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Zipacna is bathing on the riverbanks when four hundred boys pass by, lugging a tree to be used to fashion a lintel, or supporting beam, for their hut. When he asks them what they are doing, they reply that they are not strong enough to lift the tree to carry it. Zipacna offers to help, easily putting the tree over his shoulder and carrying it to their hut. The four hundred boys feel threatened by Zipacna’s strength and decide to kill Zipacna.
As part of the four hundred boys’ plan to kill Zipacna, they ask him to come help them carry more trees the next day. They plot to trick Zipacna into crawling into a deep hole. When Zipacna is far inside the hole, the boys will toss a tree down, crushing Zipacna’s body to death. Zipacna hears of this plan and decides to thwart it by crawling into the hole and creating a second one on the side, tucked away from the boys’ view. Thinking Zipacna is deep into the hole, where they want him, the boys throw a tree down. Zipacna pretends to cry out in pain, leading the boys to believe that they have successfully injured him. Zipacna also cuts his hair and tears off some of his fingernails so that the ants can carry pieces of him to the boys. Seeing these pieces of Zipacna’s body, the boys feel assured of Zipacna’s death. They decide to celebrate by making a sweet drink and then drinking it on the third day.
On the third day, the boys are drunk on the sweet drink when Zipacna arrives. He collapses the roof of the hut over their heads, killing every single one of the four hundred boys. They are so drunk that they do not feel their own deaths.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque are angry at Zipacna for killing the four hundred boys, so they decide to plot his death. They plan to create a fake enchanted crab and trick Zipacna into eating it, leading to his death. The twin boys find a bromelia flower, a poisonous plant, which they use to create crab claws, and then they use a hollowed-out stone to make the crab shell. They place the fake crab at the bottom of a cave that lies under the mountain, Meauan.
The twin boys find Zipacna one day searching for fish and crab to eat. Zipacna tells them he has not eaten for two days and is famished. The boys tell him that there is a large crab that they found at the bottom of a cave. They say that they tried to eat it, but it bit them, so they are afraid to try again. However, they encourage Zipacna to pursue the crab. Zipacna implores them to come with him, but the boys decline, saying they are too fearful. They advise Zipacna to try going into the cave by lying on his back, as the crab ran away when they tried to pursue it stomach-first. Zipacna goes after the crab stomach-first, but then misses the crab when it floats up out of his reach. Defeated, Zipacna tells the boys that he will try their method by going into the cave while lying on his back. When he enters the cave again and is directly under the mountain, the whole of Meauan comes down on his body and crushes him. He turns into stone.
Heart of Sky approaches Hunahpu and Xbalanque and tells them that Cabracan, the last son of Seven Macaw, must be killed as “it is not good what they have done upon the earth” (97). He feels that they are imposing their importance on the earth, and dismissing the creator gods in turn. He advises the twins to lure Cabracan to the East, where he can be killed.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque find Cabracan one day doing his duty of falling mountains. The twins tell Cabracan about a tall mountain and offer to show it to him. Intrigued at the prospect of falling a tall mountain, Cabracan agrees to follow them. The twins tell Cabracan to walk between them as they shoot birds with their blowguns. Instead of shooting the birds with pellets, they blow at the birds to knock them down. Later, the twins make a fire and cook the birds they blew down. They cover one of them with white earth to enchant it with poison and set it aside for Cabracan. Tempted by the smell of the roasting birds, Cabracan asks for a taste, and the twins offer him the enchanted bird.
When the three are finished eating, they continue towards the East where they finally arrive at the tall mountain. However, Cabracan is so weakened after eating the enchanted bird that he does not have the strength to topple the mountain. Taking advantage of Cabracan’s weakened state, the boys tie him up and bury him in the earth.
In “The Deeds of Zipacna and the Four Hundred Boys,” Zipacna shows a frivolous disregard for how he utilizes his strength, as he readily offers up his services to the four hundred boys to lift a tree meant to build a lintel. According to Christenson, “The lintel of a structure is ritually significant. The world is conceived by the Maya as a great house, its corners being the four cardinal points, its roof the sky, and its foundation the underworld” (89). Unknowingly, Zipacna invites himself to aid in the construction of a sacred part of one’s home, particularly one that emulates the structure of the world. As Heart of Sky and the other deities are especially sensitive towards their creation efforts, Zipacna’s intervention can appear as disregard towards the other gods.
Zipacna’s death is also ironic. As a creator of mountains, he dies by being crushed beneath one. Zipacna’s end is one of many in a pattern of ironic deaths throughout the Popol Vuh. The circumstance of his end bears similarity to the deaths of the wooden effigies. The animals and household items murder the wooden effigies through the means of their intended purpose on earth; for example, as the animals are eaten by the effigies, they in turn eat the effigies. In this light, Zipacna’s death can also be the gods’ way of erecting justice. The gods are wary of Zipacna’s strength and ability to create mountains, believing that they pose a threat to their acts of creation. Thus, Zipacna must die at the hands of his own creation as punishment.
“The Defeat of Cabracan” explicitly reveals Heart of Sky’s reasoning for killing Seven Macaw and his sons. He states that “it is not good what they have done upon the earth” (97), suggesting that their collective arrogance poses a threat to creation. Just as Seven Macaw has inflated his significance by pretending to be the radiant sun and moon, the sons also demonstrate their imposing sense of importance through their gifts of strength. For Heart of Sky to create the perfect people who can adequately worship the creator deities, the other deities upon the earth must express some humility during this careful process.
By Anonymous