MYTHOLOGY

The Hero twins

 

The Dog God, a twin himself, was the deity of both twins and deformities and the birth of twins, like that of deformed children, was regarded as portent of disaster. Aztec parents, considering twins a mortal threat, routinely killed one of the babies as the only way to save their own lives. Yet, Mesoamerican mythologies are filled with tales of twins, usually heroes and monster slayers but sometimes, like Quetzalcoatl as morning star and his twin, Xolotl, as evening star, representing the opposing forces of darkness and light.
     Nowhere, however, is there a more complete and detailed story than that told in the Popol Vuh, the Mayan story of the "dawn of life." Here we have several sets of twins, beginning with Hun Hunahpu and his brother Vucub Hunahpu, whose boisterous ball playing disturbs the underworld lords and demons of Xibalba. They send four owl messengers to challenge the humans to play ball against them. The twins accept the dare and, after overcoming many obstacles, finally reach Xibalba, only to be tricked into attempting impossible tasks. One of the tasks is to spend a night in the House of Gloom with lighted torches and cigars which must burn all night but be whole in the morning. For their failure they are condemned and sacrificed.

     Hun Hunahpu’s head is placed in a barren tree which instantly blossomed forth with round calabash gourds. An underworld maiden named Xquic hears of the marvelous tree and comes to see it. Hun Hunahpu tells her the gourds are only skulls and, when she persists in picking one, spits in her hand, impregnating her. Xquic’s father soon notices her condition and, despite her protests of innocence, orders her put to death. The four owls who are escorting her to the place of sacrifice take pity on the maiden, spare her and lead her to Hun Hunahpu’s mother in the upper world. In due time she gives birth to Hunahpu and Xbalanque, the Hero Twins. From the beginning, the new twins are not well accepted by their grandmother and half brothers, Hun Batz and Hun Chouen. While the older boys sing, dance, compose music and produce works of art, the twins toil and hunt with blowguns for food. Even then the older boys snatch all their game, leaving them nothing but scraps. One day the twins return empty handed, telling their brothers that they have cached their game in a tree. Hun Batz and Hun Chouen are in the tree when it miraculously starts to grow higher and higher and the boys are transformed into forest monkeys. They become the Monkey Gods, patrons of music and the arts and the twins become known as The Tricksters. After the great flood—Oh, yes! Mayan mythology records a deluge—many monstrous beings come to the surface. The most objectionable and vainglorious of these is Vucub Caquix (Seven Macaw). Our heroes decide to slay the monster and hide themselves with their blowguns under his favorite fruit tree. When the great bird alights, Hunahpu shoots him in the face, but the angered monster tears off Hunahpu’s arm and escapes with it. The twins persuade two healers to offer to cure his eyes and teeth, but actually to replace them with useless grains of corn. With no way to hunt or feed, the bird soon dies. The healers then replace the severed arm and the twins are ready for the next adventure. Like their father and uncle they often play ball, once more angering the underworld lords with all that pounding just above their heads. Again, the owls are sent with a challenge. The twins follow the path the first twins had taken, meeting and overcoming the same lethal obstacles. They are, however, more cautious. When they reach the final crossroads, Hunahpu plucks a hair from his shin and creates a mosquito which they send ahead to spy on and bite the demon lords. In this way they learn the names of the demon lords, who cry out to each other when bitten. This gives them certain powers over the enemy and helps them avoid the traps that snared their kinsmen. In the House of Gloom they cleverly use red macaw feathers to look like torch flames and fireflies to imitate the glow of lighted cigars presenting both unburned in the morning. The astonished lords immediately set new tasks, but the twins survive the Houses of Knives, Cold, Jaguars and Fire by similar clever tricks. The House of Bats, however almost proves their undoing. To protect themselves from the fierce, knife-beaked bats, the twins hide in their blowguns, but Hunahpu makes the mistake of peeking out, only to have his head snatched off by Camazotz, the Killer Bat. Next morning, the demon lords are rejoicing over what now seems a certain victory when, to their astonishment, the twins appear for the ball game as if nothing had happened. Xbalanque has replaced the missing head with a large squash which has magically taken on his brother’s features and allows him to speak and move as before. The confused lords begin the game by tossing out Hunahpu’s head as the ball. Xbalanque strikes it a mighty blow that sends it sailing out of the ball court and into the woods. During the confusion, he is able to replace his brother’s real head and when the game resumed it is the squash in play. The rough game soon breaks the squash, revealing its true nature, and the lords have to admit defeat. But they now construct a fiery pit and dare the twins to leap over it. Knowing that they have no real chance of leaving Xibalba alive, Hunahpu and Xbalanque jump in and are consumed. Rejoicing, the lords grind the charred bones and cast them into the river. But the Tricksters are still tricky. The ground bones reform as fish men. Next day, they appear in Xibalba as itinerant performers. Their dancing pleases the lords but more is demanded. The twins sacrifice a dog then a man and bring both back to life. Finally, Xbalanque decapitates Hunahpu and tears out his heart before restoring him. The two most powerful lords demand the same, but when the first dies and the boys do nothing, the other pleads for his life as all their vassals flee in terror. Xibalba is defeated! The boys resurrect their father and uncle temporarily to assure them they remain loved and respected. Hunahpu and Xbalenque then rise to the skies where they can still be seen today as the sun and the moon.