood

Hunahpu's origin was supernatural. His father, Hun-Hunahpu the Maize God, and his uncle Vucub-Hunahpu had been summoned to Xibalba by the death lords, who were angered by the noise of their ballgame. The brothers failed the trials of the underworld and were sacrificed. Hun-Hunahpu's severed head was hung in a calabash tree beside the road to Xibalba as a trophy and warning. When the maiden Xquic approached the tree out of curiosity, the skull spit into her hand, magically impregnating her with the Hero Twins. Xquic fled the underworld to the surface world, where she presented herself to Xmucane, the mother of Hun-Hunahpu, who was initially skeptical of her claims.

To prove her connection to the family, Xquic was sent to gather corn from a field that had only a single plant. She prayed to the spirits of the corn, and the field produced an enormous harvest. Xmucane accepted Xquic, and in due course the twins were born. Their half-brothers, Hun Batz and Hun Chouen, resented the new arrivals and mistreated them, making them serve as household drudges and refusing to share food with them.

The Defeat of the Half-Brothers

Hunahpu and Xbalanque endured their half-brothers' cruelty until the day they turned the tables through a clever trick. They invited Hun Batz and Hun Chouen to hunt birds with them, claiming to have found a tree full of game. The half-brothers eagerly climbed the tree to retrieve the birds, but the tree magically grew taller and taller until they could not descend. The twins instructed them to loosen their loincloths and let the ends hang down like tails, and as they did so, the loincloths became actual tails, and Hun Batz and Hun Chouen were transformed into monkeys.

The Challenge to Vucub-Caquix

Before descending to Xibalba, the twins faced another adversary: the monstrous bird demon Vucub-Caquix (Seven Macaw), who falsely claimed to be the sun and moon. This arrogant creature, with teeth of jewels and eyes that gleamed like precious stones, demanded worship from the early humans.

The twins ambushed Vucub-Caquix at his favorite food tree, shooting him with their blowguns. Hunahpu's shot struck the demon's jaw, but as Vucub-Caquix fell, he seized Hunahpu's arm and tore it from its socket before escaping. The twins then enlisted the help of their grandparents Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, who disguised themselves as traveling healers and offered to cure Vucub-Caquix's shattered jaw. Instead, they extracted all his jeweled teeth and replaced his gleaming eyes with ordinary corn kernels. Stripped of his splendor, Vucub-Caquix died, and the twins recovered Hunahpu's arm, which was magically restored.

The twins then dealt with Vucub-Caquix's two sons. They lured Zipacna, the boastful crocodilian giant, with a fake crab and crushed him beneath a mountain. They defeated Cabrakan, the earthquake demon, by poisoning a bird with white earth, weakening him until he could be buried alive.

The Descent to Xibalba

Having cleared the surface world of its demons, the twins discovered their father's ballgame equipment hidden in the rafters of their grandmother's house. When they began to play, the thunderous sound of the rubber ball disturbed the Lords of Xibalba, just as their father's playing had done a generation before. The death lords sent their owl messengers with a summons: the twins were commanded to appear in Xibalba for a ballgame.

Unlike their father and uncle, Hunahpu and Xbalanque prepared carefully for the journey. Before departing, each twin planted a reed in the center of their grandmother's house, telling Xmucane that if the reeds dried and died, the twins had perished, but if the reeds sprouted new growth, they still lived. With this sign established, the twins descended the steep road into the underworld. When they reached the crossroads where their father had gone astray, they sent a mosquito ahead to spy on the lords of death. The mosquito bit each lord in turn, and when they cried out their names in pain, the twins learned their identities.

Trials and Triumphs

In Xibalba, Hunahpu and Xbalanque faced the same tests that had destroyed their father, but they passed each one through magical ingenuity. In the Dark House, they survived by placing a macaw's tail feather on their torch and a firefly on their cigar, creating the appearance of light and fire without consuming their materials. In the Cold House, they survived the killing frost. In the Jaguar House, they placated the jaguars with bones. In the Razor House, they bargained with the obsidian blades.

Between the houses of torment, the twins played ball against the death lords in the great court of Xibalba. The lords attempted to use a ball fitted with a blade designed to kill the players, but the twins recognized the deception and insisted on their own rubber ball. The lords changed rules, demanded impossible wagers, and required the twins to bring flowers from the death lords' own gardens. The twins enlisted leaf-cutter ants to steal the blossoms by night.

In the Bat House, Hunahpu made a fatal error. Waiting through the long night, the twins concealed themselves inside their blowguns while Camazotz and his bat-demons slashed through the darkness. Near dawn, Hunahpu raised his head to check for light, and Camazotz struck, severing his head. The death lords placed the head on the ballcourt as a trophy. Xbalanque enlisted the animals to help: a coati carved a squash into the likeness of Hunahpu's head, and during the next ballgame, Xbalanque used a rabbit to distract the lords while he retrieved Hunahpu's real head and replaced it with the squash. Restored, Hunahpu was ready for the final confrontation.

The Victory Over Death

The ultimate triumph of the twins came through a supreme act of deception. Knowing that the death lords planned to sacrifice them, Hunahpu and Xbalanque arranged for two seer-magicians, Xulu and Pacam, to advise the lords on how to dispose of their remains, instructing them to grind the bones and throw them in the river. When the twins were killed and their ground bones were thrown into the water as the seers recommended, they regenerated first as catfish, then as wandering magicians who performed miraculous feats. They killed and resurrected animals, burned houses and restored them, and even sacrificed and resurrected each other.

The death lords, entranced by these tricks, demanded that the magicians perform the sacrifice-resurrection on them. The twins obliged, killing Hun Came and Vucub Came. They did not resurrect them. With the supreme lords of death truly dead, the power of Xibalba was broken forever. The remaining underworld lords begged for mercy, and the twins established the new order: the lords of death would receive only imperfect offerings and would have power only over the wicked.

Ascent to the Sky

With their vengeance complete and their father honored at the ballcourt where he had been slain, Hunahpu and Xbalanque ascended into the sky. Hunahpu became the sun. Xbalanque rose alongside him as the full moon, and the four hundred boys whom Zipacna had slain ascended with them as the stars, their company now forming the Pleiades.