Downfall of Xibalba
Xibalba was home of a famous ballcourt in which the heroes of the Popol Vuh succumbed to the trickery of the Xibalbans in the form of a deadly, bladed ball, as well as the site in which the Maya Hero Twins outwitted the Xibalbans and brought about their downfall.
According to the Popol Vuh, the Xibalbans at one point enjoyed the worship of the people on the surface of the Earth, who offered human sacrifice to the gods of death. Over the span of time covered in the Popol Vuh, the Xibalbans are tricked into accepting counterfeit sacrifices, and then finally humiliated into accepting lesser offerings from above. Anthropologist Dennis Tedlock has speculated that this version of history may be a Quichean slander on earlier Mayan forms of worship.
The role of Xibalba and the Xibalbans after their great defeat at the hands of the hero twins is unclear, although it seems to have continued its existence as a dark place of the underworld long after.
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Famous quotes containing the words downfall of and/or downfall:
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)