MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU
removed. But the brothers called to their aid a swarm of ants, who succeeded in returning with the flowers. The anger of the Xibalbans increased to a white fury, and they incarcerated Hun-Apu and Xbalanque in the House of Lances, a dread abode where demons armed with sharp spears thrust at them fiercely. But they bribed the lancers and escaped. The Xibalbans slit the beaks of the owls who guarded the royal gardens, and howled in fury.
The Houses of the Ordeals
They were next thrust into the House of Cold. Here they escaped a dreadful death from freezing by warming themselves with burning pine-cones. Into the House of Tigers and the House of Fire they were thrown for a night each, but escaped from both. But they were not so lucky in the House of Bats. As they threaded this place of terror, Camazotz, Ruler of the Bats, descended upon them with a whirring of leathern wings, and with one sweep of his sword-like claws cut off Hun-Apu's head. (See Mictlan, pp. 95, 96.) But a tortoise which chanced to pass the severed neck of the hero's prostrate body and came into contact with it was immediately turned into a head, and Hun-Apu arose from his terrible experience not a whit the worse.
These various houses in which the brothers were forced to pass a certain time forcibly recall to our minds the several circles of Dante's Hell. Xibalba was to the Kiche not a place of punishment, but a dark place of horror and myriad dangers. No wonder the Maya had what Landa calls "an immoderate fear of death" if they believed that after it they would be transported to such a dread abode!
With the object of proving their immortal nature to their adversaries, Hun-Apu and Xbalanque, first
