Episode 151C – Slash and Burn – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 151C Show Notes

Source: Mayan Mythology

This week on MYTH, the trickster Hero Twins are going to grow up and come into their own. You’ll discover that farming is easy, that lice make bad messengers, and that you should be careful what you eat. Then, in Gods and Monsters, two brothers are going to get into a tussle over the love of a beautiful woman. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 151C, “Slash and Burn”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This is the third part of the Mayan story of the Hero Twins. When we last left the story, twin brothers Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu (1-Hunter and 7-Hunter) had annoyed the lords of Xibalba, the gods of death with their constant ball playing. Thus, the two mortal men were invited down to the underworld for a match of Pok ta Pok, a traditional Mayan game. This turned out to be a trap and the twins were executed for their failure to recognize and defeat the tricks laid out by Hun Kame and Vucub Kame (1-Death and 7-Death). Despite being dead, they weren’t quite done with the world. The severed head of Hun Hunahpu was hung from a tree where it met Lady Blood, daughter of the Xibalban lord Gathered Blood. The withered skull spit into her hand, which was apparently enough for her to conceive children. Having been told to climb up to the mortal world above, Lady Blood instead went home to think about everything that had happened.
Her magical pregnancy was quickly discovered and her own father condemned her to death for it. Lord Gathered Blood sent the four messenger owls to execute his daughter and bring back her heart in a bowl as proof. Lady Blood bribed them into switching sides and into switching her heart for a fake one made of tree sap to bring back to the Lords of Xibalba, making her escape to the world of the living in the confusion. She had journeyed to her mother-in-law’s house, where she had to complete an impossible task to prove her claim of bearing Hun Hunahpu’s children. Which, of course, she did.
When her twins were born, it very quickly became clear that they were considered second-class citizens by the mother-in-law and by their twin half-brothers, Hun Batz and Hun Chouen. Surviving a murder attempt as infants, the younger twins got their revenge years later by tricking their older brothers into climbing an eternally tall tree and turning into monkeys. They had then tricked their grandmother into laughing at the silly, naked bodies of her transformed monkey grandkids and driving them away to live in the jungle. Having finally secured a safe place in their home, they moved in (rather than living outside as they had been their whole lives so far).
The two very young men, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, knew that it wasn’t enough to have simply rid themselves of their murderous older brothers. Being the men of the house now, it was their job to step up and prove themselves worthy of their heritage (much as their mother Lady Blood had once had to do). Thus it was that, also like their mother before them, they decided to prove themselves first in the great maizefield. “Don’t worry, Mom, Grandma – we’re gonna handle things from now on with Hun Batz and Hun Chouen dancing naked in the trees.” “That’s right, and we’re gonna start by farming the maize field like they were supposed to.”
They shouldered their axes and their hoes, grabbed their blow dart guns, and headed out. “We won’t be able to come back for lunch, so please bring us food at noon Grandma.” She nodded. “Of course, my grandsons.” All very cordial and civilized. Of course, these two are tricksters as we’ve already seen, and so you just know that there’s some bullshitery afoot. Hunahpu and Xbalanque arrived at the field, rolling their shoulders as they lowered the heavy tools. Taking up the hoe, one of the brothers struck it into the earth with a single mighty blow and then just kind of left it there. As soon as his hands released the wooden haft though, it began to plow the earth all by itself. It broke up briars and weeds and it smoothed out rises and hills. That one hoe could clear countless mountains all by itself if left alone to work. The other brother lifted up the axe and, with a single mighty swing, buried it into the fork of an enormous tree where he too left it hanging. Again, as soon as he released the tool, it began to work by itself, felling the tree of its own accord and then moving on to the next. That one axe could clear an entire forest all by itself if left to work. It’s not clear to me if they have somehow obtained incredible magical artifacts or if they are just themselves inherently magical, but given their unusual and divine birth, I am inclined towards the latter.
Since the twins were no longer needed for the actual work of farming, they decided to spend the time doing the much more fun work of hunting. Before leaving however, they captured Turtle Dove (those birds you probably know from the classic carol the 12 Days of Christmas) to be their lookout. “When you see our Grandmother coming to the field to bring us food around noon, cry out to let us know that she’s coming. That way, we can have time to scramble back over here and take up the tools ourselves. No sense in letting her know how easy this task really is for us.” Turtle Dove (who had probably thought he was about to become lunch himself) readily agreed to this proposal.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque spent the next few hours happily stalking prey with their blowguns instead of doing the dreary, backbreaking work of farming. Around noon, Turtle Dove spied their Grandmother heading towards the field with a packed lunch and shouted a warning to the twins. They raced over, putting away their blowguns as they neared. One took up the hoe, rubbing dirt on himself to look like he had been working the soil all morning. The other snatched up the axe, dumping woodchips all over himself to look like he had been cutting lumber all morning. Although the field was getting cleared and plowed as promised, the twins weren’t the ones doing the work and so they weren’t actually entitled to the food their grandmother brought them, but she had no idea that she was being tricked.
They ate lunch and, once safely alone, set the tools back to work. That night, they came home stretching their backs and rubbing their muscles as though they had toiled the whole day away. “Oh man, we’re so freaking tired, Grandmother. Clearing and plowing a field by hand is such hard work.” They arrived back at the field early the next morning expecting to continue with their ruse, only someone had outfoxed the foxes. All the trees and bushes that had been cut down were whole again, and all the stalks and briars and hill and reemerged from the earth to obscure the field. “Well shit. Who’s playing a trick on us now? This is not at all clever or nice.”
They scoured the area, but Hunahpu and Xbalanque could find no sign of who had done this to them. The only footprints belonged to themselves and their Grandmother, so who had bullshitted what they had rightly bullshat first? Sour at not having an answer, the twins set about once again clearing the same patch of fields as the day before. The trees came down and the earth was turned up, but the boys didn’t waste their day hunting this time. Instead, they planned and schemed on how to catch whomever had fucked them over in the act. It seemed likely that the pranksters would come back tonight to once again undo all the twins’ not-that-hard work, so they resolved to hide themselves and watch for the culprits.
That night, they returned home as before, but planned to set out again as soon as they had eaten. “Someone has played a cruel trick on us, Mother, Grandmother. When we arrived at the maize field this morning, all of our work had been undone and the plowed field had become a grassy plain and a forest once more.” “Uh huh. And so tonight we’re going to sneak out there and watch over it all night to catch those assholes red handed.” Devouring their dinners, Hunahpu and Xbalanque strode stealthily back to the field. Having planned this all day, they had stacked up a pile of the cut trees to form a hidden shelter that they could watch the entire field from without being seen.
They waited and before long, their cleverness was rewarded. Out of the surrounding forest came all of the local animals, the great and the small: puma, jaguar, deer, rabbit, fox, coyote, peccary, coati, small birds, and large birds. They moved around the field in a coordinated sweep in the dead of night, chattering as they went. “Arise trees! Arise bushes!” Hunahpu and Xbalanque needed to nip this in the bud, but as puma and jaguar circled near, they hesitated. Others were looking this way and to leap out now would be to give up the element of surprise. With this many foes, they needed all the help they could get. So they waited.
Deer and rabbit came by next. Hunahpu and Xbalanque grabbed for them, but only managed to snag the tails of the swift, nimble animals. These broke off in their hands, which is why deer and rabbits have such short tails to this very day. None of the others ever came near enough to be able to catch without themselves being caught, and so the twins were forced to watch the proceedings with frustration. Finally, one smaller animal scurried over their way with no one else watching his passage. Seizing their opportunity, Hunahpu and Xbalanque snagged a very surprised rat with a small net and dragged him inside their hideout before he could even squeak. One strangled the struggling critter while the other lit a fire under his tail. This is why rat tails are bald and why their eyes bulge out like they do.
The terrified rat managed to squeak out through the pain of fire and strangulation. “Don’t kill me, this is for your own good!” The boys eased off the rat to let him speak. “You are not meant to be mere maize farmers. You have another destiny and there is something that is yours that you should seek.” The twins eyed each other. “Oh really. And what is this mysterious something that belongs to us?” “Promise to let me go first. I’m starving; give me a little food and let me go, and I’ll tell you everything.” The twins stared coldly down at rat. “You are a captive, remember? You don’t make demands. Information now, food after.”
Rat sighed but agreed. “Fair enough. You’ve got me dead to rights, I guess. Your fathers Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu, who died in Xibalba, left their gaming gear hanging above the house: their yokes and arm pads and favorite rubber ball. Your grandmother has not told you about them because it was your fathers’ love of ballplaying that led to their death, but they are yours by right.” It’s interesting here that the story is very clearly identifying both Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu as the dual fathers of the Hero Twins through the death magic of the calabash tree. “You are certain?” “I’ve seen the stuff hanging up there myself.” Here we also get clarification about where exactly these things have been hanging all this time – inside the house high in the rafters. Much like attics today, this space in the roof was often used for storage, known as a maize loft.
The boys rejoiced at this news and happily fed the rat to his heart’s content on maize, squash seeds, chili peppers, beans, cacao, and pataxte (a tree similar to cacao also used for making chocolate by the local people). “These are yours, rat. If anything is swept out with the trash by humans and left exposed, it is yours to gnaw on.” And so rat has taken his share of the garbage from then on. “That sounds great boys, but what am I supposed to do if your Grandmother sees you sneaking up to the roof to fetch the ball things?” The boys considered this. “Then I guess she better not see us. We’ll lift you up into the eaves to crawl over to it – you said you’ve seen it before – and you can fetch them for us. We’ll keep Grandmother distracted so she doesn’t notice you.”
Hunahpu and Xbalanque stayed out in the field until noon the next day, scheming and catching up on missed sleep. They returned to the house with rat tucked away out of sight inside their clothes. One of the twins went inside to chat with their mother and grandmother while the other went around to the corner of the house to lift rat up for his stealth mission. Once rat was inside, the second boy joined his brother in wheedling their mother for a snack. “Please mom? Just make us a little snack? We’ve been out all night guarding the fields and we’re hungry!” Sighing, the two women gave in to the demands of the young boys and agreed to make them a bowl of mashed chili sauce, a favorite snack of the twins.
Both twins took a big bite of their chili sauce and then fanned their open mouths in feigned surprise. “Oh wow, the chili sauce sure is spicy today. We’re parched! Could you get us some water to wash this all down with?” Sighing, their grandmother left to fetch the water. All of this was, of course, a trick. The boys weren’t even hungry. They’d only asked for the sauce as a ruse to get rid of their grandmother and to be able to see rat scuttling about in the rafters in the reflection of the liquid sauce. They saw him reach the rubber ball stashed in the rafters where it had been left for all these years.
Eager to see their tiny compatriot succeed, they sent forth a mosquito (I’m guessing this has to do with their Xibalban heritage and ties to blood). It buzzed down to the river where Grandmother was busy filling up a gourd with water. The little bloodsucker pierced a hole in the front of her jug to let the water out. No matter how hard the frustrated woman tried, she couldn’t manage to get the water to stay put long enough to reach the house – as the twins had intended. “Mother, what is taking Grandmother so long? Our mouths are parched and our tongues are on fire from this chili! Please, please go and see what is taking her so long. We’re dying here, mother!” And so she too went out to the river to try and help.
With both adults gone, rat took the opportunity to chew through the ropes holding the supplies up in the roof. The boys snatched it all up as it fell and hid it away in the bushes along the road that led to the Pok Ta Pok court. That done, they went out themselves to find the two women still struggling with the secretly sabotaged jug, each bearing their blowgun. “What have you two been doing this whole time? Our mouths couldn’t stand the heat any longer so we came out to see what was happening.” A very, very frustrated Grandmother shoved her jug towards them. “This fucking thing won’t seal! It keeps dripping out all the water and I have no idea why!” Knowing exactly what was to blame for her troubles, the twins had no trouble sealing up the jar and plugging the secret hole. The water held this time and so all four returned to the house, and the two older women were none the wiser about the discovery of the Pok Ta Pok equipment.
Naturally, once they had the ball equipment in hand, they just had to try it out. As soon as they could sneak away from their mother and grandmother, the two young men headed for the ballcourt that had been abandoned since the death of their fathers years ago. They cleared out the weeds and dead sticks that lay over the place and began to play. And, deep beneath the earth in Xibalba, the lords of the dead heard that infernal racket start up once more.
“What the bloody blazes is going on! Who the fuck has started playing Pok Ta Pok above our heads again? Have they no shame, no sense of decorum? Shit, aren’t they at least scared of us? Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu died for trying to prove themselves our equals – that was supposed to be a lesson to any other would-be upstart mortals up there. Someone go and fetch these new dead men!” So decreed Hun Kame and Vucub Kame to the assembled lords of Xibalba, and messengers were sent out.
Being fairly literal beings, these messengers went where they were told – the house of Xmucane – to deliver their message to the two young men who dwelt there. Unfortunately, they flew so fast and so straight that the messengers arrived before the boys had finished playing back at the ballcourt. Their instructions had been simply to summon the two young ballplayers, not necessarily to deliver the message to them directly. Taking advantage of that loophole, they instead delivered it to Grandmother Xmucane. “The Lords of Xibalba have summoned the young men of this house to come to Xibalba. In seven days, they will present themselves at Crushing Ballcourt to play Pok Ta Pok.” Xmucane accepted this stoically, vowing that she would deliver the message and that her grandsons would obey the summons.
Only once the messengers had left did the old woman allow herself to cry the tears that had been welling up inside ever since those dread omens had darkened her doorstep. “How in the world am I supposed to deliver that message to my grandsons? This is just like what happened with their fathers – a summons to Xibalba that sent my sons away to die.” All alone in the house, she wept bitterly, her heart broken. For all that she had been frigid before and had allowed her other grandsons to torment the younger twins, she did love them in her own way. Once she was sure that they were indeed true sons of Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu, she had loved them as one of the last vestiges of her dearly departed sons.
As she cried, a louse dropped onto Xmucane’s head, caring not a whit for her pain. It itched as it crawled, so she plucked it out of her hair with deft fingers. “Well hello there, my grandchild – would you like to take a message to my grandsons?” The story doesn’t say whether the louse answered, but I suppose he must be able to speak or he’d make one hell of a terrible messenger, so presumably he agreed. She gave him a simple form of the message that had been delivered to her and sent him on his way, scuttling along down the road.
Now as the louse went, he soon came upon a young toad named Tamazul (derived from the Nahuatl word for toad, logically enough). “Well hey there, louse. Where you off to in such a hurry?” “I’m off to deliver a message to two young men.” The exact phrase used is ‘going to give the boys a message that is in my belly’, which I take to either mean that he will get food for delivering the message or that it’s so urgent that he can’t eat until his message is delivered and his belly is empty once more. That’s about to become relevant. Tamazul considered the small insect. “I can see that you’re trying your best but you are very small and so even though your legs are moving very quickly, you’re actually moving quite slow. Wouldn’t it be easier if I swallowed you? I can move much faster than you and we can get your message to its recipient much faster.” Louse was not very bright and so he saw no reason to be concerned about this plan. “Sounds good to me.” And so Tamazul ate the louse.
The slightly less hungry toad went waddling along down the road but he was not nearly as fast as he’d claimed. He didn’t have those impressive leaps just yet. Soon enough, Tamazul came upon a snake named White Life. You can probably guess where this is headed, mythology logic being what it is. “Where you off to in such a hurry?” “I am a messenger with a message in my belly.” See, I told you it would become relevant in that puntastic way the Maya loved. “I can see that you’re trying your best, but I don’t think you’re actually moving very fast. Wouldn’t it be easier if I swallowed you? I can move much faster than you and we can get your message to its recipient much faster.” Tamazul was apparently not any brighter than louse. Despite having just come out on top with this exact ploy mere minutes ago, he saw no reason not to go along with White Life’s plan. “Sounds good to me.” And so White Life ate Tamazul (and to this day, snakes still eat toads).
As White Life slithered along, he was spied by a swift falcon named Wak soaring high above. His name is based on the Nahuatl word for falcon, oactli and is likely the modern Laughing Falcon whose cry sounds very similar to his name. Since we know the twins were clearing the maize fields earlier, that makes it the dry season when the fields are cleared for burning. Their upcoming descent into the underworld is the period of death and sterility in the fields after burning before new life, heralded by the call of the falcon, awakens.
Wak didn’t bother with any clever ruses. He just dive-bombed the shit out of White Life and snatched him up in his razor-sharp talons to devour. Having swallowed the snake (as falcons still do to this day), he flew swiftly to the ballcourt where Hunahpu and Xbalanque were still playing and landed on the wall. This whole sequence is not just a classic chain quest, it likely also carries prophetic significance. Lice signify decay and corruption; toads are the watery underworld as well as the fertile depths of the earth for renewal; serpents are a common image of regeneration since they shed their old skins and are born anew from the dead skin; and falcons are often a symbol of the reborn sun rising at dawn. This whole sequence heralds the journey of the Hero Twins into death where they would have to strive against the lords of the dead to achieve renewal and return to the world above.
Having sated himself on White Life, Wak screamed his contentment in that classic falcon cry. This caught the attention of the two young men who loved hunting maybe even more than they now loved playing Pok Ta Pok. “Did you hear that, brother? Grab your blowgun!” The darts flew with unerring accuracy and struck him in both eyes, which felled the falcon. The bird was blinded but not killed in what had been one hell of a trick shot. They suspected that something unusual was afoot and so they had taken the falcon alive for questioning. “Why have you come here?” “I have a message in my belly.” See, that explanation about the Mayan phrase just keeps paying off. He literally has a message in his belly in the form of the swallowed animals.
“So what’s the message?” “I’ll tell you, but you need to fix my eyes first. You’ve blinded me and I won’t be able to hunt if I can’t see.” This seemed very reasonable to the twins, and so they grabbed the rubber ball they’d been using. Slicing off a thin strip, they affixed it around the bird’s eyes, which is why the bird still has black patches around them to this day. This ball they henceforth called Sliced Rubber, which is a pretty apt name. This apparently did the trick. “Okay, we held up our end of the bargain, so it’s your turn. Cough up the message.” And so Wak vomited up White Life. “So you have the message then? Speak!” And the snake vomited up Tamazul. The boys sighed – this was getting old. “Okay, do you have the message? Speak!” “It’s here in my belly,” he croaked and tried to vomit up louse but nothing came out. Well that’s not quite accurate – a lot of drool came out, but nothing else.
He tried again, but only more drool spilled forth. He tried again and again with no better luck, and so Hunahpu and Xbalanque began to beat the terrified toad. “You’re a liar and a deceiver!” They crushed his ass with their big feet, flattening him out and making his legs sit in that awkward toad way they still have. He tried again in desperation, but only more drool came out so they pried his mouth wide open. Rooting around inside, they found louse stuck in Tamazul’s teeth. I really expected this to lead into a bit about how they pulled out toad’s teeth which is why they don’t have any, but no. Maybe toad is used as a blanket term that includes frogs because one of the main differences between the two is that frogs do in fact have a lot of very tiny teeth.
Tamazul had never actually swallowed the louse and had never gotten any food from it, which is apparently why he was so easy for the snake to eat. Maybe he had brain fog. Anyway, the louse was freed from the toad’s mouth and commanded to speak. “Your Grandmother said to me ‘Go and summon them. Messengers have arrived from Xibalba, the messengers of Hun Kame and Vucub Kame. They have commanded that, in seven days, you will go down to the underworld to play Pok Ta Pok with them. You must bring your gaming things – your rubber ball, your yokes, your arm pads, and your leathers. Your presence will liven up the underworld, they say.’ This is what she said to me. She sits at home now, weeping and crying out for you but she says that you must go.” This was indeed very strange news, especially coming from a louse that had been eaten by a toad that had been eaten by a snake that had been eaten by a falcon. The twins immediately set out for home to confer with their grandmother about this.
And by confer, I mostly mean tell her that their minds were already made up. It wasn’t like you could just ignore a summons from the Lords of Xibalba. And, like their fathers before them, they wouldn’t have taken the easy way out even if it had been an option. “Listen Grandmother, we have to go to the underworld but we promise to come back. I know that our fathers made the same promise and were unable to keep it, but you couldn’t know when that promise had been broken, so we will do better. To ease your fears, we will each plant an ear of unripe maize in the center of the house. If they should dry up, then you will know that we are dead, lost to Xibalba. If they sprout up again, then you will know that we are alive. Thus you and our mother will have a sign.”
We’ve seen phenomena like this before in several myths and folktales. This whole thing carries some additional significance in the Mayan tradition since a common ancient Mayan conception of the universe was as a house. The four corners were the four cardinal directions and its walls and ceiling were made up of the vault of the sky. Beneath the foundation lay the underworld, buried in the soil. The maize stalk was often used as a symbol of the divine axis of the world, its roots reaching down into the underworld and its ears up into the heavens. Thus it serves as a bridge between the realms and makes an apt symbol for the twins themselves as they prepare for their perilous journey.
And so Hunahpu and Xbalanque each planted an unripe ear of maize in the center of the house. They did not plant them in the mountains or in any especially fertile soil that had been prepared for such a harvest. No, they picked a normal patch of dry, dusty earth inside their home. Any growth or death would therefore be ensured to be due to whatever divine power the Hero Twins wielded and not some quirk of nature. Taking their gear and their blowguns, they journeyed along the road that led to Xibalba.
And that’s where we’re going to leave our erstwhile heroes for the moment. They’ve come a long way from the surprisingly hardy infants who survived a murder attempt. Now though, they are following in the fatal footsteps of their fathers and everything is about to get a whole hell of a lot more dangerous. But for now, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s strange duality are the chechen and chaca trees.
If you’ve spent any time exploring the jungles of Southern Mexico and Central America, you may have encountered one of the 11 different species of plant and tree native to the region that are poisonous to the touch, causing a horrible burning rash upon contact. You may have even encountered Metopium brownei, also known as the black-sap poisonwood tree or the chechen tree. The bark and leaves of this tree contain a high dose of the oily urushiol, the same chemical agent that makes poison ivy such a pain to deal with. If you’re unlucky enough to have a brush with this poisonous fucker, then it’s worth knowing that the antitode to said fucker is probably very close at hand. Another tree known as Bursera simaruba, the Gumbo-Limbo tree, or the chaka tree almost always grows right next to the chechen tree. Its bark and leaves contain several bioactive compounds that can work together to shut down the urushiol poison in your skin.
Having the antidote growing right next to the poison is such a strange and singular thing that the widespread phenomenon of the two trees growing together was bound to be noticed. Naturally, the ancient Maya had a story to explain it, passed down from the oral tradition of the Yucatec Maya. It is said that long ago in the mystical jungle of the Quintana Roo, two brothers were born. Kinich and Tizic were both princes and renowned warriors but, despite sharing the same blood, they could not have been more different from each other.
Kinich, the younger brother, was a kind young man, his soul said to be as warm as the sun. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that he was beloved in the village for his gentle, thoughtful nature. His elder brother Tizic was the polar opposite, hasty, arrogant, and ruthless. Some even said that his cold, angry soul was the very personification of fury itself. The two brothers got along well enough despite their differences, though they were often butting heads.
One day, Kinich was out walking in the village and met Nicte-Ha, a beautiful young woman with large, dark eyes, a sweet smile, and a warm, loving heart of her own. Some versions say she is a princess, but others have her as just a local woman. Kinich was struck with her incredible beauty, declaring her in his soul to be the most splendid creation of the gods. It’s unclear whether Tizic happened to be walking with his brother or whether the love-struck Kinich simply gushed about the woman he had just met to his elder brother that night. However it happened, Tizic also met the beautiful Nicte-Ha and also promptly fell in love. And yeah, that’s going to be a major problem.
Nicte-Ha was kind and warm enough to melt even Tizic’s frozen heart though it’s unclear if she actually flirted with him or if he just mistook basic kindness for interest as so many terrible men tend to do. Neither was willing to stand aside and let the other brother woo their mutual beloved and of course they couldn’t do anything rational like ask Nicte-Ha if she was even interested in either of them in the first place. Hell, maybe they were arguing with each other over an imagined crush.
Their arguing escalated into fury and Tizic finally challenged his little brother to a duel to the death. The winner would be free to woo Nicte-Ha (assuming she was cool with being with someone who had just murdered their own brother over her), and the loser would be too dead to object. They drew their macuahuitls, wooden swords studded with razor-sharp obsidian along their edge, and fought under the full moonlight. The gods were so angered by this display that they covered the sky with thick clouds, hiding the moon and shrouding the terrible duel in shadow. They fought fiercely but each was as deadly a warrior as the other and the macuahuitl is a devastating weapon. When the sun rose that morning, its rays fell upon two corpses. Each brother had slain the other.
The village mourned the loss of their two princes and two of their greatest warriors. As for the brothers, Kinich and Tizic arrived on the black road to Xibalba and immediately regretted their hasty actions. They were ashamed, realizing that now neither could be with the woman they loved and that even the best case scenario would have meant murdering their own brother. Their quarrel mended, the two brothers went to the gods and begged for a chance to see the lovely Nicte-Ha one last time. Together.
This wish was granted, but with that standard mythological twist. The brothers came back as trees: the cruel Tizic as the poisonous chechen tree and the kind Kinich as the soothing chaka tree. Having ended their feud with their deaths, the two brothers longed to remain close to each other, which is why these two trees are always found within a few feet of one another. In one version, Nicte-Ha herself died of heartbreak after discovering that the two brothers had killed each other over her. When her soul went down the black road, she was reincarnated as a beautiful white flower, a lily that grows beside the lagoons and cenotes. Either way, the brothers were reborn as two trees that share one flower (the blossoms that grow on both being very similar).
And as it turns out, this similarity in fruit and flower is the reason why these trees do indeed always grow close together. Since their fruit is so similar, the birds that eat said fruit are usually the same damn birds, so the seeds of both get eaten together. When the birds poop these seeds out later, both trees are deposited nearby to one another, taking root within a few feet. So if you ever find yourself in the jungles of Southern Mexico and Central America, keep an eye out for this odd duo. And maybe don’t try to murder your brother for the hand of a woman who may not even like you.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, on Bluesky as MythsPodcast, and on Mastodon as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, Hunahpu and Xbalanque will make the perilous journey into Xibalba in answer to the summons of Hun Kame and Vucub Kame. You’ll see that you shouldn’t play with knives, that jaguars make terrible roommates, and that blowguns make surprisingly good tents. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll discover the power of music to move more than the human soul. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.