Then Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé spoke: "Very well," they said. "You have come. Tomorrow you shall prepare the mask,[109] your rings, and your gloves," they said.
"Come and sit down on our bench," they said. But the bench which they offered them was of hot stone, and when they sat down they were burned. They began to squirm around on the bench, and if they had not stood up they would have burned their seats.
The Lords of Xibalba burst out laughing again; they were dying of laughter; they writhed from pain in their stomach, in their blood, and in their bones, caused by their laughter, all the Lords of Xibalba laughed.
"Go now to that house," they said. "There you will get your sticks of fat pine[110] and your cigar[111] and there you shall sleep."
Immediately they arrived at the House of Gloom.[112] There was only darkness within the house. Meanwhile the Lords of Xibalba discussed what they should do.
"Let us sacrifice them tomorrow, let them die quickly, quickly, so that we can have their playing gear to use in play," said the Lords of Xibalba to each other.
Well, their fat-pine sticks were round and were called zaquitoc, which is the pine of Xibalba.[113] Their fat-pine sticks were pointed and filed and were as bright as bone; the pine of Xibalba was very hard.
Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú entered the House of Gloom. There they were given their fat-pine sticks, a single lighted stick which Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé sent them, together with a lighted cigar for each of them which the lords had sent. They went to give them to Hun-Hunahpú and Vucub-Hunahpú.
They found them crouching in the darkness when the porters arrived with the fat-pine sticks and the cigars. As they entered, the pine sticks lighted the place brightly.
"Each of you light your pine sticks and your cigars; come and bring them back at dawn, you must not burn them up, but you must return them whole; this is what the lords told us to say." So they said. And so they were defeated. They burned up the pine sticks, and they also finished the cigars which had been given to them.
There were many punishments in Xibalba; the punishments were of many kinds.
The first was the House of Gloom, Quequma-ha, in which there was only darkness.
The second was Xuxulim-ha, the house where everybody shivered, in which it was very cold. A cold, unbearable wind blew within.
The third was the House of Jaguars, Balami-ha, it was called, in which there were nothing but jaguars which stalked about, jumped around, roared, and made fun. The jaguars were shut up in the house.
Zotzi-há, the House of Bats, the fourth place of punishment was called. Within this house there were nothing but bats which squeaked and cried and flew around and around. The bats were shut in and could not get out.
[109] Chuvec ch'y qaza u vach, in the original. In the text transcribed by Brasseur de Bourbourg it is ch'y qaza a vach. The change of a single vowel makes the sentence incomprehensible. Schuller ("Das Popol Vuh und das Ballspiel der K'icé Indianer von Guatemala") believed that it had been garbled by the French translator.
[110] Chah in Quiché, ocotl in the Mexican language. A resinous pine which the Indians use for lighting.
[111] Ziq, tobacco; zikar, to smoke.
[112] Qequma-ha. Brasseur de Bourbourg compares this House of Gloom with the dark house which Votán constructed in Huehuetlán, in the province of Soconusco, according to Bishop Núñez de la Vega.
[113] Are curi qui chah xa coloquic cha zaquitoc u bi ri chah u chah Xibalba. Zaquitoc, literally, is "white knife." Brasseur de Bourbourg translates it blanc silex. Seler is of the opinion that zaquitoc was the knife used in human sacrifice to open the breasts of the victims. The description in the text clearly identifies the hard, bright flint point which both the ancient Maya and Quiché used, as a short, sharp weapon, as knives, lance points, and so on. The author plays here with the words cha, flint and obsidian, and chah, fat-pine sticks, etc. The purpose of this confusion and the true explanation of this entire paragraph is evidently to remember that the guests of Xibalba were threatened with the sacrificial knife.
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