I’ve always enjoyed Mayan mythology. There is just something compelling about a bunch of stories where the gods are mostly jerks and the humans keep trying to trick them. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. But it is always interesting.
A lot of the stories are based around the ball game. It’s a game that has been played for thousands of years, in various incarnations. It was likely a combination of racquetball and volleyball - the goal was to keep the ball in play and bounce it off the walls or through a hoop. The game could be played by individuals or in teams. The ball was made out of rubber and a bunch of them, along with the ball courts themselves, have been discovered by archaeologists over the years.
This is an example of a ball court, found at the awesome site of Monte Alban.
The ball itself was heavy solid rubber - it could weight up to 10 pounds (which is about 15 times heavier then a volleyball)- and therefore injuries were definitely common. Also, the players could not use their hands but had to rely mainly on their hips to move the ball around.
It was a game played by everyone, including children in the streets. But it also had an important ritual element to it and there are a bunch of theories regarding the meaning of the game. For example:
1) The ball game was a proxy for war: men would fight on the ball court and the gods would choose the winner. No actual battle was needed, the game itself would resolve all differences. This would explain why there is tons of warfare imagery associated with the ball game and also why there are always more ballcourts in places with a lot more diverse cultures (and therefore, more internal strife).
2) Human sacrifice: Captives or other victims were given a chance to play the game. The losers were decapitated. There are tons of depictions of captives holding balls and a lot of severed heads hanging around.
3) Life/Fertility: The game is also strongly associated with maize, the symbol for life. The ball game may have been seen as a recreation of creation - the ball is the sun, the sacrifice of the player is the death of the sun. The game is a struggle between light and dark, the world and the underworld, the sunrise and the sunset. In the same way that the giving of blood fed the gods and kept the world going, the ball game maintained cosmic order.
Etc. etc. There are as many theories are there are Mayan archaeologists. Some are more speculative than others but all point to the ball game as being very important.
Which brings us to this week’s Sunday Sermon. It’s a continuation of a myth that started with the various creations and destructions of humans. See part one, here. The gods have succeeded in making some humans and they are in the middle of their trial period. The gods haven’t really decided whether to keep them around yet.
The Hero Twins and the gods of Xibalba
Hun Hanahpu and Vucub Hunahpu were twin brothers. They did everything together but they were especially fond of games, whether it be throwing dice or playing the ball game. They practiced the ball game so much that they became living legends and even the gods heard about how good they were. They played their games on a special ball court, one that was right on the path to the underworld realm of Xibalba.
The lords of Xibalba – especially the head gods Hun Came and Vucub Came (aka One Death and Seven Death) started to get really annoyed with all the loud banging and thundering feet above their heads. In typical god-like fashion, they decided that the twins must die.
The gods sent four owl messengers up to the surface to challenge the twins to a ball game against the underworld gods themselves. The twins’ mom thought that this was probably a bad idea and tried desperately to convince them not to go. But, being smug athletes, the twins decided to take up the challenge, regardless of the risks. They followed the messenger owls into the underworld.
It’s not easy to walk to the underworld. The twins had to face a lot of obstacles – rapids that threatened to drown them, thorny spikes that tried to impale them and even a river of blood. But the twins were brave and resourceful and they fought through all the obstacles. Finally, they reached a crossroads where there were four paths of four different colours. Alas, they choose poorly. (Spoiler Alert!) They wandered down the black path, which marks the beginning of their defeat.
Finally, they arrived in Xibalba. Being courteous, they politely greeted the lords sitting at their thrones but soon discovered that they were only wooden dummies, dressed like the gods of death. The real gods, who were hiding nearby, burst into laughter and made fun of the twins for being so stupid as to be fooled by wood. Sneering now, the gods invited the twins to sit down on a bench. But it was no ordinary bench! In fact, it was a slab of hot stone, so hot that the second the twins sat down, they burned their butts severely and jumped right back up again. The lords shrieked with laughter at the comedic sight, thoroughly amused by their hapless victims.
As a final torturous test, the gods gave the twins’ lit cigars and torches. And then they told the twins that not only did the items have to remain lit all night but they also had to be whole the next morning. The twins looked at each other, dumfounded. And sure enough, the next morning, the gods took one look at the burnt remains of the cigars and torches and laughed at their failure.
Clearly, the twins had failed to gain the gods respect. They could not defeat the gods and were not even worthy of playing the ball game. So the gods sacrificed them and buried them in the underworld ball court.
As a token of their victory (and to ensure that no one would make loud happy noises near them again), the gods cut of the head of Hun Hanupuh and placed it in a barren tree.
But the twins were not without magical powers themselves. As soon as the head was placed in the tree, it instantly came to life and bore many large gourds. The head of the twin also became a gourd and the magical tree became renowned throughout the land.
The lovely maiden Xquic heard about this magic tree and decided to go check it out. She stood in front of it, staring at the gourds and wondered aloud whether she should pick one of the fruits. But then, the head of Hun Hunahpu spoke up.
“Ummm, no. Don’t do that. It’s actually quite gross really. They aren’t fruit at all but are really skulls. Not yummy at all.
Instead of being shocked by a talking tree or repulsed that it bore skulls as fruit, Xquic was rather intrigued by this. She reached up to grasp a fruit. Instead, the skull spit on her hand, causing Instant Pregnancy.
“Crap!” Said Xquic.
For awhile, she tried to hide her rather embarrassing condition, but her father eventually noticed and demanded to know who the father was. He knew a bit about how the world worked and he knew that there had to be a gentleman caller at some point. “Nope!” said Xquic. “I have never known a man. Seriously!”
Needless to say, her father did not believe her and decided to kill her to protect the family honour. He called over some local messenger owls, who took her away to be sacrificed to the gods.
“Aww.” said Xquic to the owls. “Please don’t do that”. After gazing into the most effective use of puppy eyes in history, the owls gave in and decided not to murder her. But they had to bring her heart to the lords of the underworld as proof of the sacrifice! But they were devious fellows and rather fed up with the gods anyways. Instead of cutting out the girl’s heart, they formed a fake heart out of resin, the blood of trees. When the lords tossed the false heart it into the fire, they are so entranced by the smell of it that they don’t notice the owls scuttling off with Xquic, as they escaped and helped her return to the surface. Therefore, the lords of Xibalba were tricked and defeated by the young pregnant maiden.
To be continued….
