Hun Batz
Maya · demigod · cosmogonic · demigod
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
Domains
- scribes
- craft
Relations
- twin sibling: Hun Chouen
Sources
- Popol Vuh, on the Monkey Twins, their arts and their transformation.
- Reference treatment of the Maya howler monkey gods.