Editing Maya mythology (section)

====Hero Twins====
Tales about the [[Maya Hero Twins|Hero Brothers]] whom the ''Popol Vuh'' calls Hunahpu and Xbalanque (the iconographical 'Headband Gods') already circulated in the Classic Period,<ref>Coe 1989</ref> albeit in versions only partially coinciding with the sixteenth-century narrative. It is, for example, not at all common to find them as ball players. Two or three other episodes stand out instead. The first one, corresponding to the isolated [[Vucub Caquix]] tale in the ''Popol Vuh'', is the defeat of a bird demon already illustrated in Late-Preclassic [[Izapa]] and the earliest ball court of Copan, and found all over Mesoamerica.<ref>Guernsey 2006: 91-117; Nielsen and Helmke 2015; Chinchilla Mazariegos 2017: 130-157</ref> The second episode, not represented in the ''Popol Vuh'', has the hero brothers tend to a dying deer covered by a shroud with crossed bones,<ref>E.g., K2785 (the Calcehtok vase)</ref> in a scene that may represent the transformation of the heroes' father into a deer. In both Maya and non-Maya hero tales, such a transformation is equivalent to the origin of death.<ref>Chinchilla 2017: 224-233</ref> The San Bartolo west wall murals may show still another episode, namely, Hunahpu bringing the first sacrifices in the four quarters of the world.<ref>Taube et al. 2010: 23</ref> Finally, the Headband Gods often participate in the mythology of the [[Maya maize god|Tonsured Maize God]], the Maize Hero.