The cunning of Hunahpu and Xbalanque, their wisdom and respect for the life around them in good beings and animals, and their disregard for malevolent beings and lords, is endearing and illuminating to the values the K’iche’ people hold close. The twins and their balancing acts transpired as a way to set the world right prior to humanity, and, in my mind, their actions extend to be aspirational for the K’ichi’ and present day people. Hunahpu’s and Xbalanque’s contentedness and ethereal nature nurtured their ability to walk through the roads of life in an unapologetic fashion; for they knew their actions were always pure, and always for the greater good. What can come to those who are pure and good besides residence in the sky next to the stars? Although at times gruesome in their vengeance, and cunning in the actions that preceded the demise, did their ‘victims’ not always eventually ask to be undone by their own gluttonous, self-righteous, and malevolent egos? Or literally asked to have their teeth removed, asked to be shown the way to the enchanted crab, asked to be killed and then resurrected? All this to say is that the way these twins and their effortlessly grounded yet playful demeanor, although their life wrought with pain, never faltered.

Connected here is the Shaper and the Framer’s need to undo humanity, just a tad, for we are not meant to be mistaken as Gods. Although us and the twins were crushed and ground and mixed with water, their abilities are ones to aspire to but cannot necessarily emulate precisely, but rather we reach and look on toward them; the sun and the moon.

I enjoyed what the notes at the end state that by undoing humanity’s all-seeingness a bit, “they will be driven by their incompletion to yearn more deeply for one another,” and how this is depicted in final part of the book. Another value of community and familial ties as the epitome of self-actualization and closeness to the divine linked with K’iche’. These ties, or connection with one another, regardless of the growing nations and divisions, the Popol Vuh stated that they all moved as ‘one people,’ pleading together in their different tongues for dawn and repossession by the divine.

Overall, the Popol Vuh is a virtuous text that, although all of its contexts’ may not ever be known to us, or possibly anyone presently, calls to all of us as a reminder of the possibilities of human existence and the balance, connections, and nature needed to keep us here.