"Get up!" he said, and instantly[221] [Hunahpú] returned to life. They [the boys] were very happy and the lords were also happy. In truth, what they did gladdened the hearts of Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé, and the latter felt as though they themselves were dancing.[222]
Then their hearts were filled with desire and longing by the dances of Hunahpú and Xbalanqué;[223] and Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé gave their commands.
"Do the same with us! Sacrifice us!" they said. "Cut us into pieces, one by one!" Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé said to Hunahpú and Xbalanqué.[224]
"Very well; afterward you will come back to life again. Perchance, did you not bring us here in order that we should entertain you, the lords, and your sons, and vassals?" they said to the lords.[225]
And so it happened that they first sacrificed the one, who was the chief and [Lord of Xibalba], the one called Hun-Camé, king of Xibalba.
And when Hun-Camé was dead, they overpowered Vucub-Camé, and they did not bring either of them back to life.
The people of Xibalba fled as soon as they saw that their lords were dead and sacrificed. In an instant both were sacrificed. And this they [the boys] did in order to chastize them. Quickly the principal lord was killed. And they did not bring him back to life.
And another lord humbled himself then, and presented himself before the dancers. They had not discovered him, nor had they found him. "Have mercy on me!" he said when they found him.
All the sons and vassals of Xibalba fled to a great ravine, and all of them were crowded into this narrow, deep place. There they were crowded together and hordes of ants came and found them and dislodged them from the ravine. In this way [the ants] drove them to the road, and when they arrived [the people] prostrated themselves and gave themselves up; they humbled themselves and arrived, grieving.
In this way the Lords of Xibalba were overcome. Only by a miracle and by their [own] transformation could [the boys] have done it.[226]
[221] Libah chicut, omitted in the Brasseur de Bourbourg transcription.
[222] This juggling, which brings to mind the deceptions of the fakirs of India, was also well known by the Maya Indians of Mexico. Sahagún, describing the customs of the Huasteca, a Mexican tribe related to the Maya of Yucatan, says that when they returned to Panutla, or Pánuco, "they took with them the old songs which they used when they danced and all the adornment which they used in the dance or areyto. They were also fond of trickery, with which they deceived the people, making them believe as true that which is false, as they made them believe that they burned the houses, when it was not so; that they made a fountain with fishes appear, and it was nothing but an optical illusion; that they killed each other, slicing their flesh into pieces, and other things which were apparent but not true...."As Brasseur de Bourbourg observes, this paragraph seems to have been taken from the Popol Vuh. Cf. Sahagún, Historia general ... de Nueva España, Book X, Chap. XXIX, par. 12.
[223] Xhunahpú, and Xbalanqué in the original.
[224] Hunal tah coh i puzu x-e cha cut, omitted by Brasseur de Bourbourg.
[225] Ma pa yx qo cam oh pu quicotirizay yve, etc. The verb cam means "to die" and "to bring." Brasseur de Bourbourg translates this passage as follows: est-ce que pour vous peut exister la mort? but the complete meaning of the sentence justifies the interpretation which Ximénez gives it and which, in the main, is the same as mine.
[226] This refers naturally to the changing of Hunahpú and Xbalanqué into two poor boys who tragically deceived the Lords of Xibalba with their magic art.
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