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.

- Popol Vuh, Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Maizefield