"And One Monkey and One Artisan were great flautists and singers, and as they grew up they went through great suffering and pain. It had cost them suffering to become great knowers. Through it all they became flautists, singers, and writers, carvers. They did everything well. They simply knew it when they were born, they simply had genius. And they were the successors of their fathers who had gone to Xibalba, their dead fathers.

Since One Monkey and One Artisan were great knowers, in their hearts they already realized everything when their younger brothers came into being, but they didn't reveal their insight because of their jealousy. The anger in their hearts came down on their own heads; no great harm was done.

They were decoyed by Hunaphu and Xbalanque, who merely went out shooting every day. These got no love from the grandmother, or from One Monkey and One Artisan. They weren't given their meals, the meals had been prepared and One Monkey and One Artisan had already eaten them before they got there.

But Hunaphu and Xbalanque aren't turning red with anger; rather, they just let it go, even though they know their proper place, which they see as clear as day. So they bring birds when they arrive each day, and One Monkey and One Artisan eat them. Nothing whatsoever is given to Hunaphu and Xbalanque, either one of them. All One Monkey and One Artisan do is play and sing.

And then Hunaphu and Xbalanque arrived again, but now they came in here without bringing their birds, so the grandmother turned red: 'What's your reason for not bringing birds?' Hunaphu and Xbalanque were asked.

'There are some, our dear grandmother, but our birds just got hung up in a tree', they said, 'and there's no way to get up the tree after them, our dear grandmother, and so we'd like our elder brothers to please go with us, to please go get the birds down', they said.

'Very well. We'll go with you at dawn', the elder brothers replied. Now they had won, and they gathered their thoughts, the two of them, about the fall of One Monkey and One Artisan. 'We'll just turn their very being around with our words. So be it, since they have caused us great suffering. They wished that we might die and disappear - we, their younger brothers. Just as they wished us to be slaves here, so we shall defeat them there. We shall simply make a sign of it,' they said to each other.

And then they went there beneath the tree, the kind named yellow tree, together with the elder brothers. When they got there they started shooting. There were countless birds up in the tree, chittering, and the elder brothers were amazed when they saw the birds. And not one of these birds fell down beneath the tree: 'Those birds of ours don't fall down; just go throw them down', they told their elder brothers.

'Very well', they replied. And then they climbed up the tree, and the tree began to grow, its trunk got thicker. After that, they wanted to get down, but now One Monkey and One Artisan couldn't make it down from the tree. So they said, from up in the tree: 'How can we grab hold? You, our younger brothers, take pity on us! Now this tree looks frightening to us, dear younger brothers', they said from up in the tree.

Then Hunaphu and Xbalanque told them: 'Undo your pants, tie them around your hips, with the long end trailing lika a tail behind you, and then you'll be better able to move', they were told by their younger brothers.

'All right', they said. And then they left the ends of their loincloths trailing, and all at once these became tails. Now they looked like mere monkeys. After that they went along in the trees of the mountains, small and great. They went through the forests, now howling, now keeping quiet in the branches of trees.

Such was the defeat of One Monkey and One Artisan by Hunaphu and Xbalanque."

(Popol Vuh)