Maya Hero Twins

The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial K'iche' document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque [ʃɓalaŋˈke] in the K’iche’ language, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the Classic Mayas (200-900 AD). The twins are often portrayed as complementary forces. The complementary pairings of life and death, sky and earth, day and night, sun and moon, among multiple others have been used to represent the twins. The duality that occur between male and female is often seen in twin myths, as a male and female twin are conceptualized to be born to represent the two sides of a single entity (Miller and Taube 1993: 81).

The Twin motif recurs in many Native American mythologies; the Maya Twins in particular could be considered as mythical ancestors to the Maya ruling lineages.

The sources on the Hero Twins are both written (Popol Vuh, early Spanish historians), and iconographic. Classic Maya iconography clearly demonstrates that the earlier Twin narratives must have diverged considerably from the 16th-century Popol Vuh myth; to what extent, is a matter of dispute.

Many versions of the Twin Myth must have circulated among the Mayas, but the only one that survives in a written form is the Classical K'iche' version in the Popol Vuh. According to this version, the Hero Twins were Xbalanque and Hunahpu (Modern K'iche': Xb‘alanke and Junajpu) who were ballplayers like their father and uncle, Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu.

Summoned to Xibalba by the Lords of the Underworld, the father and uncle were defeated and sacrificed. Two sons were conceived, however, by the seed of the dead father. The pregnant mother fled from Xibalba. The sons - or 'Twins' - grew up to avenge their father, and after many trials, finally defeated the lords of the Underworld in the ballgame. The Popol Vuh features other episodes involving the Twins as well (see below), including the destruction of a pretentious bird demon, Vucub-Caquix, and of his two demonic sons. The Twins also turned their half-brothers into the Howler Monkey Gods who were the patrons of artists and scribes. The Twins were finally transformed into sun and moon, signalling the beginning of a new age.

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