Vucub Hunahpu and the Summons to Xibalba

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Popol Vuh introduces Vucub Hunahpu together with his brother Hun Hunahpu as accomplished ballplayers whose game on the earth's surface disturbs the lords of Xibalba below. Dennis Tedlock's translation describes the lords sending owl messengers to summon the brothers to a ballgame in the underworld, an invitation that is in fact a trap. On the road down, the brothers fail a series of tests set by Xibalba, they cannot tell a wooden mannequin from a true seated lord, they are made to sit on a burning hot bench, and they are lodged for the night in Dark House, the first of Xibalba's trial houses, where they are expected to keep a torch and cigars lit until morning and fail. Having failed the tests, both brothers are sacrificed the next day and buried together beneath the Xibalba ballcourt, except for Hun Hunahpu's head, which the lords cut off and hang in a nearby calabash tree as a public warning against future challengers. Vucub Hunahpu's body remains buried with the rest of himself intact; the narrative does not return to him again, and the entire remainder of the Popol Vuh's hero narrative follows from what happens to his brother's severed head rather than from anything further involving Vucub Hunahpu himself.