"They are gone, my Lord"
"Then today is your last day.  you will be broken into pieces, your faces will stay hidden in this place!"

The lords of Death sacrificed the two brothers.  They put the headless body of Hun-Hunahpu beside his brother in the grave.  They took the head of Hun-Hunahpu to the edge of town, and threw it in the first batten tree they saw.  Instantly, the tree was covered with fruit, yellow gourds, the hollow fruit of the jucaro tree.

The people of Xibalba came to see what happened.  They were amazed to find this strange tree so ripe with hollow fruit.  Even though they looked and looked, they couldn't find the head of Hun-Hunahpu among the graveyard of the branches.  A skull was like this fruit.  The head never appeared again, it was fruit.  Everyone thought so who came to stare, searching the branches for the head of Hun-Hunahpu.

The Lords of Death judged the tree miraculous, and said,
"Let no one pick this fruit, or linger here beneath these no longer barren branches."

XquicA girl heard of this tree and came to see for herself.  She was the daughter of Gathered Blook, one of the Lords of the Underworld.  her name was Xquic, little blood, womans's blood.  She came and stood near the tree and gazed up into its branches.
"Such strange fruit," she murmured.  "Its impossible that I should die for Picking one."
Then the skull that nestled in the graveyard of the branches spoke:
"What do you want?  Skulls are the fruit of this tree.  Is that what you want, a skull?"

"Yes, give me one" the girl answered.

"All right," said the skull, "reach up here."  The girl reached her hand upward, ready to catch the fruit.  The skull let a few drops of spittle fall directly into her palm.  She looked quickly into the palm of her hand, but the spittle had disappeared into her flesh.

"In my saliva and spittle," the voice again came from the tree, "I have given you my decendants.  My head has a different look now without flesh, for the beauty of all men lies in their flesh.  When death takes a handsome prince, men are frightened by his bones.  But the descendants are saliva and spit. Saliva and spit are the sons of kings, and when they die they keep their substance. The king or soothsayer or lawyer leaves his image to his son or daughter, and this I have left you.  Now go to the surface of the world and keep your life. Believe in my words, and they will be true."

POPOL VUH
The Great Mythological Book of the Ancient Maya
Translated by Ralph Nelson, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1976.
ISBN 0-395-24302-5, ISBN 0-395-25168-0 pbk.