The Popol Vuh, the foundational text of the K’iche’ Maya of highland Guatemala, was written down in secret in the 16th century to hide it from Spanish conquerors. This episode uses it to build a chronological biography of the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, starting before their birth: their father and uncle, loud ballplayers, are summoned to the underworld of Xibalba, fail its tests, and are executed, with One Hunahpu’s severed head hung in a calabash tree. When the head spits into the hand of the underworld daughter Blood Moon, she becomes pregnant and must fake her own death with a heart of red tree sap to escape to the surface.

The twins are then followed through their early years being bullied by their half-brothers, whom they turn into monkeys, their campaigns against the vain bird god Seven Macaw and the earthquake giant Cabracan, and their descent into Xibalba behind a mosquito scout that learns the lords’ names. The hosts walk through the Dark House, Razor House and Bat House trials, the decapitation of Hunahpu and the squash-head substitution at the ball court, and the final long con in which the twins burn themselves to ashes, return as wandering performers, and trick the lords One Death and Seven Death into being sacrificed without resurrection.

• Why the Maya ballgame is best understood as ritualized warfare rather than sport
• How the twins pull Seven Macaw’s gemstone teeth while posing as traveling healers
• The roles of the rat, mosquito, leaf-cutter ants, coati and rabbit in the twins’ victories
• How the defeated Xibalbans are reduced to receiving offerings of scabs and broken pots
• The twins’ ascent as sun and moon and their echoes in Navajo, Ho-Chunk and modern video games