Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [219]
It is clear from the start that these twins are magical, because they grow up fast, are unusually expert hunters, and can perform all sorts of miracles, like killing monsters. One day they discover their father’s ball-playing equipment and decide to play. Like their father and uncle before them, they disturb the gods of Xibalba and are summoned to the under-world and given a series of challenges by the lords of hell. Unlike their ancestors, however, these twins are able to outwit the lords of hell. Supreme tricksters, they meet every challenge put to them. At last, they are placed in a Bat House. A bat swoops down and beheads Hunahpu, and his head is used as the ball in the next ball game. But Ixbalanque switches his brother’s head with a squash, and Hunahpu is restored to life. When the lords of death realize they have been tricked yet again, they decide to burn the twins.
With the help of a magician, the twins willingly jump into a pit of fire and are resurrected five days later. They then begin to travel the land as magicians. Hearing of their wonderful magical skills, the lords of hell order a command performance, and the twins amaze them with a series of dismemberments and decapitations of animals and themselves—from which they are able to recover! Seeing this miracle, the lords of hell want to become part of the act and ask the twins to kill and then restore them. The heroes readily agree, but then don’t bring the lords of hell back to life. In this way, death is defeated, giving hope to mankind. For this great service, the twins are rewarded by being made the sun and the moon.
As the Popol Vuh, with its streams of blood and frequent decapitations, proves, Mayan myth wasn’t all games. Obsessed with images of death, Mayan religion included sacrifice. In their cities, built essentially for ceremonial purposes, the Mayas constructed limestone pyramids topped with small temples where priests performed the gory rituals. The gods, whose help was required to continue the cycles of nature and to ensure fertility, demanded nourishment. To obtain the help of the gods, the Mayas fasted, prayed, and offered sacrifical deer, dogs, and turkeys.
The Mayas frequently offered their own blood as well, and sometimes their blood sacrifice involved a priest or noble person piercing the tongue, penis, ears, lips, or other body parts, which they spattered on pieces of bark paper or collected in bowls. Some occasions called for the living heart of a victim to be cut out in sacrifices performed at the top of the pyramid. In a culture that believed the world had been created five times and destroyed four, and would be destroyed again, this was part of the balance. For most people, death meant Xibalba, or hell. Heaven was reserved for those who had died in childbirth or battle, or those who were hanged or were offered as sacrifice. The ideas of penitence, fasting, abstinence, a world-ending flood, and a tortured, dying god were all part of the Mayan traditions—which made them fertile ground for the Catholic religion.
WHO’S WHO OF MAYAN GODS
The Mayan pantheon was quite vast. These are among its most significant gods.
Ah Puch Depicted with a skeleton’s exposed ribs and the face of death—or as a bloated corpse—Ah Puch is unmistakable. He is the “lord of death,” who visits the homes of the sick and dying to snatch them away to the kingdom of the dead. A later name for him is Cizin, “the flatulent one.” Ah Puch is apparently still feared today by modern descendants of the Mayas in Guatemala, who call him Yum Cimil.
Chac Portrayed as a warrior whose tears brought rainwater to earth, Chac is a rain god, an agricultural and fertility deity, and one of the longest