When Hunaphu and Xbalanque were born, neither their grandmother nor their two brothers wanted them around. "Throw them out of here, they're really loudmouths", their grandmother told their mother. They were put on an anthill where they slept soundly.

They were used by their brothers who were called One Monkey and One Artisan. The older brothers were great musicians and singers. These brothers had great knowledge that had come to them through considerable suffering. Their jealousy prevented them from sharing this knowledge with Hunaphu and Xbalanque. .

The hero brothers would shoot birds that One Monkey and One Artisan would eat without sharing them with the younger brothers. One day Hunaphu and Xbalanque came home with no birds. They told their brothers that they had shot the birds but the birds wouldn't fall from the tree. The older brothers were hungry so they agreed to go to the tree with Hunaphu and Xbalanque. .

The two younger brothers said, "We'll just turn their very being around with our words. So be it, since they have caused us great suffering. They wished that we might die and disappear -- we, their younger brothers. Just as they wish us to be slaves here, so we shall defeat them there. We shall simply make a sign of it." .

The four of them got to the tree and the younger brothers convinced the older brothers to climb the tree and throw the birds down. When One Monkey and One Artisan climbed the tree, it began to grow and they couldn't get down. They asked Hunaphu and Xbalanque for help getting out of the tree. .

"Undo your pants, tie them around your hips with the long end trailing like a tail behind you and then you'll be better able to move.", they told their older brothers. And when the older brothers did it, their pants became tails and they looked like monkeys. "After that they went along in the trees of the mountains, small and great. They went through the forests, now howling now keeping quiet in the branches of trees." .

"Such was the defeat of One Monkey and One Artisan by Hunaphu and Xbalanque. They did it by means of their genius alone."

The Maya's view of monkeys.
The Hero Twins and 7 Macaw
The Hero Twins and the Ballgame
More about the Hero Twins
Still more about the Hero Twins

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