Vucub Came- Maya GodDeity"Lord of Xibalba"

The Second Death Lord

Vucub Came, "Seven Death" in K'iche' Maya, rules Xibalba alongside Hun Came, One Death, as one of the two supreme lords of the underworld. Together they commanded ten subordinate death lords and administered the tests and torments awaiting those who descended into their realm. Their names use Maya day signs: Vucub (Seven) and Hun (One) combined with Came (Death), the same calendrical pairing that marked the first father Hun Hunahpu and his twin Vucub Hunahpu.

The Defeat of the First Brothers

When Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu disturbed Xibalba with their ballplaying on the surface above, both death lords took offense at the noise. They dispatched owl messengers to summon the brothers below. The brothers came. They failed the tests: the crossroads that led them astray, the burning bench they mistook for a seat, the Dark House where they were told to keep torches and cigars lit through the night without consuming them. They could not. Hun Came and Vucub Came ordered them sacrificed, and Hun Hunahpu's head was placed in a calabash tree beside the road to Xibalba as a trophy and a warning.

Destruction

Vucub Came met his end alongside Hun Came when the Hero Twins turned the death lords' own desires against them. The twins had demonstrated a trick: one sacrificed the other with a knife, then brought him back to life. The death lords watched and wanted it for themselves. They submitted eagerly to the blade, expecting to rise with renewed power. The twins did not restore them.

With both supreme lords dead, the remaining underworld lords could only accept the diminished position the twins decreed: sap instead of blood, broken pots instead of fine vessels, power only over the wicked rather than command over all souls.