"'These are their pine sticks,' said the lord; 'they must return them at dawn, tomorrow, together with the cigars, and you must bring them back whole,' said the lord." So said the messengers when they arrived.
"Very well," [the boys] replied. But they really did not [light] the sticks of pine, instead they put a red-colored thing in place of them, or some feathers from the tail of the macaw, which to the night watches[178] looked like lighted pine sticks. And as for the cigars, they attached fireflies to their end.[179]
All night [everybody] thought they were defeated. "They are lost," said the night watchmen. But the pine sticks had not been burned and looked the same, and the cigars had not been lighted and looked the same as before.
They went to tell the lords.
"How is this? Whence have they come? Who conceived them? Who gave birth to them? This really troubles us, because it is not well what they do. Their faces are strange, and strange is their conduct." they said to each other.
Soon all the lords summoned [the boys].
"Eh! Let us play ball, boys!" they said. At the same time they were questioned by Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé:
"Where did you come from? Tell us, boys!" said the Lords of Xibalba.
"Who knows whence we came! We do not know," they said, and nothing more.
"Very well. Let us play ball, boys," said the Lords of Xibalba.
"Good," they replied.[180]
"We shall use our ball," said the Lords of Xibalba.[181]
[178] Varanel, the "night guards."
[179] Caca chicop, insect of fire, glowworms. As in English, the firefly.
[180] In order to understand better the passages of the Popol Vuh in which the ball game is spoken of, it is well to read Sahagún's description of it (Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Vol. II, Book VIII, Chap X, p. 297), which follows: "... At other times the lord played ball for his pastime, and for this balls of ulli were kept; these balls were about the size of some large balls for bowling [and] they were solid, of a certain resin or gum which they called ulli, which is very light and bounces like an inflated ball; and he also brought with him good ball players who played before him and other principal men played on the opposite [team] and they won gold and chalchiguites and beads of gold, and turquoise, and slaves, and rich mantles, and maxtles, and cornfields and houses, etc. [feathers, cacao, cloaks of feather].... the ballcourt was called tlaxtli or tlachtli and consisted of two walls, twenty or thirty feet apart, and were up to forty or fifty feet in length; the walls and the floor were whitewashed, and were about eight and a half feet high, and in the middle of the court was a line which was used in the game. In the middle of the walls, in the center of the court, were two stones, like millstones hollowed out, opposite each other, and each one had a hole wide enough to contain the ball for each one of them. And the one who put the ball in it won the game; they did not play with their hands, but instead struck the ball with their buttocks; for playing, they wore gloves on their hands and a belt of leather on their buttocks, with which to strike the ball."
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