Versus Animals

Thus they concealed themselves. They went out again to cut down the trees, and
then they hid themselves there, taking cover.

At length all the animals gathered together, coming together as one. All the
small and great animals arrived in the very heart of the night, chattering as they came.

And this was their speech:

“Arise trees; arise bushes,” they said when they came.

Thus they congregated beneath the trees and the bushes, emerging where they
could be seen before their faces.

The first of these were the puma and the jaguar. The boys wanted to grab them,
but they would not give themselves up.

Then emerged the deer and the rabbit. They grabbed them by their tails, but these
just broke off, leaving the tail of the deer behind in their hands along with the tail of the
rabbit. Thus they still have shortened tails.

Neither would these give themselves up—the fox or the coyote, the peccary or the
coati. All the animals just passed on by in front of Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

Thus their hearts were troubled because they weren’t able to catch any of them.

But one more came along behind all the rest. He scurried when he came, and they
netted him. They snared the rat in a net. They caught him and squeezed him behind the
head. According to their desire, they strangled him and burned his tail over a fire.
Because they did this to the tail of the rat, their tails still do not have hair on them. And
their eyes are the way they are because the boys, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, strangled him.

“I must not die by your hands. Your task is not to be maize farmers. But there is
something that is yours,” said the rat.

“Where is that which is ours? Speak then,” the boys said to the rat.

“Will you first let me go?” asked the rat. “My word is here in my belly. I will
tell it to you if you first give me a little food.”

“We will give you your food later, but tell us first,” he was told.


- Popol Vuh