Hun Batz
Maya · demigod · cosmogonic · Recorded classification
Every Maya scribe worked under Hun Batz. The howler monkey holding a brush and a conch inkpot is one of the most common figures on Classic painted ceramics, and he is this: the elder brother who could do everything, who was cruel to the younger ones, and who was turned into what he behaved like. The Popol Vuh is unusually blunt about the moral — the twins do not kill him, they fix his face to his character — and the K'iche' who told it were themselves the scribal class. His half-brothers Hunahpu and Xbalanque were in the registry; he was not.
Parentage
- parent: Hun Hunahpu
- parent: Xbaquiyalo
Domains
- scribes
- craft
Relations
- twin sibling: Hun ChouenNamed together throughout and never separately; the pair is the unit.Popol Vuh: Hun Batz and Hun Chouen, twin sons of Hun Hunahpu and Xbaquiyalo. (primary)
Sources
- Hun Batz is a son of Hun Hunahpu by Xbaquiyalo, twin of Hun Chouen, patron of scribes and artists, and elder half-brother of the Hero Twins, who turned him into a monkey.: Popol Vuh, on the Monkey Twins, their arts and their transformation. (primary); Reference treatment of the Maya howler monkey gods. (secondary)