Who Are the Hero Twins in Maya Mythology?

The Hero Twins — Hunahpu (Junajpu’ in modern K’iche’) and Xbalanque (Xb’alanke) — are the central characters of the second half of the Popol Vuh, the great K’iche’ Maya creation text. They are trickster-heroes whose defeat of the lords of Xibalba is the central event of Maya mythology. According to the Popol Vuh, after their victory, one twin became the sun and the other became the moon, and from this transformation comes the cosmic order that humans inhabit.

The two generations of Hero Twins

The Popol Vuh actually describes two generations of Hero Twins. The first generation — Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu — are the fathers of the second generation. They are great ballplayers whose noise disturbs the lords of Xibalba. The lords invite them to play ball in the underworld, where the brothers are defeated and killed. Hun Hunahpu is decapitated, and his head is hung in a calabash tree. The second generation of twins — Hunahpu and Xbalanque — are conceived by the daughter of one of the underworld lords after she approaches the calabash tree.

The “Hero Twins” of the title usually refer to the second generation — Hunahpu and Xbalanque — but the myth cycle is best understood as a single story with two related halves.

The first generation: Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu

Hun Hunahpu, whose name is translated as “One Hunahpu” or “First Lord,” is a divine ballplayer. Together with his brother Vucub Hunahpu (“Seven Hunahpu”), he plays ball in the upper world with such vigor that the noise disturbs the lords of Xibalba. The lords, jealous of the fame and skill of the brothers, send four messengers to invite them to play ball in the underworld. The brothers accept, descend to Xibalba, and play the ballgame in the lords’ court.

The game is rigged. The ball contains the head of a sacrificial victim. The brothers are made to sit on a hot stone and to sleep in the House of Bats. Hun Hunahpu is decapitated. His head is hung in a calabash tree, and the tree bears fruit for the first time.

The decapitated head spits into the hand of a young woman, the virgin Xkik’ (“Blood Moon”), who is the daughter of one of the lords. The spittle enters her womb, and she conceives twins. The lords, suspecting what has happened, try to kill her, but she is protected by the gods of the underworld and escapes to the upper world, where she gives birth to Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

The twins: Hunahpu and Xbalanque

The twins grow up in their grandmother Xmucane’s house, and they are unruly, mischievous, and possessed of supernatural gifts. They shoot birds with blowguns, summon rain, and torment their half-brothers, the sons of Vucub Hunahpu. Their father, in the meantime, remains in the underworld, but he sometimes visits them in the form of a hummingbird or a small bird.

The twins learn from their father about the ballgame and about the defeat of their grandfather and great-uncle. They accept the challenge of the lords of Xibalba and descend to the underworld.

The underworld is a place of testing. The Popol Vuh names seven testing houses: the House of Gloom, the House of Knives, the House of Cold, the House of Jaguars, the House of Fire, the House of Bats, and the House of Rust. The twins survive the tests by using magic — turning a rope into a path through the House of Bats, replacing a dead mouse with a real one in the House of Gloom. They are ultimately captured and killed, but they are resurrected by their own magic.

The resurrected twins do not reveal their identity. They reappear as itinerant performers, dancers, and magicians. They perform a feat in which they cut a man in half and bring him back to life, and the lords of Xibalba are impressed. The lords invite the twins to perform the trick on a lord. The twins do not bring the lord back, and they reveal their identity. The lords of Xibalba are defeated.

The transformation into sun and moon

After their victory, the Hero Twins rise into the sky. According to the Popol Vuh, one twin becomes the sun, the other becomes the moon. The text adds an important detail: the twin who becomes the sun tries to rise as the sun does today, but the journey is too hard, and he is struck by the celestial bird. He has to be assisted by his brother, who becomes the moon. The Popol Vuh and modern scholarship disagree on which twin is which, but the symbolism is clear: the twins establish the cosmic order that humans inherit.

The Hero Twins’ transformation into the sun and the moon is closely paralleled in the iconography of the Classic period. At Tikal, the San Bartolo murals depict the twins and the maize god in the same compositional format. At Yaxchilan, the Hero Twins appear on the lintels in the company of the Vision Serpent. At Quirigua, Stela C depicts K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Yopaat as the sun in the form of a Hero Twin.

The Hero Twins and the ballgame

The Mesoamerican ballgame was a ritual re-enactment of the Hero Twins’ struggle with the lords of Xibalba. The ball itself symbolized the sun, the moon, or the head of the maize god. The ballcourt was the underworld court. The players were the twins. The outcome of the elite ballgame sometimes ended in human sacrifice, the loser being decapitated and his blood offered to the gods. The rings set high on the ballcourt walls represented the mouths of the underworld; passages beneath the court were believed to be the road to Xibalba.

The Hero Twins and the ballgame are linked in many ways. The Popol Vuh describes the ballgame in detail. The Hero Twins are sometimes shown on Late Classic vessels in the act of playing ball. The Yaxchilan lintels depict the ballgame. The ballgame ritual was a central feature of Maya political and religious life.

The Hero Twins and the maize god

Hun Hunahpu, the father of the Hero Twins, is the pre-eminent maize god. His head, hung in the calabash tree, becomes the source of the first fruit; the conception of the twins from the spittle of the head is a symbolic statement about the origin of life. When the Hero Twins rise into the sky as the sun and the moon, the maize god is reborn on earth. The cycle of the maize plant — planting, growth, harvest, death, and rebirth — is the agricultural image of the Hero Twins’ cosmic struggle.

The Hero Twins are therefore the central figures in a complete cosmology. They are the sons of the maize god. They defeat the lords of the underworld. They rise into the sky and become the sun and the moon. They are the patrons of the Mesoamerican ballgame and the model for royal accession. They are the human form of the cosmic order.

The Hero Twins in modern Maya tradition

The Hero Twins are still remembered in the modern Maya world. The K’iche’ people of highland Guatemala, the Yucatec Maya of the Yucatan, and the Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil Maya of Guatemala continue to tell the story of the twins in their cofradía rituals and daykeeping practices. The twins appear in syncretic form as Christian saints, as the morning and evening star, and as the patron spirits of particular towns. The daykeepers of Chichicastenango still use the 260-day almanac to determine the days appropriate for rituals related to the Hero Twins, and the modern Caste War of Yucatan is sometimes interpreted as the return of the Hero Twins.

The Popol Vuh, the principal literary source for the Hero Twins, is one of the most translated and discussed Maya texts, and the Hero Twins are among the most recognizable figures in pre-Columbian mythology. The myth is the foundation of Maya cosmology, the model for royal accession, and the source of one of the most elaborate creation accounts in the ancient world.

Sources

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