Click here for complete text.
The earth is then populated with animals. When the gods discover that animals cannot speak and praise their makers, they condemn them to be food for higher beings.
The gods create a human being from mud, but it dissolves.
The gods ask the diviners Xpiacoc and
Xmucane, who suggest making
creatures
out of wood (male) and rushes (female). These beings populate the
earth,
but since they are arrogant and forget their makers, they are destroyed
by fire and flood; the gods even turn their pots, griddles, grinding
stones,
and dogs against them.
In Xibalba they are tricked into mistaking manikins for the real Lords of Xibalba, and also into sitting on a hot stone bench. That night they are lodged in the Dark House, and fail a test in which they are required to keep a torch and cigars burning all night without consuming them. The next day, they are sacrificed and buried in the ballcourt. Hun Hunahpu is decapitated and his head stuck in a calabash tree.
The young Xibalba goddess Xquic (Little Blood ) visits the tree, where Hun Hunahpu spits in her hand and impregnates her. Her father orders that the owls cut her heart out with the White Dagger, but she persuades them to spare her, and they present the Lords of Xibalba instead with a node of red sap from a croton tree; they burn it and inhale its smoke. Xquic escapes to the upper world, where she lives with Hun Hunahpu's mother Xmucane. Xquic passes a test in which she produces a netful of corn by pulling the silk from a single ear. She then gives birth to the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque (Hunter and Jaguar Deer). As infants, they are abused by their older twin brothers, Hun Batz and Hun Chuen. The Twins later trap them up a tree, where they turn into monkeys.
The Twins attempt to clear land for a
garden, but animals come each
night to restore the plants they have cleared. They try to grab each of
them, but succeed only in catching the rat, who in exchange for a share
of future food reveals the location of the ball game equipment left
behind
by the deceased Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu. The Twins become expert
players, and are
also invited
to a game in Xibalba. Before leaving, they "plant" ears of corn in the
center of their house to indicate to their grandmother whether they are
alive or dead.
Along the way to Xibalba, the Twins defeat Vucub Caquix (7-Macaw), who sets himself up as a false sun with the support of his sons Zipacna and Cabracan. The Twins damage Vucub Caquix' jeweled teeth with their blowguns, then trick him into replacing them with ground corn, which falls out when he tries to eat. Vucub Caquix becomes the Big Dipper; his wife (Chimalmat) the Little Dipper.
The Twins later kill Zipacna and Cabracan. The crocodilian monster Zipacna had earlier killed the Four Hundred Boys after they failed to crush him; the Boys become the Pleiades. Zipacna himself is tricked by the Twins into crawling after an artificial crab into a tight space beneath a western mountain. The mountain falls on him, and he turns to stone. Cabracan (Earthquake) is tricked into eating birds cooked inside a coating of earth, thanks to which Cabracan too becomes covered and buried in the east.
Both during the journey and when they first arrive in Xibalba, the Twins are subjected to tests and traps, but surmount each of them. One trap involves the attempt to trick Hunahpu and Xbalanque into mistaking manikins for the real Lords, but the Twins use a mosquito to bite each god and make him reveal his true name. They also refuse to sit on the bench that had burned Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu.
Each day, the Twins play ball with the Lords; the ball is at first a skull within which the White Dagger has been hidden. Each night, the Lords require them to sleep in a different house. When told to keep their cigars lit all night in the first house and to return them whole in the morning, they put fireflies on the ends. When told to provide cut flowers in the second house — the House of Knives — they summon ants to cut flowers from the garden of Xibalba. When sent to the Cold House, they drive the cold away. In the Jaguar House, they feed jaguars with the flesh of other animals, saving their own. They also escape burning in the Fire House. In the Bat House they survive the night by sleeping in their blowguns, but when Hunahpu sticks his head out early in the morning, a bat beheads him.
With the help of some animals, Xbalanque
makes a new head for
Hunahpu
out of a squash. As it is being fashioned, the sky begins to redden in
the east, and possum delays the dawn by making four streaks on the
horizon, corresponding
to
the four days on which a new solar year can begin. When they get to the
ballcourt, the Twins discover that the Lords are using Hunahpu's head
as
the ball. When the Lords are tricked into chasing a rabbit pretending
to
be the ball, Xbalanque recovers his brother's real head.
Knowing that the Lords plan to burn them, the Twins instruct the seers Xulu and Pacam to advise that their bones be ground into powder and thrown into a river. The Twins then let themselves be defeated and cooked in an oven.
Five days later the Twins reappear, first
as catfish and then as
itinerant
performers. They are summoned to the court of Xibalba, where they
perform a number of feats — setting fire to the house without burning
it, then sacrificing and resurrecting a dog, a human, and Xbalanque
himself. Two Lords of Xibalba beg the Twins to do the trick on
them, too;
the Twins oblige, but do not revive them.
The Twins declare that from that time on
Xibalbans will receive only
offerings of animals and incense made of croton sap. They then dig up
the bodies of
their father and uncle (Hun
and Vucub Hunahpu) and revive them. Vucub Hunahpu can restore only
those parts of his face whose names he can recall — mouth, nose, and
eyes; he is left in Xibalba.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque walk into the sky
to become
the sun and moon.
The Founders go to the Mountain of Seven Caves, and there receive the gods in the form of bundles to carry on their backs. Balam Quitze receives Tohil, who in turn gives fire to humans once human sacrifice is performed for him. As a result, the true sun rises for the first time.
The Popol
Vuh closes
with
a genealogical list tracing the Quiché from Balam Quitze to
descendants
in the middle of the 16th century.